Brand onboarding remains underused. For many companies and brands, it means teaching new employees the ins and outs of the company. Often with tired messaging that results in bland action and uninspired employees.
But brand onboarding can actually be used to help your business. Actually impact your bottom line in a positive fashion. Everything you do as a brand or company should be with the aim of taking more market share. Otherwise, why are you doing it?
What brand onboarding should actually do
Brand onboarding should help you both attract new customers and keep existing ones. To achieve that, your employees must live the brand so that it’s real and believable to target audiences. If your brand is meaningful – and different and better than the competition – you have a great start.
But approach the process through questioning and discovery. Not lecturing. To learn anything, you must incorporate it into your muscle memory. And you only do that by encouraging employee to think about the brand on their own terms. Much like a quarterback who understands the playbook, then adopts as his own.
When I conduct brand onboarding, I teach it by asking questions to the audience. Aiming to fuse the brand into the everyone’s work lives. Affecting all responsibilities, creating the bond between what your employees do and the brand’s meaning. It’s called the Socratic method.
How does it help brands win?
First, brand onboarding should be inspiring. Fun, even. Move your employees to be brand ambassadors of the brand strategy so it’s useful in both external and internal relationships.
For example, in leading training for ProAssurance, a malpractice insurance giant, I focused on the idea of fairness. It was the single most emotionally intensive trigger for target audiences. So, through a series of questions to the participants, each employee found ways they could focus on fairness in both dealing with current customers and potential new ones. Even little things helped.
The process also becomes inspiring because employees see themselves as important to the success of the company. They are not droids. They become real movers. And audiences notice.
Why brand onboarding is important
It’s simple, really. Without brand onboarding that’s consistent and inspiring, your brand becomes less believable. How many times have you been attracted to a message only to find out the brand doesn’t fulfill that promise? All the time, I’m sure.
Once that happens, customers lose faith in your value. They figure it’s just the same old thing.
Don’t just do the same old thing with brand onboarding. Make it important and inspiring, and you’ll see the results on your bottom line. Contact me if you’d like to learn more.