10 Questions to Achieve Branding Success

How do you ensure your business initiatives are effectively establishing, promoting and communicating your brand promise? Ask yourself the 10 questions below to achieve branding success.

Employees and customers know the one word that your brand occupies in consumers’ minds.
Customers know what to expect from your brand.
Employees can clearly articulate your brand statement.
Your employees and customers know where your brand is positioned in the marketplace.
Your brand is clearly differentiated from the competition and employees and customers can articulate what that difference is.
Your employees are trained on an ongoing basis to know your brand’s image, message and promise and understand how to portray that message and promise as brand ambassadors.
Your marketing initiatives consistently deliver the brand’s image, message and promise.
Your company invests a portion of its budget on brand marketing initiatives.
Business decisions are evaluated for brand-worthiness. In other words, business decisions are evaluated to ensure they are consistent with the brand image, message and promise.
Your company employs branding experts who are responsible for maintaining the consistency and integrity of your brand (e.g., a Chief Brand Officer and staff).

Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc. and Founder & Editor in Chief of an award-winning blog, WomenOnBusiness.com. She is a 25-year veteran of the marketing field and has authored 10 books about marketing, branding, and social media, including the highly popular 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing for Dummies, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. Susan’s marketing-related content can be found on Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, and more. Susan is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has worked in corporate marketing roles and through client relationships with AT&T, HSBC, Citibank, Intuit, The New York Times, Cox Communications, and many more large and small companies around the world. Susan also speaks about marketing, branding and social media at events around the world and is frequently interviewed by television, online, radio, and print media organizations about these topics. She holds an MBA in Management and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing.