Branding is an interesting term, meaning different things to different people, depending upon their perspective and experience. Clients with whom we work run the full spectrum of defining this term – from a corporate logo on one end to full integration of the company’s culture on the other . . . and everything in-between.

To us, brands are defined by every single touch-point that people have with a company or an organization. Businesses can have a beautiful visual identity and a killer ad campaign full of creative messages and slogans, but if a customer has a negative interaction with a member of their sales team or with the front-desk receptionist, which doesn’t reflect what they say they stand for, their other branding efforts do not ring true.

The problem frequently starts with a company’s inability to define its own culture. If you don’t know who you really are and what you really stand for at your core, it is impossible to create branded messaging that connects to your customers. Your marketing plan has to revolve around your brand culture, or it doesn’t work. Without a true cultural identity, marketing tactics will only create short-term interest.

So, how do you anchor your brand messaging in substance? First, step back and try to identify the essence of your brand by asking yourself what your company’s core values are. What are you willing to sacrifice and not sacrifice in order to grow? How do you behave as an organization, and how do you treat people? And finally, how does all this make you different and better than your competitors?

Then, after thoughtfully answering these questions, it is critical to determine how those answers can help you connect with your potential customers. How does what you stand for actually motivate your customers to do business with you? How can you structure your key messages to make them matter to your customers?

This is the phase of your brand articulation that probably calls for some research. Sometimes you can glean helpful customer input by simply observing your customers during their interactions with your brand. You may also choose to do some focus groups, online surveys and/or analyses of your social media interactions to help you better understand your customers and how they are resonating (or not) with your brand messages.

Then use these observations to highlight those key attributes of your company and/or products which your customers have told you matter the most to them. You’ll want to create marketing programs and outreach messages which tout these particular attributes and to draw a clear line between them and your customers’ expressed needs.

It is only at this point that you will be ready to fully leverage your brand culture in a way that will cause customers to do ongoing commerce with you. Now, you can create and execute that “silver bullet” campaign that is built upon a meaningful culture and that sustains itself over time. You will be able to use promotional activity – not in a noisy, empty way – but in a way that enhances values-based customer interest at a core level and that motivates truly engaged brand interaction between your key audiences and your company.

Remember that it takes time to “move this needle,” so balance your short-term expectations against your potential longer term benefits. The sincerity and integrity of your brand image can only be demonstrated over time, with consistency and commitment being the keys to its success.

The pay-off to thoughtfully studying your organization’s culture and letting that drive your marketing and messaging and to patiently rolling out and measuring your communications effectiveness over time can be customers who are so “bought in” to your brand’s culture and authenticity that they wouldn’t consider purchasing a competitor’s product.

Cathy Ackermann, founder and president of Ackermann Marketing and PR, may be reached at cackermann@thinkackermann.com

For the online version of this column, please visit www.thinkackermann.com