Building your brand takes time. You’re determining your target audiences. You’re defining the benefits your brand offers. And you’re establishing your brand voice. Plus you’re always working to staying ahead of your competitors. But you have to ask yourself a serious question. Once you’ve got your brand in motion, do you truly want to take it to “the next level?” It may seem like a cliché question with an obvious answer. But if you really want to advance your brand, you’ll need some help. Here’s how you can build your brand with a brand management software platform.

What’s a Brand Management Software Platform?

A brand management software platform is software (duh) that gives you the tools you need to present your brand consistently and strategically, no matter how many locations you have nor how many marketing channels you use. And it can be your competitive advantage because if you present your brand consistently across all your marketing channels, you can reward yourself with a 25% increase in revenue. How in the world does that happen? It’s rather simple, actually, when you consider that your brand management platform is working for you 24/7. Let’s look at the details.

When you build your brand with a brand management software platform, you’ll improve all aspects of your marketing strategy.

Brand Compliance and Consistency

brand consistencyLet’s say it again. If you present your brand consistently across all your locations and marketing channels, you can earn 25% more money. Plus, research shows that consistent brands are worth 20% more than those that aren’t. A brand management software platform will help you develop some brand compliance guidelines, but you’ll have to enforce them. (The software can help you do that, too.) Most businesses have brand compliance guidelines, they just don’t bother to enforce them.

Why? In no uncertain terms, it’s a hassle. Who wants to chase after all their local marketers to make sure they’re adhering to brand standards? Well, it may be a pain, but it’s necessary. A brand management platform helps with this process by providing space, in the cloud, for you to post your guidelines. It’s called a Brand Marketing Center. That way, local marketers can access the guidelines any time to make sure they’re remaining brand compliant with all their marketing efforts. Furthermore, you can control what your distributed marketers are “putting out there.”

Want to know how to conduct a brand compliance review? We’ve got the details for you.

Locals Love User-Customizable Collateral Templates

Let’s say you and your graphics team have designed marketing templates for your brand. You can create them with your distributed marketers in mind by allowing for local customization. You have brand control because you decide what elements can be customized. But your users in the field have the freedom to pick from (among other things) authorized images and locally targeted copy. That gives them a sense of empowerment. But most importantly, it maintains brand standards and keeps your brand compliant and consistent.

This DAM Software Makes You More Productive

A brand management software platform will make your brand more productive because it’s going to keep you from wasting time on mundane tasks. Let’s look at an example. How do you currently organize and distribute your marketing materials? If you’re still emailing them to your distributed marketers, you’re doing it wrong. Brand management software features Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality that serves as a headquarters in the cloud for all your marketing collateral. This increases productivity by preventing unwanted questions and requests from local marketers. You upload all your digital assets to your Brand Marketing Center where all authorized users can access them. Should a new version of an already existing asset become available, it will simply override the previous version. This applies to all your digital assets, whether it’s a photo, graphic, PDF file, or any other kind of electronic document.

If you’re wondering how important a DAM system is, just look at this statistic. For every $1 you invest in DAM, you can expect to receive between $8 and $14 in return. Plus you’ll save on workflow efficiency, asset re-creation, and digital resource management compliance. When you free yourself from unnecessary work, you allow time to concentrate on other, more important tasks. You’ll see your productivity rise on a daily basis and you’ll save money.

Control Issues and Local Marketer Empowerment

brand management software platformLet’s talk about empowerment for a moment. As a local business owner, it feels good. You feel like you have some control over things. You feel like you’re running your own business and that you have a voice in the brand. As a marketing director, don’t discount those feelings. Your distributed team needs to feel empowered in order to perform their best. Let’s look at an example.

7-Eleven is an international chain of convenience stores that’s been around since 1927. They have more locations than any other convenience retailer in the world. That’s not an accident. Much of their success has been because management knows how important franchisees are to the overall brand. So they empower them to succeed with local franchise marketing assistance. Field employees serve as a liaison between headquarters and franchisees. Their goal is to provide better information from corporate into each store’s performance, their purchase patterns, and other statistics to help them grow their business.

Every Business Has a Need for Speed

“Time is money” is a popular phrase that has long been associated with Benjamin Franklin, who used it in his essay “Advice to a Young Tradesman” in 1748. Essentially, the proverb says that time is a valuable resource so you should get things done as quickly as possible. That would include pretty much every aspect of your business dealings, too. Who doesn’t want to speed up their marketing production to get more done and make more money?

If you spend much of your time searching your computer for digital assets and files and sending emails back and forth, you’re slowing down your production. A brand management software platform can help you to eliminate these steps by providing a central location for everything. What’s even better, your Brand Marketing Center serves as a cloud-based file cabinet of sorts. Everything is meticulously organized and easy to access when you need it. That speeds up production in every way.

Imagine that you’re getting ready to introduce a new advertising campaign for your local marketers. Sending a mass email (with a slew of attachments) is neither efficient nor desirable for your or your team. So you upload all the elements of the campaign to your brand management software platform. Then you can organize the files, images, templates, etc. into a campaign folder as well as by asset type. Plus, you don’t have to physically mail marketing materials anymore. Think about how much that will help you speed up production, especially if you have to send materials to a large number of local marketers. With a brand management software platform, everything’s easy to find and download. This allows you to speed up your production and deliver your marketing campaigns in record time.

A Brand Management Platform That Grows With You

grow with a brand management platformIs your business in a state of rapid growth? Are you concerned that if you begin using a brand management platform that you might quickly outgrow it? OK, first of all, consider that a good “problem.” Secondly, put your fears to rest. One of the top features of brand management software is scalability. So you can quickly and easily add authorized users without missing a beat. Your brand management software platform is designed to grow with you. If you have a franchise business and you need to provide access to several dozen new stores, that’s an easy task. Once each of these locations has access to the cloud-based system, they’ll enjoy the same privileges as all the other users.

Reduction in Marketing Waste

If you could prevent any of your marketing materials from winding up in a trash can somewhere, you’d jump at that money-saving chance, wouldn’t you? Naturally, that’s a best-case scenario, but it’s entirely possible if you’re using a brand management software platform. This marketing solution prevents waste by only producing what’s needed. Let’s take a before and after approach as an example.

Before, you would physically send marketing materials to your distributed marketers. After, you simply upload everything via your brand management software platform, and every local marketer has immediate access. You’ll reduce your marketing waste and save time and money by not printing, packaging, and shipping your marketing materials.

Your Brand Management Software Platform ROI

Finally, we’ve arrived at the most important element of a brand management software platform. Your ROI. There’s no reason to purchase marketing software if it isn’t going to provide the results you desire. With that in mind, it’s safe to say you’re making a wise investment. Every aspect we just covered leads to an improved ROI. Brand compliance and consistency, productivity, local marketer empowerment, production speed, scalability, and reduced waste. Each one has its place in providing an improved return on your investment.

BlueSky ETO makes a brand management platform that includes all of the aforementioned elements that lead to an improved ROI. If you’d like to take the software for a test drive and/or speak with a representative about your marketing goals, schedule a free consultation with a BlueSky ETO representative to learn how a brand management software platform can help you build your brand today.

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Build Your Brand with a Brand Management Software Platform
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Build Your Brand with a Brand Management Software Platform
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Once you’ve got your brand in motion, do you truly want to take it to “the next level?” It may seem like a cliché question with an obvious answer. But if you really want to advance your brand, you’ll need some help. Here’s how you can build your brand with a brand management software platform.
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