Before getting into details of brand promises, let’s take few seconds and think about it. Do brand promises mean anything to you? Do you hold companies accountable for them or are they just part of the marketing noise? And what about people working in your company, do they care about the brand promises your business gives?
What did you answer to question whether brand promises are important? I’m sure you actually care. Or at least you hope that the company lives up to its brand promises at least on some level? So, why many companies struggles to deliver their brand promises? It could be because their promises are ill-defined. Or maybe because everyone in the organisation just do not feel aligned to those promises. In many cases, employees won’t even know how to translate brand promises into tangible actions and part of their daily work. And who can blame them? It’s a job of the leaders to make well-defined brand promises that are attractive for clients and tangible for the employees.
As a real-world case example, let’s use a forex trading training company. They have created a training product called Earn As You Learn. As part of the product they give a brand promise for their clients on making money from forex trading while they learn how to become professional traders. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But it is just false marketing since the company purposefully does not live up to that brand promise. If the company sends clients information that helps them to earn, but without any understanding how or why that happens, they you are letting customers down on the learning part. Same way if the customers learn a lot, but can’t use any of it to actually earn, the company is not living up to the brand promise. This will have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty, which over time will lead to declined revenue and loss of brand reputation.
What will help then?
First you need to formulate a very clear and attractive brand promise. That is one side of the coin. The other side is to actually deliver against that promise fully. And it is not enough just to barely deliver what you promised, but you need to deliver above and beyond that. When you exceed customer expectations that have been set through the brand promise, you create loyal customers who stay with your business and bring their friends in. In conclusion, brand promises will have huge impact first on how customers will perceive the proposition and then how they will expect the company to deliver against those expectations.
SUMMARY
Companies that give brand promises without living up to them are potentially perceived using marketing gimmicks to get more business. They will end up disappointing their clients and lose the business in the long-term. On the other hand, companies who give clear and concise brand promises and live up to them and beyond will see long-term prosperity and revenue growth. Customers do care about brand promises and so should companies also. Brand promises have a crucial role setting up initial customer expectations that the company has to deliver against.
Here are some reflective questions you can think about on this matter:
- Is your company’s brand promise clear and concise?
- Do you live up to the brand promise?
- Are there areas of your business where your company is failing on living up to the brand promises it makes?
- Do you exceed customer expectations continuously?
- Does your brand promise need updating to make it more relevant for your clients?
- How your employees perceive and live up to the brand promises on a daily level?
