Day in and day out we run our businesses the best we can. Like anything else in flux the edges get worn, some things just start to get old. The culture around us is in flux also. Things change and so we must adapt. Summer has come and gone for another year – so it’s time to give the brand an over-haul. Get it ready to take on a fresh new year only a few short months away.
Here’s a 10 point check-list to use to give new life by PIMPING YOUR BRAND:
• Pimp your brand personality. Taking an objective view of the company, has anything changed that defines you differently than when you first started. Maybe you have become more socially minded. Perhaps you find that you have been more generous in donating time to non-profits in your community. If this bears some truth, you can Pimp your brand here by officially embracing philanthropy as a corporate policy. Embrace pet charities and let the world know who you are passionate for.
• Does your brand logo reflect your existing market? Has the demographic aged? If so, perhaps it is time to update it a little. Pimping your Brand logo could mean a complete revise or just a tweak here and there. Smooth out a few wrinkles, refresh its colors and attitude. Your brand image should reflect who your brand is.
• Survey your stake holders to look for any opportunities to embrace and any short-comings to fix. Pimp Your Brand with real world intelligence to make your product or service address true needs. Just asking, strengthens the relationships with each of your shareholder groups.
• Pimp your overall brand image. Do an image audit of the entire company. Make sure that the logo is used consistently every where in the operation. Are the corporate colors also consistent? Do your marketing materials reflect the image correctly? Pimp your brand image to define it.
• Pimp the sales staff. In the course of selling your products or services, does the sales staff reflect the brand correctly. Sit down with the sales team and pimp the deliverable. Raise the bar and win the hearts and minds of the sales staff and their customers.
• As the company leader (the visionary) pimp your attitude. Your employees are inspired or dragged down depending on your attitude. By pimping your attitude, you bring nothing but positive vibes to the company. Even when the economy appears to spiraling down around you, look for the opportunities and display this to the stake holders. A leader who fails to pimp their attitude stands a great chance of losing real talent to the competition.
• Pimp your workplace. Find ways to make the working environment more pleasant. This doesn’t mean more money, but how can you take some of the grey areas out of the work-a-day mix. Look for the little things that make doing the job better.
• Pimp your personal brand. When was the last time you met with your top customers? Call them out of the blue, and ask them for a meeting or lunch to ask them how they are being serviced. Give them a reason to remember you. If you have a retail store, introduce yourself to customers, give them a free coffee coupon at a near by coffee shop. Don’t advertise this – just do it and pimp your brand.
• Pimp your brand product or service. Can anything be made better? Can the delivery of your product or service be improved? For myself, I try to not rely on the impersonal email for ALL my client contact. Where the client is at a great distance I call on the telephone and if they are within an hour or so, I drop in on them. This alone has increased business opportunities. Email has its advantages, but I believe if you rely on it 100% of the time, you are doing it more for YOUR convenience and not for enriching your relationships.
• Pimp your public relations. There is a lot of companies who take public relations as an effort that is only used once or twice in the lifetime of the company. By pimping your PR you can increase your “public” awareness. Utilizing social networking websites can be a fabulous ingredient of your PR mix.
What ever you can do to pimp your brand, can only make you better. The smallest initiatives can have the biggest impact on your brand effectiveness. An eleventh pimp might also be corporate blogging. I’ll shut-up now, as there is so much we all can do to keep the wheels in motion as we pimp our own brands.
Pimping is always good…;-). Great article and great title!
Thanks!
The title comes from the TV show. I was watching it and thought that the concept would be great for corporate brands. Thanks for your comment.
hi Ed,
I love the choice of your title. I’m familiar with the TV show “Pimp Your Ride” but it reminds me of a crazy youtube video from last year called “Mom Your Ride”. The guys took a minivan and “mommed” it up – i.e. put in car seats, dumped Cheerios all over and spilled soda pop, lost a full bottle of milk somewhere, etc. It was hillarious (at least to moms that haul their kids around). Anyway, I agree with the importances of pimping and promoting your business, whatever it is, even if it is just selling trade show displays. I guess I’d better get to it!
~ Steve from Pinnacle Trade Show Displays
Maybe we introduce “Dork Your brand” and see everything it takes to screw up your brand.
I love “Mom Your Ride”, pretty funny – thanks.
Hi Ed,
Though I think you were joking, I don’t think that writing “Dork Your Brand” would be a bad idea. I wouldn’t mind seeing a list of 10 classic “Branding Blunders”. I’ve always thought that it’s better to learn from others’ mistakes rather than making them yourself! I’m guessing it wouldn’t be hard to come up with 10 Dork brand blunders, though I know it’s always easier to make a suggestion than do the job…
~ Steve from Pinnacle Trade Show Displays
PS. If you did write “Dork Your Brand”, maybe you could include something like: based on a comment made by Steve from Pinnacle Trade Show Displays (link to Pinnacle Trade Show Displays) or something like that… Hey, am I pimping my trade show displays company here?
You’re on. Watch this blog, for a “Dork Your Brand” episode soon. I have no problem pimping you as the inspiration – pimping each other is what it’s all about.
Stay tuned!
hi Ed,
Coming soon to a theatre, oops, I mean BLOG, near you… DORK YOUR BRAND!”
Yes, I’ll stay tuned… 🙂
~ Steve from Pinnacle Trade Show Displays
This “Dork Your Brand” list sounds like a great idea. Sometimes seeing what not to do makes it easier to understand what you should do. You could even invite readers to contribute by writing in with their own branding horror stories.
Ed,
I followed the discussion here – an interesting one.
The whole pimpin’ wordings are all sounds so hype, I just want to add one:
Pimp your online presence 😀
Noted, Noob. Thanks.
Very nice article. Thank you very much for the useful tips.
Everything is pimpin’ !! Humorous title and subtitles and actually very informative. Those are a lot of good points. Pimp your attitude in particular.
Joe
Thanks for Pimpin’ in Joe.