A company’s brand is so much more than just a logo or tagline. It’s the gut feeling customers get when they interact with a business. It’s the impression that sticks with them after the purchase is made. At the end of the day, a brand lives and dies through its people. Your employees are the ones bringing your brand identity to life each and every day.

As a business leader, you can design the perfect brand strategy on paper. But it’s up to your team to actually deliver on that promise. This post digs into why empowering employees as brand ambassadors is mission critical – and how to make it happen.

Employees Bring Your Brand to Life

Before we get into specifics, let’s take a step back. What exactly is brand identity anyway? Simply put, it’s what makes your business unique in the minds of customers. It encompasses obvious touchpoints like your logo and visuals. But it also includes the more intangible personality of your company – your values, voice, purpose and essence.

Your brand identity is the full package of elements that set you apart from competitors and forge an emotional bond with your audience. It’s how you want people to feel when they engage with your company.

Where do employees come into play? Well, they’re the ones turning your brand strategy from concept into reality through concrete interactions. Consider the impact frontline teams have in shaping real-time customer perceptions:

• Every touchpoint matters. Your employees are the face of the brand, representing you in millions of micro-interactions daily. Each one makes an impression, for better or worse.
• It’s personal. Customers appreciate the human connection with individuals, not faceless corporations. Long-term loyalty stems from relationships with employees.
• Actions speak volumes. More than marketing slogans, how employees actually conduct themselves communicates what your company truly stands for.
• Credibility is key. Employees who authentically know and live your brand values gain trust. Their passion shines through.
• United front. When employees align around shared brand understanding, you present a consistent, cohesive experience.

Clearly your staff has incredible influence over customer perceptions. But bringing a brand identity to life through people requires intention. The following sections share tactical ways to transform employees into true brand champions.

Why is Brand Identity Important?

A strong brand identity provides many benefits:

• Differentiation: A compelling brand identity distinguishes a company from competitors. It’s hard for brands to stand out on product or price alone—a unique brand identity creates differentiation.

• Relevance: An on-target brand identity connects with what customers want or need. It demonstrates that the brand understands and serves the target audience.

• Trust: Consistent branding that delivers on promises breeds customer trust. This leads to brand loyalty and lifetime customer value.

• Recognition: Distinct visual assets like logo, color scheme, and mascot increase brand awareness and recognition. This helps convert new customers.

• Focus: A clearly defined identity aligns messaging and guides decision-making across the company. It ensures brand consistency.

• Connection: Brand identity creates emotional connections with customers when executed well. Customers are more likely to purchase from brands they know and like.

• Value: A strong brand commands higher prices and drives growth. Brand identity is a key asset that appreciates over time with careful stewardship.

Clearly, brand identity has far-reaching impact across the customer lifecycle. When brand identity resonates with customers, it becomes a valuable strategic asset.

Employees are Brand Ambassadors

While elements like logo and slogan are part of brand identity, they only tell part of the story. A brand comes to life through interaction with the people behind it. Employees across the company have a front-line impact on customer experience.

Consider the importance of employees in shaping brand perceptions:

• Every interaction matters. Employees have millions of touchpoints with customers daily—in person, by phone, email, chat, and social media. Each interaction either strengthens or detracts from brand equity.

• Employees personify the brand. Who delivers a brand promise is just as important as what they deliver. Employees’ conduct conveys brand personality.

• Employees build relationships. Ongoing relationships with individual employees foster customer loyalty more than isolated transactions.

• Employees create brand advocates. Satisfied customers who enjoy engaging with employees are more likely to refer friends and leave positive reviews.

• Employees reflect company culture. How employees treat each other and carry out their work communicates company values and priorities. 

• Employees deliver the experience. Products and services alone don’t satisfy customers. How employees deliver matters to the customer experience.

• Employees are credibility builders. Employees who believe in the brand build credibility and trust. Their passion comes through in interactions.

Clearly, successful branding requires energizing employees at all levels to embrace brand identity. So how can companies enable employees to become true brand ambassadors?

Hiring For Culture Fit Matters

The foundation for building a base of brand ambassadors starts with who you hire. Seek out talent that naturally reflects the personality and values you want associated with your brand. Often called “culture fit”, this ensures incoming employees already align with desired behavior.

Here are some tips for hiring for culture fit:

• Define the brand identity you want candidates to mirror—personality traits, values, work styles, etc.

• Incorporate brand standards into job postings and candidate screening criteria. This weeds out mismatches upfront.

• Use branded materials in your hiring process so candidates experience the brand identity as a candidate.

• Ask value-based questions during screening calls and interviews to gauge alignment with your brand values. 

• Speak with references to learn how candidates conduct themselves professionally—do they operate in line with your brand personality?

• Invite finalists to meet various team members. Cross-functional hiring panels help assess culture fit.

• Share your “why” —your purpose and mission—to inspire candidates to connect with your brand meaning. 

• Onboard new hires well (see next section) to reinforce cultural norms from day one.

While relevant skills are still critical, filtering for brand alignment during hiring ensures you build an employee base that naturally lives up to your brand promise.

Onboarding Sets The Tone 

Once you’ve brought new hires on board, the onboarding process presents a valuable opportunity to immerse new employees in your brand identity right from the start. A strategic focus on branding during onboarding allows employees to understand, experience, and appreciate your brand values first-hand. 

Here are some ways to bake branding into your new hire onboarding:

• Describe your brand identity including origins, personality, mission, and differentiators. Share examples of brand in action. 

• Provide brand guide collateral and usage guidelines so employees understand proper brand application.

• Issue branded merchandise like t-shirts, water bottles, and notebooks featuring the logo and visual identity.

• Incorporate brand elements into onboarding materials to surround new hires with the brand.

• Schedule a meeting with the marketing team to learn more about brand strategy and positioning.

• Share customer perspectives on the brand through reviews, quotes, and anecdotes.

• Assign onboarding “buddies” who exemplify your brand to mentor new employees.

• Visit various departments to witness first-hand how employees are living the brand.

• Highlight employee stories of brand experiences and customer interactions.

• Discuss brand-building behaviors employees should adopt, like values to uphold.

The more new hires are immersed in the brand identity starting on day one, the more likely they are to reflect the brand in their work. Use onboarding to inspire them to see themselves as ambassadors.

Training Aligns Employees With Brand Values

While onboarding offers an introduction to brand identity, ongoing training helps ingrain brand alignment into everyday employee habits and mindsets. Dedicate training resources specifically to reinforcing brand values and behaviors. Consider the following types of brand-focused training:

• New hire orientation with brand identity overview 

• Brand ambassador workshop to teach employees branding principles 

• Refresher courses on brand style guide usage

• Customer service training highlighting on-brand interactions

• Workshop on embodying brand values like integrity, quality, and transparency

• Lessons from customer feedback on living the brand promise

• Leader sessions on exemplifying the brand

• Personal development training on brand alignment, like communication styles

• Brand persona practice with role playing exercises

• Crisis response workshops using on-brand messaging 

• New product launch training to accurately represent offerings

• Ongoing micro-learning like brand tidbits, quizzes and tips

From dedicated classes to bite-sized refreshers, make the brand central across all training touchpoints. Employees need continual guidance to translate brand identity into their daily actions.

Empower Employees to Solve Customer Problems  

Employees who interact directly with customers wield tremendous influence on brand perceptions. Equip them to handle customer issues and complaints in a way aligned with brand values like trust, empathy, and accountability. This turns tense interactions into brand recovery opportunities.

• Train service teams intensively on brand communication styles and problem-solving principles. Role playing builds skills.

• Empower front-line employees to take action and spend reasonably to resolve customer issues on the spot. 

• Praise creative customer saves publically to motivate resourcefulness while upholding brand promise.

• Avoid hand-offs that bounce customers between departments. Empower individual ownership. 

• Set expectations that staff proactively listen and follow up on customer feedback.

• Monitor customer conversations to ensure interactions stay professional, compassionate, and on-brand. 

• Share customer praise on employees who delivered an exceptional, brand-aligned experience.

With training and autonomy to do the right thing, employees can strengthen trust in your brand, even during challenges. Their actions demonstrate brand values in action.

Encourage Employees to Give Feedback

Employees also needvehicles to share feedback on how the brand is communicated and implemented across the company. They may recognize disconnects between brand identity claims and actual customer experience. Or they may have ideas to improve training, internal messaging, or policies to better align with the brand.

Creating continual feedback loops enables employees at all levels to actively shape brand identity:

• Live our values discussion in team meetings 

• Brand ambassador focus groups to identify gaps

• Anonymous online forums to voice suggestions

• Internal brand surveys on areas of improvement

• Monthly one-on-one meetings with managers cover branding

• Skip level meetings with leadership for unfiltered input

• Obtain customer feedback directly from front-line staff  

• Solicit input during training on strengthening brand messaging

• Comment capabilities on internal brand collateraldocuments

• Brand committee with representatives across the company

By asking employees for ongoing critiques of brand alignment, you gain insider perspectives that foster improvement. Employees take more ownership when involved.

Enable Employees to Collaborate and Innovate

Truly aligned brands empower employees to collaborate and innovate in ways that reinforce brand identity. Internal brand cooperation leads to stronger external brand execution. 

Here are tips for enabling rich brand collaboration:

• Mix brand, marketing, and product teams to align messaging, design, and experiences.

• Spark connections between employees working with customers and those creating new offerings to close loops.

• Brainstorm ways to translate brand traits like wit and helpfulness into end products.

• Involve employees at all levels in focus groups and workshops to gain cross-functional insights.

• Break down silos through interdepartmental collaboration days focused on brand strengthening initiatives. 

• Build employee innovation groups devoted to bringing brand values to life in creative ways.

• Celebrate and share examples of employees enhancing the brand experience for customers.

• Crowdsource branding ideas to give employees ownership in brand identity.

• Reward contributions that have advanced brand goals.

By dismantling internal barriers, employees gain end-to-end understanding of the brand promise and how their piece fits together with others’. This spurs brand reinforcing innovation.

Conclusion

A company’s brand identity only grows as strong as its employees’ commitment to living that identity through their daily actions. While marketing sets the tone, employees across the company determine whether customers ultimately have an on-brand experience.

Hiring for culture fit, immersive onboarding, ongoing training, soliciting feedback, empowering innovation, and other tactics help ensure employees embrace brand identity as their own. When employees see themselves as brand owners and stewards, they propel and protect it in all customer interactions. A human-centered brand comes to life through their passion and commitment.

Focusing on employees as the heart of your brand identity is not just good for branding—it builds an engaged, inspired workforce. Employees who feel connected to a larger purpose through your brand are more motivated to contribute their best. So fuel their potential as brand ambassadors through an internal culture of collaboration, communication, and celebration of shared brand impact.