If you’re like most people, you probably thought of your logo. Maybe your corporate color palette and imagery. Or that clever tagline your team spent three months getting just right.

And yes, those things are all part of it. They are the crisp, well-tailored suit your brand wears out in public.

But that suit does you no good if you’re sitting alone in a dark, empty room.

The hard truth is that branding is much more than your firm’s visual identity, positioning, or messaging. At Hinge, we define a brand as the product of your reputation and your visibility. It’s what people think and feel about you. And if they don’t know you exist, well, they can’t exactly think or feel anything, can they?

This is where so many firms miss the mark. They invest a fortune in a beautiful suit but forget to buy a ticket to the party. They build a brand but neglect to build the powerful marketing engine required to make it visible.

Great Marketing Is Great Branding

The most successful, high-growth firms we’ve studied understand a fundamental secret: Great marketing is great branding.

Marketing isn’t just a set of techniques and activities. It’s the mechanism that propels your firm to greater prominence. It’s how you build and sustain the high visibility necessary for a powerful brand to take root and grow.

As for a brand–a great brand is not just a promise. It’s a promise delivered and amplified. Your marketing program is the vehicle for that amplification. And there are three key interlocking components of a modern professional services marketing and branding program:

1. Turning Your Experts into Thought Leaders

Your experts are your most valuable brand and marketing resource. When you encourage them to become Visible Experts® and materially support them along the way, you create direct channels for buyers to experience your firm’s expertise firsthand. Think of them as your brand’s VIPs. Every blog post, webinar and speech your experts deliver exposes your firm to new audiences, builds a loyal following and buffs your reputation.

2. Systematically Sharing Your Expertise

One way a firm builds visibility is by freely sharing some of its expertise. When you become a dependable source of smart, thought-provoking educational content, you gain an advantage over competitors that don’t do this. You will find yourself in the enviable position of providing the expert guidance and insights that future buyers need to understand their business problems. Many firms still bristle at the idea of giving away expertise for free. What these firms don’t understand is that the marketplace has fundamentally changed. Today’s buyers not only expect free and easy access to high-quality thought leadership, they will never even see the firms that don’t offer it.

3. Creating a Digital Hub that (Literally) Delivers

Your website is the first place a prospect goes to size you up, so it has to inspire confidence. It must look credible, differentiate you from competitors and clearly describe your services. But those goals aren’t enough. Your website should also be the central repository and distribution platform for your educational content. For instance, by regularly publishing expert content on a blog and making it discoverable through modern search optimization (including AI search), you can attract new visitors who are actively researching the problems you solve. Over time, as they consume more of your content, they will begin to think of you as a trusted authority.

Time to Start Your Engine

Stop thinking of branding and marketing as separate disciplines. Instead, start building a marketing engine that delivers your brand to the people who are interested in your expertise. When branding and marketing work in concert, your firm is impossible to ignore.

The post Great Marketing Is Great Branding appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

They’re all critical questions, and they deserve some close attention. Let’s settle in and unpack everything that professional services firms need to know.

Brand Differentiation Defined

Throughout the life of your firm, you will experience significant changes in what you do.

It’s simply the nature of professional services that the landscape is constantly changing under your feet. Your competitors will change. Your clients’ needs will change. And in the process, what may have been a competitive advantage at the start of your business may lose its relevance. Say goodbye to your competitive advantage.

This is important to remember as we think about the meaning of brand differentiation. In essence, it is your competitive advantage. It is literally what makes your firm different. But the marketplace isn’t going to sit still for you, and what made you distinct yesterday might not set you apart tomorrow.

Differentiation is a continuous process – a matter of evaluating the marketplace and evaluating your firm to ensure that you’re positioned for success.

Free Resource

The Differentiation Guide for Professional Services Firms

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Why is Differentiation So Important, Anyway?

In the past, our research has shown that high-growth firms are almost three times more likely to have a strong differentiator. According to the 2025 High Growth Study, brand differentiation is the second highest marketing priority for High Growth firms second only to content creation.

In addition to setting firms apart from their competition, a robust brand differentiation strategy allows firms to be more targeted in their marketing efforts, speaking directly to the most relevant audiences.

If you don’t have a strong differentiator, the only option left is to compete on price – and that’s a race to the bottom. Put simply, your professional services brand’s differentiators are among your most important assets. They facilitate your relationship with buyers and influencers and they ultimately drive your reputation and pace of growth.

Worn-Out Differentiators

Identifying the differentiators that will define and drive your firm – the qualities that make up your organizational DNA – isn’t easy. That’s why so many businesses claim the same tired qualities as differentiators. Stop me if you’ve heard these before:

• “Our employees set us apart.”
• “We’re trusted advisors to our clients.”
• “We strive for excellence.”
• “We provide fantastic client service.”
• “We have a proprietary process.”

Perhaps your firm uses one (or more) of these would-be differentiators. You might protest that the claim is true – you really do have great people who provide extraordinary customer service to your clients. But this is the secret to a successful differentiator…being true isn’t enough.

The Differentiation Test

In fact, there are three qualities every prospective differentiator must have to meet what you might call the differentiation test. They must be:

1. True – Your differentiators have to be grounded in reality.
2. Relevant – If it doesn’t matter to your clients, it doesn’t matter.
3. Provable – Anyone can claim a quality. You have to be able to prove it.

When everyone claims that they provide great customer service, the best people, and a proprietary process, those things become a lot less relevant to your buyers. And you should ask yourself if you can truly prove any of them. What does it mean, anyway, to “strive for excellence”?

Some qualities, like having good customer service, are simply the cost of doing business. Clients expect it, but it’s not what they’re looking for specifically when they choose a new firm. In fact, our research shows that customer service is rarely an important criterion.

The point is that quality has to truly matter to clients during the selection process to differentiate you.

How to Identify a Successful Differentiator

We’ve seen that brand differentiation is a critical concern throughout the life of your firm, and it is often a major challenge. The reasons are many, but they often boil down to limited or incorrect data.

Either because they haven’t performed research or because they are making assumptions based on anecdotal information, many firms don’t truly understand what their clients are seeking from service providers.

We’ve seen what doesn’t work, and we know that differentiation is tough. So how can you identify a real, meaningful differentiator and set your firm apart?

There are two ways to leverage a new differentiator. You can identify or discover a characteristic of your firm that already exists and use it to its fullest – or you can decide on a new differentiator. This means you can make deliberate choices to differentiate your firm.

Many people feel that it’s difficult to find a truly meaningful differentiator, but we’ve identified 21 distinct types of differentiators. Here are a few examples:

• Specialization in an industry. This is usually the easiest and most powerful differentiator – it literally proves itself, and by definition, it is relevant to your target audience.
• Specialization in serving a specific role within your client’s organization. Like industry specialization, this is a self-validating differentiator that can allow you to own a particular niche in the marketplace.
• Specialization in a particular service. You may be noticing a trend. It’s tough for generalists to set themselves apart, but specialized service providers can position themselves to deliver peerless expertise.
• A focus on understanding a particular audience. More specifically, a specialization in your clients’ particular audience. That might mean “marketing to baby boomers” or providing financial services to self-employed millennials.
• A different business model. If you truly do things differently than your competition – offering a subscription-based service in a market that usually doesn’t, say – you’re sure to stand out from the competition.

Blending Differentiators

The most effective professional services brand differentiation strategies blend several of these approaches to create something truly unique.

You might specialize in a particular industry – provide a totally unique business model. Or you might specialize in providing a particular service to clients with an emphasis on a given audience of theirs.

No matter what approach you take, leveraging multiple differentiators will help you stand out more, and it will make your brand differentiation more robust. When you’ve blended differentiators, it’s less likely that marketplace shifts will render your standout qualities less relevant.

So what does effective differentiation look like in practice? Let’s look at a few well-differentiated industry leaders to find out.

RS&H: Research-Driven, Expert-Led Transportation Specialists

RS&H has been at the forefront of U.S. transportation infrastructure for the better part of a century, making critical contributions in areas ranging from aerospace to highways. Though their areas of work varied, their specialty is clear – large-scale transportation infrastructure.

With a clear area of focus and storied history of success comes another differentiating advantage: Visible Experts^SM. Though “great people” and “a knowledgeable team” aren’t very effective differentiators, the presence of high-visibility experts most certainly is one. Through their high profile in your target marketplace, these figures’ expertise is demonstrable and highly relevant to clients.

This is particularly true for RS&H, where the firm’s leading thinkers have shaped several modes of transportation across the U.S. and written key documentation for the country’s air traffic controllers. Further enriching the firm’s brand differentiation, RS&H conducts research with current and prospective clients as well as team members. A forward-looking, empirical approach is just another way they establish a competitive edge.

LBMC Security Services: Industry Specialists

LBMC Information Security is an IT security specialist, but their specialty doesn’t stop there. They focus on one of the most dynamic and swiftly changing industries today: healthcare.

LBMC brings its clients specialized expertise in healthcare security at a time when the topic is more urgent than ever before. With the healthcare industry in flux, the rise of electronic health records, and new attention on the healthcare sector from data thieves, their clients need security partners who understand the space intimately.

Fortunately, LBMC specializes in serving healthcare organizations, and this emphasis sets them apart. Today, they’re strongly differentiated and positioned to serve a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Summit Executive Resources: A Disruptive Model

One of the most powerful differentiators possible is a truly distinctive business model – and that’s exactly how Summit Executive Resources set themselves apart.

Traditional retained executive search models have client companies paying the search firm to find the right executive talent. It can be a lengthy and costly process, and Summit saw an opportunity to flip the model on its head.

Instead, executive search candidates pay Summit for executive coaching and career development. Summit develops a rich network of top-tier talent, which can match companies’ needs swiftly and at no cost.

Summit’s competitive advantages don’t stop there. They’ve also chosen to focus specifically on senior executive and board of director positions, and they conducted research to verify that there was a demand for their services.

Summit Executive Resources is a perfect example that differentiators are more than a way of talking about yourself. When selected and implemented effectively, they can transform your business and disrupt your marketplace.

Conclusion

Like so many of the most important things in life and business, differentiation is tough. It determines not just how you describe your services, but who you are as a firm – so it’s crucial to get your brand differentiation strategy right.

We’ve taken a look at some common pitfalls and some strong differentiators. With this knowledge in hand, you should be ready to get started differentiating your firm – and taking the lead in your marketplace.

Free Resource

The Differentiation Guide for Professional Services Firms

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The post Why Brand Differentiation is Essential for Professional Services Firms to Succeed appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Yet many offline marketing tactics can be powerful tools to build and support your firm’s online brand. According to our research on the best performing professional services firms, the most effective marketing strategies—those that deliver the most impact and faster growth—include a roughly balanced combination of online and offline techniques.

How online and offline marketing techniques work together to support brands

When implemented in concert, online and offline marketing ideas support and amplify one another, creating a unified strategy. In the most recent release of our annual research study on high-growth strategy, we uncovered which marketing techniques deliver the greatest impact. Below, I’ll discuss five of those offline marketing techniques and how you can integrate them into your overall marketing strategy. Of course, every industry is different, so you may find that one or more of these techniques is less relevant to your audience. If another tactic has worked for you in the past, by all means keep using it.

Below are five offline marketing ideas—techniques used by today’s fastest growing firms—to get you started. How many of these do you use already?

1. Networking Activities

Face-to-face connections, even virtual ones, continue to play a valuable role in networking. What’s more, they can help drive traffic to your website, allowing the contacts you’ve made in person to learn more about you and your firm.

In many cases, a good clean handshake is still important — being able to “put a face with a name” removes a level of abstraction from your brand and makes your firm more approachable. But choose your opportunities wisely. Seek out associations or organizations to which your target audience belongs.

2. Attend Association Conferences and Trade Shows

Trade shows can provide opportunities to network with both prospective buyers and other industry leaders. In addition, these events can offer other offline marketing opportunities — for instance, they are ideal places to distribute printed marketing materials or explore the possibility of becoming a future featured speaker. Which brings me to the next technique.

3. Speaking Opportunities

Speaking engagements put you directly in front of a highly targeted audience that is primed and ready to hear what you have to say. And they are a proven way to establish your firm’s credibility and thought leadership. According to our research, speaking engagements are the second-most popular way that Visible Experts^® acquire leads.

If you’re just starting on your journey to thought leadership, however, don’t expect to secure prime speaking engagement opportunities right off the bat. Instead, start small by approaching an association’s local chapter. And don’t expect to be paid for these initial forays (for that matter, many national gigs are unpaid or cover only travel expenses). By adjusting your expectations, even your earliest experiences can pay off in the long run.

4. Warm Calling

While not as common as they once were, calls to prospects provide an opportunity to add a human touch to your marketing, and many firms make them a regular feature of their business development program because they work. More personal than emails, phone calls require an instant response — which, unfortunately, can cut both ways. In our most recent research, phone calls are experiencing a renaissance, especially among the fastest growing firms.

High-growth firms are having particular success with so-called “warm calling.” Unlike cold calls, which are a low-yield numbers game, warm calls deliver more frequent, better-quality results. A “warm” prospect is one who not only is aware of your firm but has been exposed to your thought leadership — usually through digital channels like your website, social media or email marketing, though offline avenues such as speaking engagements or books can also build engagement. Some firms even use the call itself as an opportunity to offer the prospect a piece of valuable content or advice to make their expertise more tangible.

5. Demos/Consultations

Live, personal demos and consultations provide a direct connection between buyer and seller. As a result, they are one of the most effective bottom-of-the-funnel tools — of any kind. They allow a prospect to directly experience your firm’s expertise and/or product. But these activities are more likely to turn into new business when they are set up by other marketing interactions. When a prospective buyer has already visited your firm’s website, read multiple blog posts, downloaded a white paper or executive guide and received relevant educational content by email, they are far more inclined to buy. After all, they already know and trust your firm. Often, a live demo or free consultation provides the extra confidence a buyer needs to request a proposal and move forward toward a contract.

Why offline marketing strategies work

Why do traditional techniques continue to work in our increasingly digital marketplace? Despite all of the technological advances of the past three decades, the professional services remain built around delivering expertise. That means people trusting the advice and critical services delivered by experts. And because most professional services are big-ticket investments, buyers want to meet the teams they will be working with for month or years.

Other traditional techniques have different advantages. For instance, because direct mail is largely out-of-fashion today, it may be more likely to capture a recipient’s attention—less competition in this channel means less distracting noise. Print advertising can reach a very targeted audience (in an industry magazine or conference brochure, for instance) or a less targeted but large audience (such as a national newspaper), depending on your strategy. And print collateral provide a tangible experience that digital channels lack.

Do traditional techniques offer any of the advantages of digital ones? For instance, can a/b testing be applied to offline marketing strategies? In general, the answer is no, though there are certain situations in which you could conduct an a/b test. For instance, if your list were large enough and if your timeline was sufficiently long, you could send out two printed promotions containing different messages or calls to action to a subset of your list. Using coupon codes or two separate landing pages, you could test which performed better, then send the winning piece to the remainder of the list. In practice, however, this kind of test is rarely practical. Either your list is too small to produce a statistically valid response in the early round or the cost of creating two separate pieces is prohibitive. But as we have seen, offline techniques have their own set of advantages.

Combining strategies for better results

Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between online and offline marketing strategies. In fact, using both is more powerful. By combining the two approaches, you can bring your marketing full circle — increasing your firm’s visibility and, at the same time, attracting more attention to your online brand.

The post 5 Offline Marketing Strategies that Support Your Online Brand appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Now, you could make a convincing case that the word is overused. Often, people (usually marketers) use it as a shorthand for their company name. Or they use it to refer to their firm’s logo on their polo shirt. What becomes clear is that most of these people—including many business leaders—simply don’t understand what “brand” means in the context of professional services.

Once you get it, however, you’ll realize why “brand” and “branding” are such useful terms.

How We Usually Think About Brands

When most of us hear the word “brand,” we think of consumer products: the toothpaste, cereal and golf club brands we prefer. Over the years, each of us gravitates to a set of product brands that we trust and purchase again and again.

When we go shopping, we don’t have to fret over which of two dozen brands of shampoo to buy. We reach for the one we’ve learned from experience we like best. We’re even willing to pay a premium for the assurance that we will be happy whenever we take a shower. Pretty soon, every time you think “shampoo,” you think of your preferred brand.

How Professional Services Brands Are Different

The psychology of brands is universal. But branding a professional services firm differs in a few fundamental ways. The way brands are discovered and evaluated are different. And the stakes are bigger.

Making a professional services purchase is a big commitment. The ticket price is large—typically tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes more. Unlike buying a bottle of shampoo at the store, the cost of choosing the wrong service firm is high. Buyers of professional services don’t have the luxury of trying out a range of similar products. They need to get it right the first time.

How, then, do buyers select the right firm? It begins with narrowing down their choices. With so many options available—how many accounting, legal or IT firms would love to have your business?—the field of potential candidates can seem overwhelming.

That’s where branding comes in.

As we explained in a previous article from our newsletter, the strength of a professional service’s brand is the product of two factors: a firm’s reputation and its visibility. A firm that is strong in both of these areas has a tremendous advantage in the buying process. Firms with high visibility are well known. They don’t have to wave their arms to catch a buyer’s attention. Most buyers are aware of them already. And if they have a strong reputation, buyers already desire them because they are known for doing exceptional or important work.

Like that brand of shampoo you reach for again and again, these firms are pre-qualified in the minds of buyers. And when it’s time to draw up a list of potential firms, these firms usually make the cut.

It isn’t enough, however, to say a brand is only about a firm’s reputation and visibility.

A firm’s brand is a broad collection of experiences, touchpoints and messages that contribute to its reputation and visibility. That’s why a firm’s name and logo are important. They are, after all, the primary symbols—one verbal and one visual—of your firm, its services and everything it stands for.

That’s also why your specialization, differentiators and positioning are so critical.

But a brand is so much more.

It’s the impression you make on your website, every time you speak to an audience, write a blog post, pitch a client or submit a proposal. It’s the words you use. It’s the colors and images you choose. It’s the way you present yourself on social media. It’s how your offices look. Your brand is the thousands of actions you take and decisions you make that influence the way your buyers perceive you.

If that sounds like a lot, don’t despair. You don’t have to micromanage every detail. That’s not only not possible, it misses the point. Get the fundamentals right—especially your positioning and messaging—and set specific standards for your brand, then other things tend to fall into place.

Branding pioneer Al Ries called a brand “a word in the prospect’s mind.” What he meant was when you think of the product or service you need, a specific brand pops into your mind. This is exactly what happens when you think “shampoo.” And it should be the goal of any brand-oriented firm.

Some professional services categories are so crowded and undifferentiated, however, that nothing comes to mind. Even in these situations, however, you can build a brand—if for no other reason than nobody else has.

Start thinking of your firm not as one of many options, but as a brand. Then develop a thoughtful program to bring that brand to fruition—and transform your business into the kind of firm that people seek out and prefer.

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The Brand Building Guide for Professional Services Firms

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The post The Psychology of Professional Services Branding appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

In our work with clients, we see a professional services marketplace with lots of competition and very little differentiation. Many firms claim distinction, but they aren’t able to demonstrate true difference. In fact, most firms rely on “same story” differentiators. As a result, they all sound pretty much alike.

These firms talk about their “great people,” “exceptional service“ and how they are “trusted advisors.” Maybe you’ve used the same language — and maybe those claims are even true. But today’s buyers hear them so often, and they are so difficult to validate until a client has been through an actual engagement, that they’ve lost any power to persuade.

How can you avoid undifferentiated messages like these and really, truly stand out from the competition? The answer lies in brand research. Below, we’ll explore some of the most common questions about brand research and how it can help firms like yours get ahead.

What is Brand Research?

Brand research is the process of collecting and analyzing data on your firm’s reputation, visibility and marketplace to understand how your business is perceived today and how it can build a powerful, differentiated brand in the future. Brand research uncovers the characteristics that truly set you apart from key competitors in the eyes of your prospective clients. These characteristics are commonly known as differentiators or your competitive advantage.

To fully understand the implications of this definition, we first have to nail down the concept of your firm’s brand. Your brand is the product of your reputation and your visibility. If you have a great reputation for specific expertise and high visibility within your target audience you have a strong brand.

Here’s another way to think about a brand: It’s the way in which people in your target audience perceive your firm. Have they heard of you? And when they think of you, what comes to mind?

What is the Impact of Brand Research?

Studies show that firms that conduct brand research grow faster and are more profitable than firms that do not.

Figure 1 shows that even occasional research has an impact. More frequent research produces a bigger impact.

Why? Research gives firms an evidence-based foundation on which to build a solid strategy — including data-driven brand positioning and messaging.

Often, major decisions about a firm’s messaging and business direction are based on guesswork or assumptions. That can be very risky. Do you base decisions on suppositions like these?

• “This is probably a message our audience will respond to.”
• “I think this is a service our clients would appreciate.”

By conducting research, you equip yourself with evidence so you know that you are on the right track. And that certainty can save you a lot of pain and effort down the line. Brand research can give you solid answers to questions you were guessing at before—for instance, what differentiators matter most to your clients or which services they would most like to see you offer.

There is another major benefit that many firms overlook. In the absence of solid data, everyone feels free to have an opinion. If your leadership team isn’t in complete agreement about the direction your firm should take, research can provide objective guidance and get everyone in alignment. When facts replace opinion it’s easier to achieve a consensus.

When Should You Use Brand Research?

There are a number of junctures at which a firm would be well advised to conduct brand research. Here are ten common examples of situations when brand research can provide powerful insights.

Top 10 Examples of Brand Research Scenarios

• Following a merger or major acquisition
• When launching a new practice or service line
• When growth has stalled
• When facing powerful new competitors
• When experiencing downward pricing pressure
• When your target audience has changed
• When considering a new name or identity
• When your visual brand or messaging has become dated or no longer reflects your firm
• When you need to attract top talent
• When your professionals don’t know how to describe your firm

Some of these are the big moments in the life of a firm. These are the pivotal periods when a firm stakes out a new identity or a new path for the future. They typically involve major decisions with major consequences. As such, they are opportune times to guide the path forward with data.

But research isn’t just for moments of big, disruptive change. You may simply find that you have outgrown your old brand. What once differentiated you no longer embodies the value that you provide to clients. This will happen many times in the life of most firms, and research helps you rebrand to communicate who you really are today.

Similarly, when you decide you want to accelerate growth and gain a competitive advantage, research gives you the knowledge you need to get there efficiently.

What Can You Learn From Brand Research?

As it turns out, you can learn a lot. Common research topics range from how the marketplace views your firm to who your true competitors are and how you differ from them. In short, you can gain insight into the entire client journey.

Below are examples of insightful brand research questions you might ask your audience.

Top Brand Research Questions

• What are your target clients’ priorities?
• How do you fit in?
• How is your firm perceived in the marketplace?
• Who are your true competitors?
• How do you compare to your top competitors?
• How do your best prospects search for a firm like yours?
• What are they most interested in?
• What turns them off?
• What tips the scale during the final selection process?
• How well does your firm deliver on its promises?
• What do your clients value most about your firm?
• How loyal are your current clients likely to be?
• What is your potential for more referrals?
• What other services do your current clients want you to offer?

Answers to questions like these usually uncover some surprises. You may discover hidden competitors you hadn’t known about. You may also learn that your clients value traits in your company that you had never appreciated before — traits that might make good differentiators.

Likewise, you can study your firm’s strengths, weaknesses and the reasons clients choose you — all of which may inform your firm’s differentiation and positioning.

You may think you know the answers to these questions already. But after conducting research, most firms find significant gaps between what they think they know about their audience and the facts on the ground. These blind spots can have major negative consequences. They result in wasted marketing budget and effort. Your hard work will not produce the results you seek. Assessing these perception gaps is another important function of research, helping you check your assumptions and evolve your internal views of the marketplace.

What Are the Major Brand Research Methods?

There are four research methods that professional services firms use most often. But it’s important to note that only two of the four are effective and practical.

1. Informal or unstructured interviews. Probably the most common type of research used by professional services firms, this involves interviewing or having conversations with clients without performing any formal scoring or analysis. These interviews are often carried out by internal team members. While well-meaning, this informal approach is rarely useful. Respondents are often highly guarded, producing misleading — or outright incorrect — conclusions. Evidence is anecdotal at best.
2. Focus groups. Focus groups can work well for consumer products, but they are not very effective in the B2B world. The reason is simple: Clients are reluctant to reveal any significant information to a group of competitors. Equally problematic, assembling a useful focus group in the professional services world can be expensive and a logistic challenge. Focus groups are rarely the right choice for professional services firms.
3. Online surveys. Online surveys can be effective, as long as they are produced by people who have deep experience with the relevant audiences. It takes experience to craft questions that produce useful and actionable information. As long as your research team understands your industry and is seen by respondents as impartial, online surveys can be an affordable way to reach a geographically diverse audience with a degree of anonymity that will reassure respondents and encourage more accurate answers. But be cautious, the kinds of questions and research protocols that work for B2C audiences often fall flat in the professional services world.
4. Structured interviews. While relatively expensive, live interviews, typically conducted by phone, offer a number of advantages. Because they are structured, the data can be subjected to sophisticated analyses and generate powerful insights. And because they are relatively personal, a skilled interviewer can pick up indirect information — such as emotions and nuances in a participant’s language — making note of those details and scoring appropriately. Structured interviews can be used in conjunction with surveys to provide multiple angles of insight. Again, an impartial researcher reinforces the confidentiality of the person’s answers and encourages more candid responses.

Selecting the appropriate research method can mean the difference between a useful, productive study and one that falls short of your goals.

How Can You Turn Brand Research into Growth?

Research will help you better understand your firm’s strengths, weaknesses, current opportunities and emerging threats. With this detailed, multidimensional picture of your firm and its place in the market, you can then proceed to develop an informed strategy.

It’s useful to document your brand strategy — your true differentiators and the positioning you will adopt moving forward — in three related areas.

1. Differentiators—This is a simple list of individual differentiators that set your firm apart from your competitors. Some of these differentiators may be decisions that you make to do things differently. For example, specializing in an industry. Others may be characteristics of your firm that you discover during the course of your brand research.
2. Positioning Statement—A positioning statement is a short paragraph that describes what your firm does, who it does it for (your target clients) and why they select you over your competitors. It describes how you are positioned in a competitive marketplace and serves as the DNA of your go-to-market strategy. Writing a positioning statement forces you to look at your firm in relation to the rest of the marketplace.
3. Messaging Architecture—Your messaging architecture identifies your primary audiences (for example, potential clients, referral sources and prospective employees) and what messages each needs to read or hear to persuade them that your firm is the best choice. Each of these messages must be consistent with your overall brand positioning. The document may also identify common objections and concerns you will encounter from each audience and outline the arguments you can use to counter them. This is a very useful document when you are developing promotional materials or pulling together a proposal.

These are living documents—you should update them as conditions change—that your team can mine for key messages as you reach out to existing and new audiences.

This is also the stage at which you will begin to really drive growth, as you translate your new, differentiated messaging into the materials that communicate your brand. These materials can take many forms, from your logo, tagline and brand identity guidelines to your website, marketing collateral and pitch decks.

The post Brand Research for Professional Services: What Every Executive Needs to Know to Grow Their Brand appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Now, more than half a century later, the concept of positioning is just as relevant to businesses — and probably more so. If anything, today’s professional services marketplace is much larger and more crowded. Buyers have a bewildering array of firms to choose from, and with the rise of the Internet, local firms are contending with companies across the nation, if not the world.

What’s a firm to do? How do you compete when there’s barely room to breathe?

That’s where brand positioning comes in. It gives you space in the marketplace to command the attention of your best prospects.

What Is Brand Positioning?

Brand positioning is the process of differentiating your firm from competitors in the minds of your audience—and giving them a reason to buy from you. It involves connecting something that your buyers want with a thing your firm provides. This mental association defines your firm, so it must be simple enough to grasp in today’s over-communicated world, relevant to your buyers and different from the way your key competitors talk about themselves.

Let’s consider a couple of examples of brand positioning.

What do you think of when you read the words, “soda,” “soft drink” or “pop”? Did Coke or Pepsi come to mind? These two products are positioned to dominate the soft drink category.

Now let’s try a service. What company do the words “overnight shipping” make you think of? Even though other companies offer overnight delivery, FedEx owns that category — it has built its entire identity and operations around doing it better than anyone else.

In theory, any professional services firm can build a strong association between their brand and an idea. But to be successful, your positioning must be 1) different (it’s tough to take over a leadership position already held by another business); and 2) visible (if nobody has heard of your firm, your positioning can’t take root).

A good way to work out  your brand positioning is to create a brand positioning statement. We’ll explore that process a bit later.

Why Brand Positioning Is Important

What do firms gain when they position their services and products well? When you have a well-defined brand position, your firm has many advantages. Positioning can provide a conceptual template for your brand, your marketing messages, the services you offer and even the way you structure your pricing.

Here are a few of the key benefits of brand positioning:

1. It focuses you on a specific target market. When you provide a limited set of services to a limited audience, your marketing becomes sharper and more effective. Almost automatically, your expertise becomes more valuable.
2. It clarifies how you are different from competitors. You’ll finally know exactly what sets you apart and be able to talk about your firm in a way that gets prospects excited.
3. It shows you how to win new clients. Positioning arms your business development team with critical arguments they can use in the nurturing and closing processes.
4. It drives your messaging. Talking about your firm is easy when your positioning is clearly defined.
5. It presells your services. When you have strong positioning, you become the choice against which everyone else has to compete. 

5 Types of Brand Positioning Strategy

Positioning strategies can take many forms, but not all are appropriate for professional services firms. Below are five strategies that are most relevant to positioning a firm like yours:

1. Cost-driven positioning. “We offer everything those other firms do, but we cost less.” This is a very challenging strategy unless you have an inherent cost advantage. Technology can be your best friend if you are able to use it more effectively than your competitors.
2. Niche service specialization. In this strategy, you focus on offering a specific service or narrow range of services. As a specialist, you are able to provide a depth of expertise that  a generalist would not have. This approach can work well unless other equally capable specialists enter the market, diluting your “specialness.”
3. Industry specialization. Industry specialists focus on a particular industry or set of related industries. It allows you to tightly focus your marketing and evolve your services as your market changes. This approach comes with risks, however. If your industry experiences an economic decline, your fortunes may follow. It is also easy for new competitors to enter the fray and disrupt your positioning. However, market leaders can be difficult to unseat, so specialists that hold a first-mover or leadership position have a powerful advantage.
4. Role-focused specialization. “We help Chief Technology Officers succeed” is an example of role-focused positioning — targeting a particular function in the organization. Instead of specializing in a particular industry or service, you target a cohort of people. These buyers will perceive you as more tuned in to their needs and assume that you offer specific knowledge or expertise that will make their job easier.
5. Quality of service positioning. This is one of the most common strategies used by professional services firms, and (with rare exceptions) it is one of the least effective. “Nobody’s more committed to quality,” “We deliver the best service” and similar messages are so ubiquitous in the marketplace that they utterly fail to impress buyers.  Of course, buyers do want quality and customer service — but these traits are expected and they are rarely criteria used to select a firm.

Brand Positioning Examples

What does a well-positioned firm look like? Below we include a few examples of how some of our own clients have positioned themselves in the marketplace. These examples represent the purest distillation of their brand positioning—simple ideas that anyone in the marketplace can understand but which are difficult for competitors to copy.

Vault Consulting

“The nation’s leading accounting and research firm for nonprofits and associations.”

Why it works: Vault’s unusual combination of accounting and research services, in conjunction with their industry focus, allows them to claim leadership status.

Sellers Dorsey

“The nation’s leading Medicaid consultancy to health care providers, payors and state governments.”

Why it works: They do just one thing: Medicaid consulting. And they have built a market leadership position around that specialization.

20-20 Services

“We focus on just one thing: equipping today’s accounting professionals with all the skills, knowledge and leadership training they need to thrive and grow.”

Why it works: They focus on a constant  need in the CPA industry: keeping accounting professionals fully trained and equipped to build their business.

What Is a Brand Positioning Statement?

A brand positioning statement is a succinct, easy-to-understand paragraph that describes your firm’s positioning in the marketplace. It should address three questions: 1) What do you do? 2) Who do you serve? 3) How are you different from similar firms in the marketplace? It may also include other key reasons clients prefer your firm over others.

A brand positioning statement is primarily an internal document that a firm’s marketing and business development teams can use to craft differentiated marketing language—though some of its language may be used verbatim in public-facing messaging. In Step 4 below, we explain how to write your own positioning statement.

The Brand Positioning Process

Ready to develop a brand positioning strategy for your own firm? The steps below will give you a solid roadmap to get there. I’ve also included links to other resources that will help fill in some of the details. Let’s get started!

Step 1. Start with your overall business imperatives. What are you trying to accomplish as a firm? Your positioning is a fundamental pillar of business strategy, and it affects how you will drive growth and attract the talent you need to sustain your expansion. If you don’t have your business goals written down already, sit down with your management team and make sure everyone agrees on a clear set of priorities. That way, when you begin formulating your positioning statement you will have a clear destination in mind.

Step 2. Research your target clients and competitors. Firms that have a strong understanding of their audiences and competition are more than twice as likely to be high-growth businesses (those that grow at least 20% year over year). The best way to acquire this understanding is to conduct brand research.Typically, it is conducted by an independent research organization to ensure the data collected is confidential, which encourages participants to provide more honest feedback. Brand research usually involves interviewing current clients, prospects, and referral sources. It can also include an analysis of your competitors — how they describe themselves and how your audience perceives them.

Brand research can also identify strengths and weaknesses you weren’t able to see before. In addition, you’ll learn what factors potential clients value most during the selection process.

And brand research is critical to the success of the next step.

Step 3. Identify your differentiators. This is where your business goals and brand research turn into marketing gold. Drawing on the insights of your team, external perceptions of your firm and a new understanding of your competitors’ positioning, you will pick out characteristics that both set you apart from your competition and are of great interest to prospective clients.

Strong differentiators must also meet three other criteria: they must be 1) true, 2) provable and 3) relevant to your target audience. If a differentiator isn’t true, clients will often sense it and approach your firm with skepticism. That’s why you should be able to support each differentiator with evidence. Often you will uncover proof in your brand research. For example, a finding that “9 out 10 clients refer us to others” is a statistic you could use to support a variety of differentiators).

Some differentiators may be characteristics that you discover in your research (“clients find us to be highly flexible”), while others may be a specialization that you have already cultivated (“we provide network security services exclusively to accounting firms”). If you find your existing differentiators lacking, you may decide to pursue a new area of focus or concentrate on a particular area of strength. While this approach may be aspirational at first, it can work so long as you truly commit your firm to it and can demonstrate you are doing it going forward. If you are struggling to think of possible differentiators, consult this list of 21 professional service differentiators for ideas. Or, take a look at this list of the 12 worst differentiators for professional services firms to make sure you are fooling yourself.

To learn more about uncovering your differentiators, check out our free Differentiation Guide for Professional Services Firms. Also, I suggest you read this blog post on competitive differentiation.

Step 4. Craft your brand positioning statement. Now it’s time to translate your differentiators into a story that clearly communicates your competitive advantage. A positioning statement distills your key buying propositions into a short paragraph. It’s an internal document. Because it compresses a lot of information into a few sentences, it’s not intended to be used verbatim on your website or in your marketing materials. Instead, think of it as a source you can return to again and again when you need the inspiration to describe your firm, explain how you are different or persuade people to buy from you.

A brand positioning statement can take two different forms: a crafted paragraph or a prompted statement. Developing a crafted paragraph takes more skill and time, but some firms find that it translates more easily into marketing messages. A prompted statement is faster and simpler to assemble: your team fills in the blanks with the appropriate information.

Here’s an example of a positioning statement in paragraph form:

Newco is the nation’s leading IT consultancy that specializes in law firms and legal departments. Our team of attorneys, engineers, CIOs, executive directors, and project managers is uniquely positioned to make your practice more productive and profitable. We’re familiar with the hundreds of software applications used by the legal community, and we’ve developed a suite of tools that makes migrating and configuring systems faster and more efficient. We also have a reputation for doing a job once and doing it right — that’s why 4 out of 5 clients put us on a long-term contract. When you need the best legal IT strategy, implementation and support, Newco is the easy choice.

As you can see, this type of positioning statement is your brand stripped down to its essentials. If you got the differentiators right at the beginning and you understand your audience, this should be more an exercise in prioritizing and word choice than creative engineering. 

In contrast, a prompted positioning statement is simpler and more telegraphic. Here’s what a prompted statement template, ready to be filled out, looks like:

If Newco had used the prompted statement, this is how it might read:

While a prompted statement is easier to create, its simplicity makes it less convenient as a source of ready-made marketing messages. While you can pull carefully crafted language verbatim from a positioning paragraph, that’s not usually possible from a prompted statement. Both, however, provide the raw materials to write new messages.

Whichever format you choose, your brand positioning statement should include the following elements:

• Your firm name
• What you do
• Who you serve
• What makes you different
• Proof that supports your claims

Okay, let’s break down the Newco example and make sure we’re covered.

What’s their name? Newco. (Check!)

What services do they provide? IT consulting services.

Who is their target audience? Law firms and legal departments.

What makes them different from competitors? They work exclusively with legal practices, so they are industry specialists. This gives them an advantage when pursuing business with law firms and legal departments over generalist IT firms that serve multiple industries. They also claim to be the leaders in their niche.

What else supports their positioning? They have developed a proprietary suite of tools that allows them to do their job more efficiently than their competition. And because their team includes professionals who have been in their clients’ shoes (attorneys, CIOs, executive directors) they are well attuned to their needs. They also have a great reputation, which they can demonstrate by citing the high percentage of clients that put them on long-term contracts.

So how do you use your brand positioning statement? The first thing many firms do is develop their elevator pitch — that short description of your firm that answers the question, “What does your firm do?” Keep your elevator pitch short — a sentence or two will usually do the trick — and write it in natural, conversational language. If people were to memorize it, it should sound like something a person would actually say.

You can also use your positioning statement as the foundation of your messaging architecture. Your messaging architecture is a document that spells out key messages for each of your audiences and addresses specific objections they may have. For example, “Why would I choose your firm over a better-known competitor?”

Finally, you will use your positioning statement as inspiration for headlines and persuasive language on your website and in marketing collateral.

Step 5. Implement your new positioning. No strategy, no matter how well-conceived, will survive poor implementation. You have to have the right communications tools in place — pieces that will support the new message you are delivering. And that may require revisiting everything you use to market your services. At the very least, you will want to reflect your new positioning in your marketing materials and website.

For some firms, however, implementation involves rethinking their overall identity or initiating a rebranding process. This process can involve a soup-to-nuts overhaul — a new name, tagline, logo, website, marketing materials, and more. Typically, this happens when a firm either undergoes a change in strategy or realizes that its brand is out of date and no longer reflects the caliber of the firm they have become.

As you develop your new positioning, think about how you will convey that message to the world. What needs to change, what can stay the same, and what new components need to be introduced?

Overcoming Positioning Challenges

Repositioning your firm isn’t necessarily easy. It depends on the raw materials you have to work with and the mindset you bring to the process. Some firms discover that they just don’t have strong differentiators. In this all-too-common situation, a firm has four options:

1. 1. Embrace a new focus in an underserved area. This is the most effective — and difficult — option. It almost always means letting go of one or more client segments to build momentum and mind-share in another. If you think you can pull it off, pursue this approach with all the energy you have. It can pay huge dividends.
   2. Own a trait. Identify an aspect of your business that you would like to associate with your firm. It’s okay if competitors do it, too — so long as nobody else is using it in the same way. For example, an architecture firm client of ours uses industry research to inform its design process. This “evidence-based design” approach isn’t new, but it’s not universally practiced, and none of their competitors were talking about it. So the firm decided to own it. As part of their brand positioning strategy, they began using the word “scientific” to describe their design philosophy. By tying their approach to science, they could begin building a reputation as the most methodical and credible option in their market.
   3. Combine two traits. This is a mashup of options 1 and 2 above. Select two primary traits or functions of your business and combine them. You may be able to claim that you are the leader at the intersection of those two things. For example, we positioned an accounting firm as “the nation’s leading specialist in fair market valuations and financial transaction consulting to the healthcare industry.” Since no other firm was preeminent in providing both of those services to the healthcare industry, our client could credibly call itself a leader.
   4. Do nothing. Or promote weak differentiators, which amounts to the same thing. You can say that you hire only the best people, or that you deliver the best customer service, but nobody will care.

Brand Positioning Strategy Examples

Professional services firms often struggle to differentiate and position themselves. So I’d like to end this piece by examining a handful of real-world examples of brand positioning strategy — specifically, how firms in different industries have used positioning strategy to become more competitive, grow faster and be more profitable.

Accounting

Tablespoon is a Dallas-based accounting firm. At first (under a different name), they were a typical general accounting firm with a diverse range of business clients. Their fortunes turned for the better when they decided to pivot and specialize in serving one of their strongest client segments: restaurants. Over time, they decided to narrow their focus, even more, to concentrate on chain restaurants. Today, they are thriving and growing in their highly specialized area of expertise. “It’s taken us to a whole new level of success,” says CEO, Andrew Lester.

Brand positioning: The accounting firm for multi-location restaurants.

Executive Search

Melissa Henderson was a Managing Director at a large, international search firm when she had a crazy idea. What if C-level executives could hire their own personal representative, much like an elite sports agent? It would turn the executive search industry on its head. (Conventional executive search firms are paid by companies who are looking for talent, not by the job seekers.) So Melissa left her job and founded Summit Executive Resources, a firm that helps top executives find the leadership and board positions they have always wanted — with the high-touch personal service they deserve.

Brand positioning: The personal search firm for C-level executives.

Healthcare Consulting

Ascendient is a top-50 consulting firm that serves hospital systems around the nation. Led by a team of practitioners and academics, they have a unique perspective on the future of healthcare. In fact, they believe most healthcare systems are not prepared for the massive changes that are about to transform the marketplace. To make their perspective more visible and differentiate their firm from consultants that focus primarily on today’s problems, Ascendient decided to reposition its firm around its future vision.

Brand positioning: We’re rethinking the future of healthcare.

Architecture

Populous is a global architecture firm that specializes in stadiums, convention centers and major special events. Begin in 1983 as the sports arm of architecture firm HOK, it was acquired in a management buyout in 2009. Today, Populous is the undisputed leader in the design of sports and entertainment venues.

Brand positioning: We design the places where people love to be together.

Legal

Walsh Colucci Lubeley and Walsh is a law firm outside Washington, DC. For decades, they were a general law firm with a strong practice in zoning and land use. But when the top firm in that space dissolved, their leadership recognized an opportunity and quickly rebranded their firm as The Land Lawyers. While they continue to offer a few general legal services, Walsh Colucci focuses their brand message squarely on its area of strength. Today, they have become the region’s dominant player in commercial real estate law.

Brand positioning: Northern Virginia’s premier commercial real estate law firm.

Conclusion

Most professional services firms are poorly positioned in the marketplace. They believe that they can get more clients by opening their arms wide to everyone — the broader their reach, the more business will float into their embrace. But that’s not what really happens. When buyers look around and see splayed arms everywhere, they have nowhere to gravitate.

That’s why having a brand positioning strategy is so important. It gives your prospects something to get interested in — and will ultimately convince them to buy from you. Your target audience will find you many times more fascinating than a generalist firm because you have the specialized expertise they need. And as a specialist, you can often charge more, to boot.

If your firm isn’t positioned to consistently attract premium clients, take heart. You’re not alone. Any firm can sharpen its positioning and build an enviable competitive advantage. All it takes is a little courage to take the first step.

Free Resource

The Rebranding Guide for Professional Services Firms

Learn More

The post Brand Positioning Strategy for the Professional Services Industry appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

To answer these questions, let’s begin by talking about what your logo is to your firm.

If your organization’s name is the primary proxy for your firm in the minds of your audience, your logo stands right there beside it—its visual copilot. It not only is a literal symbol of your business, it plays a critical role in helping people recognize and remember your firm.

If this last statement is true—and science tells us it is—why would you ever change your logo? Wouldn’t that undo years of accumulated recognition? Possibly. But that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Good Vibrations. Bad Vibrations.

People often make snap judgments about almost everything—including your business—based on the flimsiest of reasons. The science of neuroeconomics explores this phenomenon of human irrational behavior.

The implication here is that your logo can send signals to prospective clients about the sophistication of your firm. If your logo sends negative signals, that’s how some people who have never experienced your firm will perceive you. If it generates positive feelings, however, it can instantly make your firm seem more credible, capable and trustworthy.

Firms grow up. They evolve. They compete at a higher, then higher, level. A logo has to grow up too, or like Peter Pan it will get stuck in the netherworld of a distant time. It will become misunderstood.

How Logos Change

Some logos evolve incrementally, with small updates made over time. Think Coca-Cola. It first introduced its iconic logo script in 1887:

Not much has changed in 138 years!

Other logos change fundamentally. Here was Microsoft’s logo in 1975:

Groovy. Would this logo work today? No way. Not only does it reflect a distant mirror-ball-era design aesthetic, but its thin, closely set lines look abysmal even on today’s high-resolution screens. Of course, Microsoft as a firm also evolved. When it introduced Windows, the company entered a new era requiring a new narrative. Today, their logo continues to tell that story:

Other logo updates lie somewhere in between. When Deloitte & Touche became Deloitte in 1993, they retained, in a subtly altered form, their typeface. The only addition was a green dot at the end, which has become a signature brand element.

The simplified name, change in color and intriguing declarative period position them as bolder and more self-assured. Even decades later, their logo leads them with confidence into the future.

When Should You Consider a Change?

So what about your firm’s logo? Does it need a makeover? Here are five questions to ask yourself as you assess it:

1. Does it differentiate you? Get online, pull up your top competitors. Does your logo set you apart? Or does it and its colors just blend in?
2. Is it modern and fresh? Again compare your logo to your competitors. Does yours feel stale or stuck in the Land Before Time?
3. Does it convey who you want to become? Think of the competitor you most admire. How is their logo different from yours?
4. Does it support your brand? Are you a bold and innovative company? Then your logo should represent those characteristics. What does your brand stand for?
5. Is it practical? Is your logo too complicated? Is it hard to read at small sizes? Does it never seem to fit the space allotted to it?

It never hurts to get some outside perspectives, as well. Ask friends and clients what they think. Give them permission to be critical.

You may decide your logo is doing its job. You may decide it could benefit from an update. Or it may be clear that it needs a complete overhaul. But you will have shone light on a part of your brand that may be of greater importance than you thought before.

Now, please don’t take this argument to extremes. We are not suggesting that your logo alone can solve reputational problems or generate more revenue. But it can be part of the solution—along with a host of other factors, from your positioning to the messages you deliver to the design and images on your website.

A successful brand tells a unified story, each piece supporting a central theme. A clumsy or outdated logo can create cognitive dissonance and plant seeds of doubt early in the buyer journey—just when you need to make the best impression.

If you want to give your brand and business every advantage, don’t forget that little jewel in the top left corner of your website—the single piece of your brand that has the greatest chance to be seen and stored away in people’s minds.

The post Can We Talk About Your Logo? appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Let’s start with a definition.

What is Brand Identity?

Your brand identity is the visual—and to a lesser extent, verbal—expression of your brand. It comprises eight components:

1. Company name
2. Logo
3. Tagline
4. Color Palette
5. Typography
6. Graphical Elements
7. Imagery
8. Voice

When used to support a brand strategy, your brand identity provides important visual cues that convey positive qualities and help allay concerns people may have about your brand. These qualities can be difficult to put into words, but they can be psychologically persuasive. For instance, a clean and modern identity can communicate a firm’s attention to detail and credibility. 

When your audience combines these cues with other information—say, the messaging on your firm’s website or a presentation given by one of your principals—they begin to develop positive feelings about your brand. They start to trust you and associate your firm with particular things, such as specific expertise, a service offering or successful outcomes.

Each of a brand identity’s components should contribute incrementally to these associations and positive feelings. When thoughtfully designed, these elements build upon each other and communicate a coherent visual message. (We’ll explore each of these components a bit later in this article.)

Another critical role brand identity plays in a brand strategy is differentiation. Professional services firms have a hard enough time separating themselves from similar competitors—a distinctive identity can compel prospective buyers to notice you and perhaps take a second look.

How is Brand Identity Different from a Brand?

If brand identity is the visual part of your brand, your brand is the way people perceive and experience your firm. Think of your brand identity as an input and your brand as the output. Brand identity is not the only input, however. It works in concert with your differentiators, brand positioning, brand personality and brand messaging to influence the way the brand is perceived in the marketplace. Other influences on your brand include your customer service, online reviews, positive or negative press and how well the experience you produce matches the one you promise (your brand promise).

Jeff Bezos may have been the first to describe a brand like this: “A brand is what other people say about you when you aren’t in the room.” This is a useful way to think about your brand—and what it will take to shape what those people say about your firm. Brand identity is one of the best tools you have to sculpt those perceptions.

Elements of Brand Identity

Now, let’s examine the components of brand identity. Each plays a different role, but they deliver their greatest impact when deployed together. When they are conceived as part of a system that supports a firm’s brand positioning, the resulting brand identity speaks more loudly and with greater authority.

Of course, many firms develop their visual brand with little regard to strategy. They either cobble together a dog’s breakfast of mismatched components over time, or they copy the firms around them, choosing the false comfort of blending into the crowd.

But you can do better. Each component of your identity is an opportunity to influence the way people perceive your firm. And if you understand how these elements can deliver a unified experience, you can build an extraordinary, persuasive brand identity. 

1. Name

Nothing is more essential to a brand than its name. Without a name, you can’t do marketing, and without marketing you can’t do business. Your name is your chief identifier and proxy for your firm. When someone thinks of your business, they express it first as your name. So it pays to choose your name carefully.

Naming has become a complicated process in which you navigate an archipelago of hazards—including trademark conflicts, originality, pronunciation, spelling, URL availability, and semantics—to arrive at a moniker that perfectly represents your firm. It’s a bewildering but rewarding journey.

Strong names tend to be short, memorable and easy to say and spell. They look and sound different from your competitors. Usually they are abstract or evocative, rather than literal descriptions of what you do.

Weak names are often long, prone to abbreviation, confusing or generic. In the professional services, for instance, firms are fond of stringing together partners’ names. What stokes their egos, however, chokes their brand. Clients, who have little patience for complexity, inevitably drop all but the initial name or, worse, collapse the whole kit and kaboodle into a sterile, impossible-to-protect acronym.

If you are considering renaming your business, hire a professional or agency with the experience, tools and good taste to steer you toward a powerful, differentiated name. It will put a sharper tip on your marketing strategy and stick more readily in the minds of prospects.

2. Logo

Your logo is one of the most visible and instantly recognizable components of your brand. And because it incorporates your name, your logo can, on occasion, stand on its own (for example, on the side of your building or on a sponsor board). 

A logo has three jobs: 1) identify you; 2) differentiate you; and 3) help people remember you. That means it has to represent your firm visually, set you apart from competitors’ logos and do all this in a way that is interesting and easy to recall.

Most logos consist of two parts: a logotype (the name) and a symbol (the mark). Some logos don’t have a symbol at all. And at least a couple of brands have had success using a symbol alone (hint: think swoosh and partly eaten fruit). But unless you have millions to dump into advertising, don’t try that last one at home.

Many firms are reluctant to change their logos, even when they know they aren’t great. They believe that replacing it now would erase all the brand equity they’ve built over the years. But what they fail to realize is that their brand identity is much weaker without an inspiring admiral at its helm. An otherwise wonderful identity with a lousy logo is dragging an anchor: it will never get up to speed. 

These firms also don’t understand what a wonderful opportunity a rebrand provides. It is one of the few times you can do something and people will actually take notice! This window of caring is brief, but it’s real. If you promote your new brand properly, prospects will look at you with fresh eyes—and perhaps with renewed interest.

3. Tagline

Not every firm has a tagline, and to be honest not every firm needs one. In fact, many firms use taglines that provide no value at all. But in many circumstances, a tagline can be a helpful tool, especially if serves one of these four functions:

1. Clarifying what you do
2. Expressing an important brand attribute
3. Articulating your positioning
4. Helping people remember you

Rarely, however, does a tagline achieve more than one of these functions. 

Most often, a clarifying tagline is what we call a descriptor—a straightforward description of the services you provide. Accounting firms are particularly fond of descriptors (“CPAs & Advisors” and its variants is a common one). Descriptors can be particularly useful when a firm is trying to break into a new market where they aren’t yet known. 

Some firms want to call out a salient attribute of their brand, and a tagline can be an excellent place to do that. Here are two examples that take this approach:

• Prodigy: Bold ideas. Brought to Life.
• Accenture: Let There Be Change

If you have a narrow or easy-to-express positioning, a tagline can be a terrific place to spell it out. For instance, one law firm that has a strong land use and zoning focus calls themselves “The land lawyers.” It doesn’t get clearer than that.

Finally, there is the category of taglines that are written to be memorable or help differentiate the brand. These may feature a clever play on words, a provocative question or a catchy phrase. Nike’s “Just do it” springs to mind. Capital One asks, “What’s in your wallet?” IBM delivers “Solutions for a small planet.” And accounting firm Cherry Bekaert runs with “Your guide forward.” What do these all have in common? They are simple and stick in the mind like bubblegum.

4. Color Palette

Of all the components in your brand identity, color is the most emotionally engaging. But be careful. While there has been plenty of research into how people react to different colors, you are probably better off looking to strategy rather than psychology when you choose which colors to associate with your brand. And please, don’t choose colors based on your CEO’s personal preference!

Why? Because color is critical tool you can use to differentiate your firm and set a mood for your brand. It’s an opportunity to take your identity in a fresh direction. How do you think UPS came to “own” the color brown? Brown, after all, is not exactly everybody’s first, second or even third favorite color. In fact, the company chose the color way back in 1916 to reflect “class, elegance and professionalism,” like a fine Pullman car. Today, the company has completely embraced the color, turning it into their most iconic identifier and making it the focus of their marketing slogan: “What can brown do for you?” In 1998, they trademarked their signature hue of brown to prevent competitors from adopting it. In short, strategy—not emotion—drove their color decision.

Try this: look at the logos and websites of the firms you compete against most often, then see if you can spot any trends and opportunities: what colors are used most often? Is there a color could you own that none of these competitors has taken? Or is there another color strategy—such as a multi-hued approach—you could employ to differentiate your logo and brand identity?

Though one color often plays a dominant role, most brands don’t rely on a single color alone for their identity. Instead, they develop a palette of colors, which gives them the variety they need to create compelling marketing materials. While some brands work with a very limited color palette (as few as two or three), most prefer the flexibility that comes with a wider color selection.

5. Typography

Unlike color, the typefaces you choose for your brand may be barely noticed. But making tasteful, subtle choices is the key to sophistication. At the world’s leading firms, selecting the right typeface (also commonly but not quite correctly called a font) is a big decision. 

Beyond choosing between serif and sans serif typefaces, you’ll have to wrestle with a host of decisions:

• What personality do you want to convey?
• Are you trying to be buttoned up or approachable?
• Is it more important to be distinctive or readable?
• Do you want to look modern or traditional?
• Do you need more than one typeface?

On that last point, consider that you may want a unique, and perhaps highly customized, typeface for your logo, but you may need a more practical face to use in your marketing materials. You may even choose multiple typefaces—for instance, a sans serif for headlines and a serif for body copy. 

Then there is the issue of electronic formats. If you don’t want to pay annual licensing fees to use your firm’s typeface on your website, you can choose to substitute a similar face from a free online resource (for instance, Google offers a large, high-quality, free library of type options). 

But it doesn’t end there. You may need to choose yet another substitute typeface for electronic documents that you will distribute to clients and the outside world. While Microsoft provides a way to embed certain fonts in their documents, this technique has enough limitations that we don’t recommend it. Instead, you should assume that your typeface won’t be portable and choose a substitute font from those that are commonly distributed with Microsoft Office (you can find a list here).

Despite the significant compromises imposed by digital typography, type still has a lot to contribute to your brand’s storyline. 

Figure 1. Typography is often featured in a firm’s brand style guidelines.

6. Graphical Elements

Some brands use a major graphical device to deliver a distinctive, easy-to-recognize look across a wide range of materials and media. The best way to understand what I’m talking about is to look at a couple of examples. 

Here is Big 4 firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ identity. Notice how the mark in their logo becomes the defining graphical element of their brand. It is flexible enough that it can be used in a wide variety of contexts.

Figure 2. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ brand identity makes frequent use of a colorful and flexible brand element.

In the following example from a much smaller accounting firm, a speech bubble—representing the firm’s friendly, personal approach to business—is the central theme of their identity. (Also, note how the tagline works with the speech bubble.)

Figure 3. Jones CPA Group’s speech bubble makes a frequent appearance in its identity.

Developing a universal graphical device is optional, but it is something to consider if you are about to rebrand your firm. It can be an effective and differentiating way to apply your identity to a range of materials.

7. Imagery

Over thirty years ago, Italian fashion brand Benetton began blurring the line between social activism and marketing when it decided to feature graphic, editorial-style photos in its advertisements. The effect was shocking and controversial, but it sure made people sit up and take notice. The campaign has indelibly tied the brand to social consciousness.

Figure 4. Over the years, Benetton has made controversy a major theme of their image strategy.

Most professional services firms, of course, can’t afford to be socially or politically provocative. But they can choose to be interesting. The images you use in your brand identity can turn heads, turn people off or—tragically—make no impression at all. 

Sadly, most firms fall into this last category, and often they do it on purpose. Unwilling to take risks, they choose the deceptive “safety” of the familiar. They enter the crowded down-elevator of organizations that embrace clichéed imagery and descend into the sub basements of sameness. 

Remember: “identity” does not mean “identical.” So why would you select imagery that looks like someone else’s? In fact, imagery, whether photographic or illustrated, is an ideal opportunity to differentiate your firm. 

One reason clichés are so prevalent is that many firm leaders are uncomfortable with abstraction. If they can’t represent what they do literally, they are usually willing (if reluctantly) to accept familiar metaphors that can be easily connected to what they do or the positive outcomes they produce. Here are a few examples taken from actual professional services websites:

Figure 5. Clichéed images like these can sink a promising brand identity.

So what are you to do? 

For starters, if you are going the stock photography route, use a better source of images, one with fresher images in its catalog (a decent free resource is Unsplash, but be aware there are plenty of clunkers in there, too). Searching for images in an online stock photo library is an art. Usually, when you search on the obvious terms you get the least creative and most commonly used results. The trick is to think conceptually. And when I say conceptually, I don’t mean searching on broad, benefit-oriented business terms like “success” or “growth.” Those just aren’t going to generate productive ideas. Instead you need to get creative and find a new angle. 

Alternatively, you can try one of these strategies:

• Search for stock illustrations rather than photography. Look for a fresh-looking, contemporary style.
• Try searching for black and white images. Often, these can be more evocative and dramatic than their color counterparts.
• Use abstract or creatively cropped images.
• Shoot custom photography. A talented photographer can do wonders.
• Hire an illustrator to develop a series of custom illustrations.
• Apply an effect, pattern or texture to your images. This can make ordinary images feel more customized.
• Combining images in Photoshop to create interesting composites.
• Avoid imagery altogether and take a type-centric approach to your identity.

Figure 6. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) uses tightly cropped architectural shots in these four website sliders to convey business success in a fresh way.

Figure 7. Frame creates an appealing but differentiated brand identity using simple isometric illustrations.

Figure 8. ON-POINT Connect cultivates a distinctive, minimalist look with nothing more than colors, shapes and type.

8. Voice

Your brand identity isn’t all visual. It has an important verbal component, too, called your voice. Your voice is the way you write (and in some cases, talk) about your firm. Like all the components of your brand identity, you voice is most compelling when it fits your brand strategy. If you pair bold, playful visuals with passive language, for instance, you’ll create an unhappy dissonance. The voice needs to match the rest of your identity.

To define your voice, think about the personality you want to convey:

• Light and friendly? Technical and academic? Or professional and businesslike?
• What writing style will you adopt? Short, direct sentences with minimal jargon? Or something more formal?
• Are you fun or serious?
• Are you open to humor or clever, playful headlines?

Many firms then take the next step and describe their voice in a Tone of Voice document (sometimes called a Tone and Voice document). That way, internal staff and external partners can consult it when they write and speak to outside audiences. A Tone of Voice document can be a single page with general guidelines or it can be more comprehensive, containing sample article excerpts, emails and phone scripts. At the extreme end, they can even include detailed language style guidelines that clarify potential points of inconsistency such as punctuation, abbreviations, capitalization, word choice and syntax.

Figure 9. MailChimp addresses voice and tone in their online content style guide.

Brand Style Guidelines & Enforcement

At some point in the process you should begin documenting your brand identity and produce a set of guidelines that will preserve your brand investment over time. Your branding partner is often in the best position to put this document together. 

Here are some common topics you might cover in brand style guidelines:

• Logo usage (clear space, sizing, logo version descriptions, usage restrictions, etc.)
• Tagline usage
• Color palette
• Typography
• Imagery
• Graphical elements
• Layout guidance (with or without examples)
• Environmental signage
• Vehicle graphics & apparel
• Tone and voice

Brand guidelines come in many forms, from the basics of logo usage and colors to highly prescriptive, multi-volume manuals covering every possible implementation contingency. Most brand guidelines fall somewhere in between.

In our experience, the more detailed and inflexible the guidelines, the more likely people are to ignore them. On the other hand, if nobody enforces them, even the simplest brand guidelines will fall by the wayside. To prevent your identity going feral, designate a person, typically in the marketing department, to manage freelance designers and keep an eye on how various groups in your organization are implementing the brand. You will need to vest this person with an appropriate level of authority to correct situations in which people violate the rules. But enforcement will only go so far. It’s just as important to educate the relevant people in your organization about the new brand and how to implement it correctly.

Figure 10. Brand style guidelines for Florida-based engineering firm RS&H.

Examples of Brand Identity in the Professional Services

In the professional services, brand identity design has to strike the right balance between credibility and differentiation. In many professional industries, such as law and accounting, clients are looking for a firm that they can trust with sensitive information, and the way these firms present themselves visually can contribute to that impression. The trick is to avoid falling into the trap of building an undifferentiated brand image. Other professional services industries, however, can afford to take a more daring approach. Below are three examples of firms that have developed brand identities that get the balance just right for their audiences.

S&ME

This engineering firm created a bold, differentiated brand identity to separate themselves visually and psychologically from their more conservative peers.

Figure 11. A brief animated video helped explain and launch their new brand.

Figure 12. An innovative logo anchors S&ME’s unusual identity.

Figure 13. Their brand identity brings energy and color to their website.

Figure 14. The identity has many applications across their business.

Darnall Sykes Wealth Partners

This wealth management practice takes a conservative yet distinctive approach its identity, mounting its jewel-toned identity in a setting of rich purple.

Figure 15. Darnall Sykes’ stationery suite projects high credibility and stands apart from similar competitors.

Figure 16. Their website uses color, words and images to communicate their brand with confidence.

Quinn Evans — An Architecture Firm

This architecture firm has a strong national reputation for historic restoration, which is reflected in its logo, color palette and type. At the same time, the identity also points to the future and the innovative contemporary designs Quinn Evans produces.

Figure 17. Custom photography, typography, color and history coalesce in an iconic brand identity.

Figure 18. The logo features prominently on the firm’s business cards.

Figure 19. The identity, here applied to a piece of collateral, communicates the firm’s attention to detail and credibility through design.

Conclusion

Humans are visual creatures. We process visual information more quickly and viscerally than we do words. That’s why top firms pay a great deal of attention to the way their brands look and the emotional connections they create. 

Brand identity is a powerful tool that a firm can use to differentiate its brand and embue it with positive images, feelings and ideas. When you develop a thoughtful identity system—one founded on a deliberate strategy—you can make a great impression at every touchpoint in the business development and client delivery processes. 

The post Understanding Brand Identity appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Ah, the poor, misunderstood logo. People put a lot of pressure on its narrow shoulders. Let’s begin by sweeping away a couple of common misconceptions. Your logo is not your brand. And it’s not a portrait in miniature of your business. So don’t expect it to communicate much, if anything, about what you do. Those disclaimers aside, a logo can be the anchor of a firm’s visual identity and a critical component of a successful brand.

As part of an overall brand approach, firm logos serve three primary functions:

1. Identification
2. Differentiation
3. Aiding recall

Let’s look at each of these attributes in turn.

1. Identification

A logo exists to represent and identify a company or product. The brand name tells us what it is called. The mark (if there is one) helps us recognize the brand the next time we encounter it.

Free Resource

The Rebranding Guide for Professional Services Firms

Learn More

2. Differentiation

An effective logo visually separates a firm from the rest of the field. Perceptions are built little by little over time, and a logo that takes a different tack from the competition will contribute to the distinctiveness of a firm’s brand image. In addition, a logo design sometimes can convey aspects of a company’s personality or attitude (for instance, fun, warmth, or energy).

3. Aiding Recall

A distinctive logo is a memorable logo. Being noticed and remembered is the first step a firm must take en route to eventual selection and brand preference. The logo’s mark, if any, provides a shortcut that helps us identify a company or product in a hurry. We are all in a rush these days, and a well-conceived mark makes recognition easier.

Logo Anatomy

Most firm logos can be broken into two parts: the name and the mark (sometime called its symbol or icon). The name is obvious enough: it’s the company or product name rendered in type. Skillful logo designers will spend a great deal of time choosing a typeface, often customizing its letter forms to make the name more personalized and proprietary.

The mark, usually separated slightly from the name, supports the brand name and offers a visual dimension to the brand identity experience. Some marks have become so well known that they’ve practically replaced the brand name itself (think Nike’s swoosh and Apple’s apple).

Download the Rebranding Guide – Second Edition

Not all firm logos have marks. In fact, many successful businesses do just fine without one: Deloitte, IBM, and Oracle, for instance. This type of identifier, in which the name is the logo, is called a logotype. Logotypes do have a couple of drawbacks. Because they have to be read, legibility is critical, whether they appear on the web or in the distance on the side of a building. Logotypes also have a generic quality to them, so if a competitor were to adopt a similar-looking typeface it could create confusion in the marketplace. Nevertheless, many great brands have dispensed with marks and still gone on to do great things.

The Redesign Dilemma

So is a logo redesign worth the effort? If you care about giving your business every advantage in the marketplace, you should consider your logo as a starting point. We live in a visual world, and every prospect that you contact is likely to see it. So pull up your website and ask yourself these questions about your current logo:

• Does it reflect your firm’s personality?
• Is it different from other logos in your industry?
• Is anyone going to notice it and remember you because of it?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you may want to think about revisiting your logo and taking your brand image in a new direction. A logo redesign is not a small undertaking — it will affect every piece of collateral and signage you have. But it takes an upfront investment to reap long-term rewards.

Download the Rebranding Guide – Second Edition

Classifying Logos

Logos can be sorted into a few basic categories. The five categories below will give you a way to think about your current logo and what you might want your new logo to be.

• Logotypes | A company name rendered in distinctive typography is the primary graphic element in these logos. Successful logotypes are bold and easy to read. Accenture, Deloitte and Exxon are good examples.
• Monograms | A monogram is a mark made up of a company’s initials (think IBM, McDonalds and GE).
• Abstract Marks | Nonrepresentational marks that accompany a business’s name. (Sometimes, however, these marks can reflect a company’s name or other non-service-related attribute: Apple, Cisco, Dewberry.) Examples of abstract marks include Chase, BP  and PWC.
• Descriptive Marks | Iconic representations of a company’s products, services or defining character. The professional services don’t lend themselves often to concrete imagery, they are relatively rare in these industries. Descriptive marks are quite common in the consumer world, however. Think Burger King or Dominos Pizza.
• Seals | Type and an icon are contained inside a shape, usually a circle, oval, shield, or rectangle. Because of their limited legibility and dated appearance, seals are becoming less common. Many state and federal agencies still use seals, but they are rare in the business world.

Read Other Posts in this Series:

• Elements of a Successful Brand 1: Brand Positioning
• Elements of a Successful Brand 2: The Tagline
• Elements of a Successful Brand 3: Personality
• Elements of a Successful Brand 4: Brand Promise
• Elements of a Successful Brand 5: The Name
• Elements of a Successful Brand 6: The Logo
• Elements of a Successful Brand 7: Color
• Elements of a Successful Brand 8: Messaging
• Elements of a Successful Brand 9: Imagery

The post Elements of a Successful Brand 6: The Logo appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

No, it’s not your logo. It’s your name.

Of course, a brand is a lot more than your name (or your logo). At its essence, your brand is what prospects and clients think and say about you. It’s your reputation magnified by your visibility. And it’s the thing (or things) people associate with your firm in their minds.

But to unleash those associations requires a trigger. And for most firms there is just one trigger. You guessed it—your name.

Your name is a proxy for your firm and everything your business represents in the minds of your audiences.

As a symbol of everything you represent, then, it carries a lot of weight. Yet many firms give their name very little love or thought.

Why is that? And how can a name affect a firm’s fortunes?

Those are the questions I want to answer today.

Why Your Name Matters

Think about it. You can’t have a business without a name. Without a name, people can’t think about or talk about you. You would have no referrals. No business. No future.

Of course every firm has a name. But some names are better than others.

What does a bad name look like? I don’t want to embarrass anyone, so let me give you a few fictional examples*:

An accounting or law firm:
Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz

A consulting firm:
SHM Associates

A technology firm:
The Digital Transformation Group

What’s wrong with these names? It all boils down to the way people’s minds work. People don’t like complexity. They are drawn to simple concepts and words. In a world cluttered with thousands of businesses and marketing messages, people can also have trouble recalling names. So any help we can give them can make a big difference.

In the case of the firm Delgado, Roderick, Cannon, Nguyen & Munoz, nobody is going to remember this long string of partner names. Clients and prospects do what any of us would do: they lop off everything after the first name. They call it Delgado. People will simplify every time. It might as well be a law of physics. I’ll call it the Law of Reduction.

In a situation like this, a firm would be smart to follow the lead set by their clients. Change the name—or register a fictitious name (also known as a “dba”)—to a single partner’s name. It doesn’t have to be the first one in the string, though that might be the easiest for your clients to recognize. You might, instead, opt for the most interesting name in the list.

If all of the named partners have retired or died, shortening the name can be easy. Many firms have taken this route, and it makes a ton of sense. A multi-word name is confusing and difficult to remember. A short name, on the other hand, fits readily into people’s crowded minds.

What about SHM Associates?

First of all, let’s take a moment to appreciate what’s happened here already. Clearly, the Law of Reduction has been at work. That SHM stood for something at one time. Maybe it was a string of names. Maybe three descriptive words. At some point, people stopped calling the firm by its full name, collapsing it like an accordion into a compact initialism. Before long, the firm started calling itself that, too.

But there’s a problem with initialisms. They are hard to keep straight. “Was it SHM or SMH?” This can lead to some embarrassing mixups. And when interested parties type the URL into their web browser, a transposed letter can stop them in their tracks. Lead flow suffers. Initialisms are also boring and easy to confuse with similar-looking names. (How many three-letter competitors can you think of?) There is nothing about SHM that is memorable or interesting.

Then there’s that “Associates” dangling on the end like a loose muffler. It too will fall away and everyone will call the company SHM. Appendages—usually added to make a firm sound more substantial—just detract from a name and are almost universally ignored.

Finally, let’s consider The Digital Transformation Group.

At first blush, you might think this is a good name. After all, it says exactly what the organization does. But there’s a problem. Let’s call it The Law of the Generic.

Descriptive names are generic. While they do a good job of describing the business they are in, they do a very poor job of distinguishing themselves from the sea of other generic names in the marketplace. Because they describe, they also tend to be long. Again, that makes them less interesting and harder to remember.

And remember what inevitably happens to long names? Yep. The Law of Reduction kicks in. Before long, The Digital Transformation Group will become TDTG or, because it’s shorter, DTG. That descriptive name has just become an inscrutable initialism.

There’s another reason generic names are usually a poor choice. They don’t age well. Chances are, the words “digital transformation” will feel dated in a few years as some newer, more swanky term takes its place. Also, businesses evolve. Names aren’t so flexible. Many firms that outgrow their generic, descriptive names turn them into initialisms to avoid confusing their clients and prospects.

Next Steps

Take a hard look at your firm’s name. Is it short, memorable and easy to pronounce? Is it well differentiated from your competitors? Or does it fall into one of the categories above?

It’s never too late to change your name, and many firms go through the process with great success. The payoff? Improved brand retention, tighter differentiation and greater brand loyalty. Not bad for a choice word or two!

If you’d like to learn more about the types of names a firm can have and how to choose a good one, check out this short blog post.

Happy Marketing!

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