#4 Don't think of a website as just a website
Having your organization aligned with your corporate brand strategy, purpose, vision, and mission has a big impact on business results. It has been proven repeatedly. Research shows that employees that feel connected to the company values and culture are more engaged and are more willing to put that extra effort into the work they do. Why? It comes down to feelings. To feel proud of what the company is doing, feel motivated by shared progress and the joy of making customers happy by solving their needs. The more employees that feel and behave this way, the more effective it is transmitted through all touch points the company has with the outside world.
The ability to create a culture like this comes down to hiring the right individuals, but it also comes down to leadership. How do you cultivate, stimulate, and make that unique corporate spirit grow and thrive? This question has many answers, but one untapped source of leadership inspiration is the website data. The corporate brandING book. A branding book written and approved directly, or indirectly, by the everyone in the organization.
When website data is analyzed from a strategic branding and communication perspective, the insights can be used by leaders as a fact-based leadership source to accelerate the understanding of who the company really say it is and what it transmits to the market. Leaders can use the insights to create increased internal motivation and pride by telling the "story about the story".
So how do you uncover this branding and communication website data secret? Well, with Brand XRAI® you can. Brand XRAI® will open the doors to the invisible holistic story hidden in all your website data.
#3 Don't think of a website as just website
In March 2023 Marketing Week published a report based on a survey among more than 3000 marketers stating that brand management its the second most undervalued skill by businesses.
Having worked as a brand strategist for quite some time this is something I can truly relate to. At the same time I find it very ironic that we as professionals still sometimes have difficulty proving that a strong brand adds value to the business. And that the skill to build a strong brand (brand management) is an essential business skill. It is a great paradox to say the least. We are suppose to be the masters of creating perceived value. Still the subject can be dismissed by executives as ”fluffy”, ”soft stuff” or thrown off the table with a comment ”I like our logo”. Ouch!
So why don’t we always succeed? Especially within B2B. I thought about this a lot. I think one mistake we make is that we are trying use the brand platform to sell our case. There is of course a time and place where that is relevant, but most of the time I believe it is not. It is too abstract for anyone who is not a branding nerd to understand. It is too open for interpretation. It very often created by an external part. And these points I think opens the gate to opinion paradise.
When that gate is open everyone runs naked through it with great enthusiasm. As head of brand, corporate brand director, brand manager or a brand consultant you find yourself in a storm of unfounded opinions and gut-feelings. Everybody is all of a sudden enthusiastic about branding. The whole executives team loves it. Everyone can participate and no rules apply.
Now to the point. If everyone (almost 😊) love to talk about branding it is not the subject that is the challenge, it is the input we use to start the dialogue that must change. We must have input that help us go from opinion-driven internal branding dialogues to fact-driven internal branding dialogues. We must have input that we can prove everyone in the organisation has directly, or indirectly, contributed to create.
Therefor I believe that converting website data into branding and communication insights can help us take control of the internal branding discussion and move it forward based on that. The website data represents the collective voice of the whole organisation. It is undisputed. It is already out there. This is what we collectively say to the market. We are all responsible for it and we all own it. Everyone has participated in crafting the stories with the purpose to explains how the company creates value for its customers, employees and other stakeholder. The website is our brandING platform. The ”ING” in branding is an important distinction. (You’ll find a deeper explanation of the logic in post #1 and #2).
That’s where Brand XRAI® comes in. It has been impossible to analyze large amount of website data from a strategic branding and communication perspective. The good news is that now you can. With Brand XRAI® you can. You can analyze your own company website data as well as your competitors.
#2 Don't think of a website as just a website
What is website content really? What does it take to qualify as a key message, a feature, a customer benefit or a story on a corporate website for a global company? Think about it. What does it really take for any significant content to finally end up as public website data.
Anyone who ever work for, or with, a larger international company will understand this. What finally ends up on the website are super refined versions of all decisions taken in core processes and strategic projects. Strategic decisions taken by the Executive team, Finance, Legal, Human Resources, R&D, Marketing and sales and of course Corporate communications.
Each department communicating their perspective to support the over-arching long-term corporate strategy. Countless of hours are directly, or indirectly, invested in finding the right message to describe how the company creates value for customers, employees and other stakeholders. In the best of worlds the crafting of these messages are also done with the strategic brand perspective in mind - how to the company creates value in an intentionally different way.
Yes, in the end there is usually a smaller group of content creators crafting the final stories and messages, but the point is that what ever the content creators finally publish can be back-tracked to a much longer chain of decisions. The value of only the hours put in this much longer process is worth thinking about.
Anything with great value needs to be managed. In this case the branding and communication that a large corporation does to build an attractive brand identity through its vast ecosystem of website data.
But you can’t manage what you can’t see. It has been impossible to analyze large amount of website data from a strategic branding and communication perspective. The good news is that now you can. With Brand XRAI® you can. You can analyze your own company website data as well as your competitors.
#1 Don't think of a website as just a website
Think of it as a long-term branding and communication platform. Think of it as thousands* of micro-stories that should ad up to a limited number of macro-stories reflecting the strategic brand and message platforms.
For most large companies the branding and communication website data is brand and communication leaders blind spot. It has been impossible to automatically analyze large amount of website data from a branding and communication perspective. Until now. With the help of AI-technologies it is possible. With Brand XRAI® it is possible. And we have already done it for some of the world’s leading companies.
*large corporation website eco-systems