How Company Culture Influences Your Brand Story
Strong brands are authentic, so how you portray your company on the outside should be reflected on the inside as well.
For example, if your brand platform centers around themes like ethics, compassion, and inclusivity, your internal practices should be ethical and inclusive as well.
With marketing and influencing practices more transparent than ever, this not only ensures that your brand is honest and authentic for its customers but that you are creating a mindful and empathetic company culture that respects and values individual identity, personal boundaries, teamwork, integrity, and good communication.
When your internal practices show that your employees matter just as much as your customers, you can run more efficient and productive teams.
Essentially, if your employees are happy, healthy, and respected, your business will naturally flourish. And a quality internal culture ensures quality and genuine public-facing brand identity.
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Aligning an External Brand Identity With Internal Culture
The key to running a successful business is to align your company’s internal practices with your external brand story. You want to build a culture to support and match your brand.
Without a clear set of values and vision guiding your internal practices, it’s easy for purpose and goals to get muddled and lost. If you want everyone happy and on the same page, you have to align your vision and principles with your practices.
If you aren’t sure what your company values are, you should work to identify them. What kind of brand are you?
Are you an innovative brand—valuing experimentation, creativity, and improvement?
A service brand—valuing empathy, care, and humility?
Or perhaps you are a performance brand that values achievement, excellence, and consistency.
There are countless brand types and values, and knowing what yours are will help you build a better and healthier company culture.
Once you identify your values, you will need to start using them to guide all of your internal operations and practices to align your culture with your brand identity. Ways to do this are through:
- Training: Your company values and brand identity should be introduced to new employees from the start. The entirety of the onboarding and training process should involve reviewing and understanding the vision, values, and principles that your company lives by.
- Leadership: To continually use your values and brand identity to drive your business, those in leadership positions must embody these values and use them to guide what they do and say when interacting with employees. They must set an example for everyone else to follow.
If they aren’t embodying your company philosophy, why should anyone else? One way to ensure management staff is doing this is by ensuring they have also gone through the necessary training and have the right education and background to fulfill their leadership role.
- Communication: Good communication is also key to having a superior company culture. Let your values guide you in how you speak with and interact with others. No one is perfect. There are good days and bad days. But if your staff and employees attempt to keep your values in mind when communicating with one another, it will go a long way towards creating a healthier and more respectful company culture.
- Engagement: Continually finding ways to keep your employees engaged is also important to improving employee experiences and promoting a productive and healthy company culture. Using your values to create engaging experiences is especially important these days if you have teams working remotely. Companies that use guiding principles and values to engage their staff outperform those that do not.
How An Ethical Brand Story Can Benefit Your Business
Your brand identity is essentially the platform that supports your company. It is the foundation on which you rest, and it should guide you in all that you do.
Having a solid brand platform is what makes up your brand story. But it doesn’t simply help to have a brand identity; you must use it as a guide or a tool for all internal and external operations.
Your marketing, human resources, workflows, leadership, and communications should all operate with your values and brand identity in mind. And it is especially important to make ethical practices a part of these values and your brand identity.
A business that rests on a set of morals is crucial to satisfying both your customers and your staff. Companies that instill ethical practices and values into their company culture and brand identity can benefit from:
- Increased productivity
- Customer loyalty
- A more positive and impactful brand image
- Innovation and new opportunities
Conclusion
Your company culture doesn’t just affect your brand story; it is a part of it. Every single aspect of your company and how it is run makes up your brand story. And businesses that run and live by a clear set of values and ethical practices are more likely to successfully market those values than those that don’t.
Your brand’s guiding principles should be woven into your day-to-day practices. A company that values honesty and integrity and creates a balanced, healthy, and respectful company culture will promote a more positive brand image to the public and will experience greater success.
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Hi Luke, Anthony,
Thanks for this very important post on company culture! Often the very core elements of a brand story, like the mission, vision, and values don’t get the focus they deserve. It is hard because these seem like very vague concepts. But once these are in place, they form the fundamentals that everything about the company rests on, including the culture. And when everyone in the company is aligned on these core principles, then all the cogs of the brand and company wheel can work together towards growth.
It’s all about alignment. Great point, Poulomi. It’s something many businesses miss out on. I also see a lot of businesses draft up a mission or vision, but it’s more of a marketing message and doesn’t really mesh with the true culture of the organization. You have to be real and create a brand story that’s legit and truly embodies your business and its people.
Hi Luke,
It was a great post! I agree company cultures have a significant influence on a brand story. I think these tips will definitely help several business owners work on their company culture and reap benefits in their business. Thanks a lot for sharing this, it was a great read, and I will definitely be sharing this within my network hopefully I can help some business owners on my list. Thanks a lot for sharing this.
Thanks for reading, John. Company culture is super important indeed.
Hi Luke,
Your article is valuable as we live and do business in a multicultural environment. Stories manifest our values and actions, and that’s why storytelling in business is one of the most reliable resources for content marketers. For instance, if you plan to alter the culture and lead change, you have to determine and modify the brand stories you tell. The difference between overwhelming profitable marketing messages and what you or your team feel about the culture is evidenced in your brand stories.
Thank you for sharing, Luke, and thanks for publishing, Anthony!?
Great points, Moss. When you tell the true story of your brand and allow that story to truly permeate your company culture, your messaging comes across more genuine and allows you to connect more effectively with your audience. Thanks for dropping by!
So true, Moss. It transcends marketing and really comes from the heart and soul of the company – the people. It starts from the top down. You build out a team that embodies your culture and embraces your values. That leads to a believable, genuine brand story.