Brand identity for your internal brand

Brand identity is the distinct visual and emotional way an organisation wants to be perceived. This includes the look and message of a logo, tone of voice, any text that is used in print or digital marketing and the style of imagery. When done effectively and consistently, it will build trust and positive brand recognition. To customers and potential customers, this is your external brand.

It is also very important for company employees to have a positive connection to the brand that they work with everyday, the internal brand. Therefore implementing internal branding into your company is a great way to evoke positivity amongst your team.

Internal brand communications will reinforce the understanding that your team have of your brand, it’s values and vision. Keeping your team on the same page with their understanding is a great morale booster too. They’re also more likely to promote the external brand and share company information on social media or by active referrals.

How we can develop your internal brand

Building your internal brand is a creative process that starts with developing visual concepts around the brand strategy. Through ‘creative huddles’ we seek to understand what you are wanting your brand to achieve and how your team could engage with it. Therefore it is great to include team members in the process, to capture their ideas and feedback, whilst helping them to feel involved and motivated to promote the company.

Internal brand design process

At Systematic we recommend developing a phased approach to internal brand implementation. Here’s an example of what that could be:

Phase 1 – Strategy and identity

Through research develop an internal brand strategy, design a unique identity and create supporting images/graphics that support the external brand.

Phase 2 – Brand guidelines

Developed detailed brand guidelines that implements the strategy, identity, design elements and do’s and don’ts of the internal brand, useful for sharing with team members and anyone involved in marketing and promoting the company.

Phase 3 – Implementation

This involves creating the supporting marketing elements that your team will engage and interact with. These could include: explainer videos/animations, internal wall graphics, supporting print/digital marketing materials, intranet graphics, promotional gifts, internal email graphics, etc.

Phase 4 – Longevity

For the internal branding to be a long term success, it’s a good idea for managers and leaders to think about ways to encourage employees to continually support the internal brand and business goals. This could involve creating staff rewards and incentives, developing internal campaigns, competitions and activities to encourage extra social sharing or being more of a brand ambassador.

Here’s some businesses we have helped on their internal brandSummary

Whether you are a small business or a large global enterprise, it’s important that you team are unified in their understanding of your vision and mission and connection to your brand. Having an internal branding strategy can encourage your team to elevate your external brand to new heights of engagement.