Turn the Spotlight on Brand Messaging

Brand Messaging has been on the tips of our tongues for some time now. A widespread effort is commonly evident in outside branding efforts, but for attracting new employees to your team or retaining current residents, is your brand message immediately apparent and consistent?

Your culture, the lifeblood of your brand message, should be one of the key benefits to living in your community and certainly a primary draw for employee acquisition or retention!

Proofreaders Welcome

I recently encountered a renewal template being used in a high-end community, printed off with handwritten form fields to notify a current resident of the option to renew with an $800 increase! (sadly, no typo!) #FormLetterFail

While many residents or prospective residents may never notice a typo or grammatical error, those that do are sure to be let down by this lack of professionalism. Newsletters, flyers and craigslist posts should be checked and double-checked to ensure the message is error-free.

Two heads are better than one, so don't go this alone. It's always best to bounce ideas for improved content flow with someone else. The forms used to communicate any type of information to residents is a great place to start. If you are using form letters/templates when was the last time you reviewed those while considering your company culture. Even when the content is on target and it is free from typos, it's also imperative to provide crisp, clean, easy to read copies rather than ones that have been over-copied and hard to read.

Tips for proofing content is to review your material line by line and beginning to end; however, if you are checking for typos, review out your document from right to left.

Consistency is Key to alignment

In terms of spreading a consistent message from the inside out, consider your employee handbooks and policy/procedure manuals. Do the policies read as if your legal team created them or are they in the voice of the Executive team? Do they sound like your culture feels to team members? While it is important to have the reference material for new hires and readily available if a question arises, when your message gets blurry, it is hard to keep everyone moving in the same forward direction!

Times have changed and with such emphasis on building culture, it is critical that your message is consistent and reviewed, if not updated regularly.

Total alignment comes from consistent branding!