Increase Your Influence and Impact as a Marketing Leader

Champion the importance of brand research for uncovering critical market, competitor, and customer insights to shape the new brand. Because brand research expands scope, timeline, and budget, you’ll need to educate your internal stakeholders on why research-based brands are more successful. Show how the data will result in an effective brand strategy, guide creative execution, and extend beyond the rebrand—informing business development and account management decisions and improving customer and employee experience, just to name a few.

During the brand strategy phase and later throughout execution, use the research-based insights to continually remind your internal team “how we got here,” hold them accountable to already-made decisions, and most importantly, help them separate subjective opinions from strategy-based facts to keep the process moving forward. Make sure internal decision-makers prioritize what’s most important by tying recommendations and deliverables to established business objectives.

Internal buy-in is critical, but you need a strategy for making internal stakeholders’ involvement productive. Determine who needs to participate day to day and who should be brought in only at key project milestones.

Also, determine how each stakeholder group should be involved. For example, asking employees to “vote” on logo designs absent strategic considerations will only undermine your value as a leader. On the other hand, presenting research findings and the new brand strategy in an all-hands meeting will not only position you as a strategic thinker but also ensure everyone understands the rationale behind brand expressions, ultimately leading to increased brand alignment and advocacy.