A quick guide to brand values.
Why write brand values?
Brand values are magical things.
They will make decisions for you.
They’ll filter the opportunities that come to you.
They help you generate new ideas for your brand.
Yes, all of that. Really.
Later in this article you’ll see brand values in action.
How do you write them?
The goal is to get to a core set of words (3–6).
These should articulate precisely what your entity believes in.
Maybe it’s what motivated you to found the company.
Or where the organisation has evolved.
Maybe it’s where you’d like to be in the future.
They will guide your entire organisation,
So it demands decisiveness to articulate them.
But you should feel satisfied afterwards;
happy to read the words that represent you.
How to use them?
In the three paragraphs below, you’ll see a value and some ideas that I managed to pull out of it.
It’s a taster of how useful values can be.
Value example #1: ‘human connection’.
Every email should sign off with a real name.
Call people more than you email them.
Host events that bring people together.
Train your staff to listen well and speak kindly.
Value example #2 ‘forward-thinking’.
Nothing on your website should be out-of-date.
Your interfaces should be beautiful and easy-to-use.
Create fantastic, robust systems and processes to improve customer experience.
Embody future technologies.
Take Bitcoin as payment.
Value example #3 ‘loyalty’.
Learn your customers names.
Have a scheme to reward people who stay with you.
Respect the old more than the new.
Design all your spaces as welcoming and comfortable.
Closing thoughts
Brand values can be more than just words on a wall to brag about.
They can impact and guide your business in full.
By articulating and living by values, customers see you as congruent, confident, and decisive.
Which is all good stuff.
I’m a brand strategist focused on helping companies speak simpler, clearer, better. If you’d like your brand to connect better to people, get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.
