Branding with Purpose: How to Align Your Brand with a Greater Mission and Impact
Written by Krista Walters
A purpose-driven brand is a sustainable brand. Without purpose, it can be nearly impossible to maintain a consistent sense of brand identity—and achieving that all-important quality of authenticity can become even more challenging than usual.
By weaving purpose, intention, and a code of values into your brand package, you create a much higher potential for striking deep connections with consumers. You also make it easier for yourself to follow a clear path or mission to pave the way forward, expediting your path to success.
So what does it mean to brand with purpose?
Branding with purpose means understanding and communicating the why behind your product or service.
With consumers feeling jaded and cynical about the state of globalization and rampant capitalism, brands that motivate with purpose and meaningful engagement are likely to stand out.
However, aligning your business with a greater mission and imbuing a sense of purpose into your brand identity can be a challenge. That’s why we’ve put together these six actionable steps to put you on the right track. Read on to refine your brand’s mission!
CONSIDER YOUR BRAND’S CORE VALUES
If you’re feeling lost as to how to align your brand with a greater purpose, start with its core values. A brand’s core values are its set of ethics, beliefs, and attitudes regarding production, distribution, management, and vision.
Understanding your brand’s core values can help point you in the right direction for strategizing a mission. For instance, if you have identified that compassionate community empowerment is fundamental to your brand’s core values, you might consider developing products, plans, or services for the future that involve community upliftment projects.
Developing a clearer idea of your brand’s core values will also deepen your emotional connection to it and create more space for consumers to attach more meaning to your business – both of which are big wins.
WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE YOU
Another great way to infuse more purpose and meaning into your brand is to surround yourself with people who inspire you and empower you to pursue things that truly matter.
If your team places priority, purpose, and authenticity as part of your greater brand mission, it will be much easier to enact campaigns and projects that align with those sentiments.
Although building up a strong, intentionally curated team can take time, it is well worth it for the kind of impact it will have on not only internal productivity but also long-term audience relationships and connections.
COLLABORATE WITH BRANDS WHOSE PURPOSE ALIGNS WITH YOURS
Brand collaborations are beneficial on a number of levels. But one of the biggest ways in which it can be advantageous is that it helps your brand develop a public association with other, like-minded brands who share the same ethics and goals as you.
Of course, protecting your business and maintaining your own unique sense of brand identity and purpose should always be a priority. But there’s nothing wrong with working alongside other brands to bring important matters to light while growing and enhancing your brand’s legacy.
FOCUS ON YOUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE
When it comes to aligning your brand with a greater mission and having a greater impact on audiences, you’ve got to have a little thing called follow-through. People want to know that you not only have a vision for the future but that you’ll act on it, too.
Consider what actions you can take both now and later on down the pipeline that will get people inspired by your work and excited to see what unfolds next.
Look at the long-term goals of your business and determine whether they are in alignment with the beliefs and mission that you preach. The more consistency consumers perceive between your talk and your walk, the more likely your brand is to have an emotional impact on them.
ASK FOR FEEDBACK FROM YOUR CLIENTS AND PEERS
If you’re struggling to identify what exact role or purpose your brand fulfills in the world, you might benefit from getting an external perspective.
It may be true that brand creators understand their business and its unique purpose in a way that nobody else does. However, sometimes even the most astute brand creators struggle to think laterally about the “why” behind their business’ core values. It’s a bit of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” situation, and it makes branding with purpose tough.
If you can identify with that lack of clarity, it might be a good time to reach out to others who engage with your brand in other ways. This will help you gain a broader and more contextual perspective on what your purpose is and how you can align your brand accordingly.
Ask people to fill in surveys and offer feedback and advice on your website, product portfolio, or social media accounts. You can also talk to friends and family, peers, and colleagues that you trust—anyone who is familiar enough with the brand to offer a relevant opinion but removed enough from it that their opinion might offer something fresh or different from your own. This can add more dimension to your plan of purpose.
STAY TRUE TO THE HEART OF YOUR BRAND
Once you have developed a clear idea of what your brand’s purpose is, you will be met with the honorable challenge of committing to it. Establishing a purpose and value system for your brand is much easier in theory than it is in practice, and sticking to your guns in real life won’t always be easy.
Throughout your brand’s lifetime, you’ll be occasionally presented with situations where you might have to choose between profit and purpose. Sometimes, the latter won’t necessarily be the easy choice, no matter how much you resonate with it on a personal and professional level.
However, with enough consistency and dedication to the “why” behind your “what”, you can create an empire that is every bit as productive and profitable as it is purpose-driven.
AN ONGOING BRAND JOURNEY
Learning how to align your brand with a genuine and original purpose is a journey, not a destination. You don’t need to have every part of your brand’s purpose figured out right now. But you do need to have a good idea of what it represents and how to convey it to consumers.
With these tips for branding with purpose, you can take a more targeted approach and cultivate a better emotional connection with audiences across the board. Now is your chance!