Your brand is the collective perception people have about it. Your brand is shaped by everything from the way you use social media to the scent of soap used in the locker rooms.
Controlling your brand is about influencing the way people think and feel when they interact with your club. Do you want prospects to perceive your club as high-end, results-focused, family-friendly, efficient, fun, or effective? Should members feel relaxed, energized, focused, supported or something else entirely?
These are all questions best answered by considering your mission statement. This is the core of your brand strategy: where do you want your business to go and how can your interaction with the public reflect that? Your brand strategy should reflect your business as it is today and where you want it to be in the future.
Every potential point of interaction with your club must be considered an opportunity to reinforce your brand strategy.
Once the high-level strategy of your brand has been defined, the next important step is to define the tactical details of how it should be implemented.
Establishing clear Brand Guidelines ensures your Brand Strategy is not contaminated, especially when working with external partners. Specifics about what can and cannot be done must be simply and clearly defined.
One particularly critical way to control how people perceive your club is by having high-quality photography of your facility. Professional photos are an impactful way to showcase who you are in marketing material. With poor quality photos, people can't see the true quality you present.
But keep in mind, focusing on the high-level strategy is more important than obsessing over fonts and accent colors. Spend time prescribing the tone and message style of your club first, dial in the details second.
Dedicate a team or person to become your Keeper of the Brand. Ideally, a single designer or agency is responsible to ensure all collateral advances the Brand Strategy. Without a single review-point, you run the risk of producing disjointed efforts.
Maintaining your club’s brand is not a complicated process when the intention is clear, and the established rules are followed.
