What does your brand’s welcome mat say?

From the moment clients, customers and employees step through your door, their experience should live up to the one your brand and its products portray to the outside world.

If you’ve been reading here often or perusing our site, you’ve probably noticed that we care a lot about defining, building and projecting brands to be absorbed, spotted or considered by chosen audiences. That leads to initial sales, repeat purchases and having a strong presence in market. And that’s great for the big picture. But there’s another particularly important brand element that has a giant impact on business: the work environment.

More specifically, we’re talking about businesses that fall somewhere between retail and industrial / manufacturing work. These are companies that have an office or a workshop that welcomes customers to learn about products, meet to discuss services or get training on a relevant skill. Perhaps it’s a small workspace, studio or warehouse. A service center or a classroom. It could be a wholesale outlet, repair or specialty sales demo set up—anywhere that a buyer of goods and services could experience your brand when they visit. You get the idea.

So, with this narrowed business set in mind, let’s specify what we mean by “experience your brand”.

We’re not suggesting an experiential tactic to get people to buy more stuff or share on social media. What we are talking about is “impression”. The kind of first impression that your space—and time spent in your space—leaves with visitors.

So to start, let’s consider the broader reasoning behind creating an experience via your environment—aligning the look, vibe, interactions, whatever you want to call it—so that every visit feels relevant to the wider brand.

Reason 1: It strengthens customer satisfaction through interaction.

If the purpose of branding is to build a consistent impression that gives your business or product an advantage, what better way to do that than with in-person interaction? It’s where you get to live up to your brand promise in person, and where that accumulated opinion gets tested: pass or fail.

Reason 2: It bolsters your marketing initiatives.

Getting attention to create a brand impression is great, but expensive. Media, advertising, the constant push to create relevant social media content, direct mail, sponsorships...it’s all labor intensive, and labor costs money. However, if you own (or, let’s face it, rent) the environment where your customers/clients interact with “you as the product” then there’s a great opportunity to manage the experience and ensure it’s a positive one in addition to—and beyond—your marketing efforts.

Reason 3: It activates employees.

Coming back to that thought regarding “interaction”: What about your staff? What do they think of getting up each day and toiling for their dollars? Does your company just offer a wage, or does the business carry meaning? Are they proud of what they are helping to build? Create a positive, daily interaction for them in their work environment with the brand and they’ll be the brand, delivering the right customer experience, day in and day out—even when you’re not there.

Makes sense right? Now make it work for your space.

In your space, you have control. Yes, there are limitations to your budget and what your landlord may allow you to revamp, but that’s entirely fine. Whatever you do simply needs to be resonant with your advertising and marketing efforts, not duplicate them full force. 

This is where a fully formulated brand position and brand character are handy things to lean on. Start with “what are we trying to exude?” and work from an elemental perspective. 

Here’s a very limited example: If you’re spending all kinds of marketing dollars to convince the world how innovative your products / services are, that in-person experience should feel fresh and innovative as well. Your offices need to have a notable vibe that feels like the same company portrayed in your advertising and marketing. Nothing over the top, but enough to register with the majority of visitors that different ideas happen here. They should leave thinking “This is a different kind of people, people that I want helping me. I trust that they have unique perspectives and offer something I can’t do on my own.”

From execution to experience—it’s all in the details.

When digging in to make decisions, here are some areas that we like to focus on that help to balance design and humanity:

Envision the personal interactions. Are key staff members or team leads accessible or out of the way? Accessible is welcoming and transparent. On the other hand, a long hike to arrive at their office may be taken as a sign of begrudging service.

Find your flow. The arrival and departure flow of a business can also speak volumes. It can be inviting and thankful, simple and to the point, or comfortable and extended. What approach to timing and tone is going to speak best to your clients?

Don’t forget your employees’ view. Back to an earlier point about employees; how do they arrive and depart? What is the ritual (consistent steps) they go through to begin their day? Is it collegial, mind clearing, restorative or energizing? How does the brand invigorate and inspire them to actively participate in bettering the company each day?

Consider fixed vs. flexible design. Shifting to design, with finite resources, establish what is off limits to change, and what can be changed reasonably. Taking out walls and adding three floors is likely out of the question, but what about changing the light fixtures and bulbs to get the right look and tone of temperature to the room? Lighting has an incredible effect on mood and sets the pace for what a room should be used for. 

Then think about what can be done with added materials, colors, textures, graphics or signage to infuse some of those visual brand cues into your space to bridge what the customer has seen in your marketing efforts with what they’re experiencing in person. 

Leave yourself options. One important thing to keep in mind as you consider redesigning your space—make choices that could work when you reset the space year-to-year in order to keep things fresh for frequent visitors and employees, or a shift in brand marketing approach. Swapping out artwork/graphics, repainting walls or rearranging furniture has the effect of an instant makeover. 

Spread the effort evenly. Lastly, play your cards steady. Don’t put all your effort at the front of the house and leave the back a brand wasteland of leftover furniture and beige walls. It all counts since the brand audience is both customer and employee.

While this isn’t a post about management strategy, if you’re making an effort to infuse your environment with the essence of your brand, we need to cover the idea of letting everyone (staff, support, employees, team members) in on the goal. This is an opportunity to cover basic things like expectations of cleanliness and attitude while linking them closely to your brand. You’re giving your team the inside scoop—giving them your trust—to be part of branding beyond your logo. You’re inviting them to strategize, participate and create the customer experience as it applies to their role. Go ahead and talk about what the brand means, talk about how that can be interpreted. If you keep it simple, and keep it easy, they’ll run with it.

Which leads us to the big, important questions:

How much of your brand do you think is experienced at your place of business? Does it match the overall positioning, marketing and voice portrayed elsewhere? 

Or is there no experience whatsoever?

When was the last time you updated or refreshed some of the décor to fit your current brand? Even something as simple as a new coat of paint or rearranging the office furniture can completely change the experience.

Finally, if this is all feeling daunting, we get it. Branding goes well beyond a logo or tagline, and creating a holistic brand experience from your product or service all the way down to your place of business is a lot to handle when you’ve got a business to run. This is what we love doing, and what makes us a key collaborator in helping you think through your opportunities and figure out how to reach your brand goals. Give us a shout, we’ll make a whole experience of it.