How Your Company Culture Affects Your Marketing
“Dare Greatly.”
It’s a simple quote from Teddy Roosevelt that hangs on the wall in the Metacake offices. It inspires us to roll up our sleeves and get to work. It gives us the courage and motivation to get up and go again after we fail.
This quote personifies the Metacake company culture. It shines through in everything we do.
We’re big believers in marketing that reflects the company culture because the goal of marketing is to create an emotional connection. It’s your brand’s engagement mechanism. If your marketing doesn’t reflect your company culture, your authenticity is lacking.
Are What You Say and Who You Are the Same Thing?
Suppose you make a statement in your marketing about putting the customer first. Sounds great, but is that reflected in everything your company does? Is a customer-centric focus a core value that every employee seeks to live up to every day? Or is it simply a marketing cliché that you think customers like to hear?
Ultimately, your marketing should flow from who you are as a company, not the other way around.
If you don’t respond to tweets from customers, you’re not putting the customer first. If it takes you three days to respond to a customer question submitted through an online form, you’re not putting the customer first…so don’t say that you do.
Whatever you say in your marketing, you sure as hell better back it up.
Marketing creates an expectation. When you fail to live up to that expectation, it’s tough to recover from the disappointment you’ve created. Marketing can seriously backfire when you make promises you can’t keep or portray yourself as something you’re not. Stay true to your brand.
How BMW Aligns Culture and Marketing
BMW is a great example of a company whose marketing reflects its values and culture. BMW claims to make only one thing – the Ultimate Driving Machine. To some, that may sound arrogant.
However, when you watch documentaries about how BMW operates, and get behind the wheel of one of their cars, you can tell that the commitment to building the ultimate driving machine shines through at every level of their business.
The end product lives up to the expectation they’ve created.
Your marketing should flow out of your culture and core brand values. This is how you build long lasting relationships with audience and turn them into loyal customers.
As long as you’re honest with your audience about who you are and what you will deliver, you won’t disappoint.
