The image above may not define Thomson Reuters in any shape or form, but it was certainly enough for The Washington Post to pounce on it saying, “In refreshing change of pace, company admits it’s not innovative.” 

Managing brand reputation has always played an important role in nurturing your business, but in a world where media is consumed around the clock and perceptions change in a matter of seconds, it has become critical to every company’s bottom line.

What is brand reputation?

Essentially, brand reputation represents the manner in which your brand is perceived by your customers, the general public, and stakeholders alike. 

This includes the customer touchpoints and experiences you create, the way your audience perceives and interacts with your brand, and any other form of communication you share with them.

Your brand reputation directly impacts your credibility and desirability, which can influence more people to explore your products and services. It may be an intangible asset, but it has a tangible impact on your brand value. The brand strategy adopted by Starbucks is a good example of how prioritizing reputation management can drive long-term growth.

Read more: What Starbucks can Teach You About Marketing and Branding Strategy

Now, the Venn diagram goof-up may not have brought Thomson Reuters crashing down, but it’s bound to have set alarm bells ringing all across the branding, marketing, and legal teams at the organization. Because while it has no impact on any of the products or services they offer, it begins to dent the general narrative that surrounds the brand and could influence the flow of new customers to some degree.

Importance of brand reputation

A good brand reputation can help your business in many ways. Here’s why managing your brand reputation with the right Label Management software is essential to your success.

1. Builds trust and credibility

The more people trust your brand, the more likely they are to opt for your products or services in the face of increased competition. 

When you maintain a healthy reputation for your brand, your customer and the general public see a consistent image and one that reflects your values constantly. It becomes easier to place their faith in a consistent voice and personality, which becomes clearer as your brand performance improves.

2. Improves customer loyalty

Everybody has their favorites and these favorites exist for a reason. Consumers pick brands that build a good reputation and stick with those who make the effort to maintain their reputation. 

When your customers see you doing your best to protect your reputation, it is more likely that they would choose you over your competition in the market.

3. Nurtures brand advocacy

A strong reputation encourages more customers to speak for you. When your brand works to protect its reputation in the market, it becomes clear how you’re willing to hold on to your values and everything that differentiates you from your competition.

Your existing customers will want to be associated more openly with your brand, its products, and its services. Customers become ambassadors and more people learn about your brand organically and from sources they can trust.

4. Increases revenue

With growing trust and customer retention, your sales increase gradually over time. Your brand exists in a niche of its own and customers consider their expenditure on your products and services as an investment in your future. 

You will be afforded more freedom to experiment with your products and services and strengthen your identity as a pioneer in the market.

5. Supports crisis management 

A reputed brand can weather most storms. The trust that you’ve built with your customers will ensure your brand identity stays mostly intact in the face of any crisis. You will be backed as you try to navigate complications you will inevitably face along the way.

You will also be able to retain more employees as they would be more willing to stick through the tough times and preserve the brand that they believe in and care for.

How brand asset management software helps protect brand reputation

As we saw with Thomson Reuters and countless other such brand gaffs over the years, managing the content that you create or work with plays a huge role in helping you protect your brand’s reputation. 

As your brand grows, it becomes increasingly important to maintain a single source of truth for your brand. Your teams need a place where they can collaborate with ease and ensure critical feedback reaches the right people working on your branding and marketing campaigns. Most importantly, you need to structure your creative operations effectively with best practices that minimize the possibility of errors in your final output and help your teams deliver better.

This is where a brand asset management software can change the way teams work, while significantly improving customer journeys and the overall brand experience. Here’s how it helps your teams build and protect your brand reputation:

1. Centralize access to brand assets

Today, most brands work with remote or hybrid teams spread wide across the map. For creative teams, this means regularly sharing brand assets remotely with others on your team. It also means maintaining strict guidelines despite the gaps in communication that may crop up along the way.

Brand asset management software plugs these gaps with ease, allowing you to store all your brand assets in a common library with everyone involved in your projects getting access to them. You will be able to organize files as per your requirements, tag and filter them for quick retrieval, and share them both internally and externally. 

Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software also uses artificial intelligence to scan your assets. The platform then adds automatically generated smart tags to help define and sort these assets better. It will also extract colors from these files so you can even filter your assets based on the colors used in these assets. Soon, you will also be able to use Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software to set up your brand guidelines and make sure each of your assets are aligned with your guidelines through the library.

2. Drive transparency and accountability

“Has this design been approved?” 

“Who cleared the Winter collection creatives?” 

“When will the new branding creatives be ready?!”

No more questions. All the answers will be on one platform with a brand asset management software doing all the work for you. With set deadlines and real-time updates on activities, you will know how your projects are doing at any time. 

Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software also generates audit trails that you can use to maintain a detailed record of all activities carried out during any project. E-signatures can be used on approval to add authority to your reviews and a record of this will stay with the project for future reference.

3. Streamline creative collaboration

Creative operations can be complicated, even for smaller teams. So, when you’re working on bigger projects, it can be hard to see them through without an effective structure in place. You will have multiple teams handling different aspects of production, each individual on the team playing their own role in the process. If you’re not able to track the status of the project at any given time, you risk affecting your deadlines and ultimately, the success of your campaigns.

With the right solution for your brand, you will be able to set up creative workflows that suit your teams and their operations. You can assign tasks to folks on your team and automatically notify them when tasks are due. With complete visibility into your workflow, addressing bottlenecks and complications becomes that much easier for project managers.

Artwork Flow’s creative collaboration tools feature a best-in-class workflow visualizer that allows you to build even the most complex workflows with ease. Every asset you work on can be proofed by all the teams involved, with centralized access to comments and annotations. This means disjointed Slack channels and email threads can be a thing of the past even as you complete projects faster. And once your projects are done, files from your project can be found in the asset library, so you don’t have to spend more time looking for the right assets.

4. Eliminate ambiguity with version control

You might name an asset as ‘Final_final_updated_with_changes’ and you still can’t be sure if this is really the latest version. With all the changes that are implemented on your assets during an project, it is natural that you will have multiple versions of your assets being saved in your library.

The solution to this eternal problem lies in a brand asset management software. These platforms allow you to upload your file as many times as you like and you’ll still be able to tell which one is the version you need without any confusion during the process. 

Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software records every version of your assets, allows you to compare and track them visually for any changes, and download the version you need from the library. 

5. Optimize performance with creative intelligence

Protecting your brand’s reputation means you always need to have your finger on the pulse of your audience. Every creative you publish needs to be analyzed constantly to make sure they’re performing well. And if they’re not, you need to find out why.

Creative intelligence is a solution that gives you a detailed analysis of how your creatives are performing and why certain creatives are performing better than others. Everything from the tone of voice used in your copy to the colors that work best for your brand can be understood through creative intelligence, allowing you to tweak your strategy accordingly.

Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software will soon have creative intelligence capabilities that help you understand how your ads are performing online, with detailed analysis on each aspect of your creatives. 

Wrapping up

Maintaining a healthy brand reputation is a constant endeavor, but with the right brand asset management software, you will be able to address it effectively. Your teams will save significant time and effort on a daily basis and your reputation will grow with your audience. 

If you’d like to see how Artwork Flow’s brand asset management software can work for your business, get started with a free trial today or book a quick demo with our experts for a personalized walkthrough.