A company’s ability to sustain long term growth and customer loyalty is usually attributed to the strength of a company’s brand. But defining what a brand is can be difficult. I think defining your brand as your company’s purpose helps pin point exactly what it is, and gives you a way to improve it.

A strong sense of purpose, the definitive statement about the difference they are trying to make in the world, is what helps brands and businesses succeed (I wrote an ebook about it).

It makes sense because a brand and a purpose share all the same qualities. They aren’t the product, the logo, packaging or trademarks and the neither the purpose or brand is another word for marketing. Brands and purpose are not tangible.

The purpose and brand reside inside the customers’ mind. They got into the customers mind through their experiences with your product, service, or organization. It is a feeling. People donʼt buy the product, they buy the way the buying process makes them feel. The way you feel when you buy is the brand, that brand is the purpose.

Branding is not solely a marketing function. It’s an organizational function. In one way or another, every person in your organization contributes to shaping your customers’ experiences with your brand — even if they don’t face the customer. The best way to unify every action towards customers is through purpose.  There are not enough rules and enough time in the day to explain to each employee what they should do in every possible circumstance with a customer. In this environment employees need to know purpose. With purpose they have a basis to know how to react to every customer question and how to know what they should do in every business circumstance.

Integration, or consistency of message is very important to a brand, to ensure that the visual identity of the brand is consistently expressed throughout all mediums. Focusing on purpose allows the company to not only focus on integration, but to create opportunities to deliver multiple dimensions of that purpose. The purpose unifies all interactions with the brand. Look at all the ways the customer interacts with the brand and find the highly influential areas like store environment, product design, customer service or environmental practices that affect how the brand is perceived and inject them with purpose.

Not only is your purpose and brand taught to customers at every touch point, purpose is increasingly important for brands to compete online due to online price transparency. Click through rate in a paid search ad has a lot more to do with a prospects understanding of a company’s brand and purpose than a great call to action. Search Engine Optimization grows when your brand is seen as the authoritative source. Customers who identify themselves with the purpose of the company will improve conversion rate faster than website optimization will.