In many organizations, the marketing department is responsible for developing and maintaining a strong brand identity, and by extension, the experience external parties have with that brand. But delivering a great brand experience doesn’t rest squarely on the marketing team’s shoulders—every department is responsible for upholding a consistent image across every customer touchpoint, but they may not always know the best ways to do that.
For marketing leaders, it’s important to help colleagues in tech, product, sales and other departments understand and abide by a unified set of guidelines. Here, the members of Forbes Communications Council share some key steps you can take to ensure your whole company is delivering the best version of your brand experience.
“Create a brand control plane: one identity-governed source of truth for approved messages, claims, assets and usage rights, integrated into CMS, CRM and ad tools so teams pull the same, provenance-backed content by default. Pair it with clear decision rights (who can publish and approve) and a monthly cross-functional review of exceptions and metrics. The result is one story, everywhere—faster, safer and audit-ready.” – Hope Frank, Gathid
1. Set The Play And Make It Easy To Follow
Marketing leads by setting the play and making it easy! When updates happen, we share the news and explain the “why.” We give every team clear, accessible tools and language. One easy voice rule is to write like you talk. Don’t get fluffy. Say “use,” not “utilize.” Teams now catch themselves slipping into “corporate-speak overload,” laugh at themselves and fix it fast! – Dee Blohm, Anteriad
2. Curate An Accessible Brand Guidelines Document
The marketing team needs to curate a brand guidelines document that is accessible and available to all relevant teams. This helps ensure consistency in the brand experience through visuals like fonts and colors, but it can also provide specific messaging points. Furthermore, a good partnership and relationship between marketing and other functions is crucial. Trust and support go a long way. – Lyndsi Stevens, Celerium
3. Adopt A Model Of Decentralized Creation With Centralized Review
Adopt a federated brand model: decentralized creation, centralized review. Equip teams with brand guidelines, assets and templates. Then, route deliverables through a Marketing Center of Excellence—the clearinghouse for production and QA and QC—for a “Marketing-Reviewed” tag. Departments retain final approval. Outputs stay consistent, on-brand and close the last three feet with the intended audiences. – Rob Robinson, HaystackID
4. Start With Brand Storytelling
We start with brand storytelling on day one. I designed and currently lead an onboarding session that dives into our history, values and voice, turning facts into an engaging and shared narrative. It created emotional buy-in and brand clarity, so every team—from sales to design to operations—reflects our brand. The training delivers a unified team that embodies the spirit of the company for success. – Regina Key, Destination Concepts inc
5. Map Out The Full Customer Experience And Journey
Marketing should always map out a full customer experience, from website engagement to the first sales conversation, to a product demo, to the closing, the implementation phase and how customer success handles it thereafter. When you map out the full journey, you can often identify gaps where the brand experience breaks down or feels disconnected. – Shirin Ali, CMiC
6. Have Other Teams Co-Create Shared Guardrails
Marketing isn’t the owner of the brand; it’s the steward. Brand lives in every touchpoint: product design, sales conversations and customer support. A key step is creating shared guardrails that everyone can use, not just marketing. When teams co-create those principles and see themselves in them, the brand stops being a siloed function and becomes a companywide habit. – Paula Mantle, Branch
7. Create And Maintain A Messaging Playbook
Company positioning—a messaging playbook—is important to ensure sales, product and any team dealing with business externally is using the latest language. Messaging must be kept current and updated for new product launches and business developments. The marketing team can work with business functions to ensure messaging is adapted for various functional needs. – Sheryl Seitz, C4 Ventures
8. Help Each Department Understand The Brand's Essence And Impact
Ensure every department understands the brand’s essence and its impact on customers to foster alignment and purpose. Provide clear guidelines and KPIs tailored to each team’s role, making expectations easy to grasp. Craft a cohesive story that connects the brand to every department, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. In the end, simplicity and clarity drive a unified brand experience. – Natalia Kowalczyk, The CXOnsiglieri Company
9. Translate Abstract Brand Principles Into Practical Scenarios
Brand experience is a shared responsibility. A crucial key step marketers should take is to facilitate regular, cross-functional brand and messaging workshops. The goal is to translate abstract brand principles into practical, everyday scenarios for each department. This works because it breaks down departmental silos and turns the brand from a static document into a living, unified practice. – Patrick Ward, NanoGlobals
10. Ask Questions And Integrate Client Feedback
No one better understands your client experience than your clients. With intentional partnership and a commitment to a unified experience across marketing, sales and product, leaders have the influence to impact the brand across touchpoints. Be relentless about asking questions and integrating feedback on systems and processes. Do not let your company set and forget the reason why clients choose you. – Kelsey Brewer, McGuire Sponsel
11. Act As The Conductor Of The Orchestra
Your marketing team needs to consider itself the conductor of the orchestra. Every department is an instrument that can play well on its own, but marketing’s role is to keep everyone in sync so they’re playing the same tune. Without a conductor, you risk different songs conflicting and leaving customers confused. When the songs are orchestrated well, customers will feel your experience is seamless. – Melanie Draheim, Fox Communities Credit Union
12. Lean Into Your Brand Archetype To Deliver Clarity
Unified brand experiences start with clarity. The 12 brand archetypes exist because all cultures share recurring characters (hero, lover, ruler and so on). Our brains process only about five pieces of information effortlessly and subconsciously, so brands must fit one archetype to feel intuitive and trustworthy. That subconscious clarity drives alignment, trust and sales. – Christina Mendel, ChristinaMendel.com
13. Get Invited To Every Table Where Ideas Are Talked About
It’s important to make sure you have a seat at all the tables in your business where ideas are being talked about. And to ensure you get invites to those tables, you need to be collaborative, innovative and helpful. Separately, it’s important to get as far ahead as possible when new ideas are discussed, so that your marketing team can make the most impact on what the unified brand experience is. – Layla Kasha, Grocery Outlet
14. Embed Brand Alignment Into Everyday Workflows
A key step is to embed brand alignment into everyday workflows, rather than treating it as a one-off training. Marketing can create simple, shareable tools, such as message checklists or quick brand “health checks,” that other departments use before launching projects. This makes brand consistency part of the process, not just the polish at the end. – Katie Jewett, UPRAISE Marketing + Public Relations
15. Make A Shared Brand Framework Part Of Cross-Functional Training
Marketing can lead by creating a shared brand framework with clear messaging, tone and values that every department can align with. A key step is embedding this framework into cross-functional training and workflows, so whether it’s sales, product or customer service, all touchpoints consistently reflect the same brand promise. Our brand is our culture, so instilling brand values is critical. – Kurt Allen, Notre Dame de Namur University
16. Build One Clear, Shared Narrative That Each Department Can Own
A marketing team leads by being the keeper of clarity. It’s not just campaigns—it’s culture. The key is building one shared narrative that every department can own. When product, sales and service are aligned to the same story, the brand feels whole. Start by defining that story together, then live it in every touchpoint. – Joshua Stratton, Against The Current
17. Create An Identity-Governed 'Source Of Truth' With Clear Decision Rights
Create a brand control plane: one identity-governed source of truth for approved messages, claims, assets and usage rights, integrated into CMS, CRM and ad tools so teams pull the same, provenance-backed content by default. Pair it with clear decision rights (who can publish and approve) and a monthly cross-functional review of exceptions and metrics. The result is one story, everywhere—faster, safer and audit-ready. – Hope Frank, Gathid | Gathered Identities
18. Internally Communicate The Brand Experience You're Trying To Achieve
The first step in delivering a unified brand experience is to communicate internally the brand experience that the team is trying to achieve. Then, provide resources so other teams can help implement any changes. Lastly, do audits or reviews with different teams to see where different areas might be falling short and find ways to lift them up. – Tom Treanor, Oculus Strategies
