Brand Strategy Consulting

brandMatters reviews, evaluates and develops greater brand loyalty through a series of steps that begins with a comprehensive brand assessment. From there, brandMatters will help you define and focus on your core customer; establish your brand "promise" and a uniform voice; and build loyalty through a variety of innovative techniques.

“Karen McSteen helped us create a master brand strategy that more effectively organizes our product offering, communicates the breadth and scope of our services, and helps our customers better understand our company. She has brought new rigor to our business development process and challenged us to apply our branding commitment through every department in our company. Unlike other branding experts we interviewed, Karen ‘got’ our company from the first introductory conversations we had together. Her perception, keen observation skills, and sensitivity to our company's culture and values made brandMatters the right partner in building our brand strategy.”
Grant Davies, Chief Executive Officer
Teaching Strategies

Meeting Facilitation and Creative Ideation Sessions

brandMatters designs and delivers engaging interactive sessions that bring key stakeholders together to participate in carefully choreographed exercises designed to elicit the best ideas from the people who are most vested in your company's success. These lively sessions can be used for strategic planning, to generate positioning possibilities and brand cues or to develop solutions to a specific idea or problem. The unique design and customization of these creative working sessions ensures that you get the best out of all participants.

Strategic Planning

brandMatters leads your team in developing a business strategy that supports both your business objectives and your brand. Services include corporate strategy, long-term planning and individual department plans. brandMatters gathers input from key stakeholders, conducts competitive analyses and facilitates interactive sessions to draw critical insights that will inform the development of the right plan for your business. To ensure traction and accountability, we incorporate specific action planning and follow-up steps into every plan.

"Karen McSteen has been instrumental in helping our senior leadership and Board define our priorities and strategic direction. She has transformed our Board meetings into participative, results-oriented sessions that keep moving the organization in a very positive direction. Her inclusive style has earned the respect and commitment of staff and volunteer leaders alike."
Roger Dow, President and Chief Executive Officer
U.S. Travel Association

Strategic Problem Solving

At times, organizations are challenged by a specific issue that would benefit from a focused, objective perspective. brandMatters applies a combination of strategic tools to gather insights, assess the situation, identify root cause issues, make recommendations and put effective solutions in place -- tools that are based on best practices honed by more than 25 years of experience in management and leadership roles.

Personal Branding

Each and every one of us is a brand. Just like companies, we need to develop and nurture our brands. Using real-life case studies and a three-step process, brandMatters facilitates personal branding workshops where participants learn to apply brand development principles - just like companies do - to define their own personal brand. Workshop participants leave with a complete set of tools to put their personal brand plan into action. One-on-one personal brand coaching is also available.

In addition to delivering personal branding workshops around the country, brandMatters President Karen McSteen teaches personal branding as a faculty member of Shambaugh's Women in Leadership and Learning Program. This program serves women executives from an elite cohort of companies, including Sprint, Intelsat, MedImmune and Microsoft.

"Karen McSteen brings her deep knowledge of brand strategy to the most individual, personal level. Using clear language and real stories, she demonstrates not only what personal branding is but also provides participants with actionable tools that they can put into practice immediately. Karen's expertise and open, approachable style makes her an integral part of the Women in Leadership and Learning Program for Shambaugh."
Rebecca Shambaugh, President
Shambaugh
Author, It's Not a Glass Ceiling It's a Sticky Floor

Customized Brand Education Workshops

"Living your brand" should be a key element of your business strategy. What systems do you have to protect and even grow the value of your brand, especially when your brand is delivered by many different people? brandMatters designs and delivers energetic and engaging workshops to ensure that everyone in your organization is on the same page.

Comments from recent workshop participants:

"I am very inspired to make improvements."

"You gave me valuable information to help my business succeed."

"The exercises were focused, well structured, progressive and a good working example of branding principles."

"You kept my interest and attention. It was fast paced and informative."

"I learned so much about branding and how to do it that I will continue the process immediately."

"I like that I know how to apply the principles right away."

brandMatters Institute

Learn how to grow your business by maximizing your brand value and optimizing the delivery of your product or service. To accommodate the specific needs of your organization, brandMatters Institute offers both an off-site track and an on-site track. Designed for small- and medium-sized businesses, the off-site track is offered twice a year and is open to a limited number of participants. For larger organizations, the Institute also offers a one-day, intensive on-site program that brings together corporate management teams across departments. Both tracks include pre-meeting customer service data, a tailored brand management strategy, and action steps to track success. See brandMatters Institute.