Your Brand's Most Important Advocate: YOU!
Jennifer Fisher Clay is a government affairs professional and public engagement expert with 15+ years of experience in social impact, advocacy, strategic partnerships and creative economies.
Empowering your Brand to Drive Impact
In a world brimming with emerging brands where needs are vast, championing your brand stands as a crucial skill. At the Fisher Clay Group, we usher forward the voices of underrepresented creatives empowering them with the tools to become their best advocate. Whether advocating for financial resources to expand your clothing brand, or tax incentives to encourage more sustainable practices, the ability to effectively articulate your brand value as well as your needs is a strategic imperative for success.
Understanding Advocacy
While advocacy can take on many forms, the resounding theme is perfecting the ask - mastering the ability to understand value and assert needs to achieve optimal results. It involves brand awareness, clear communication, and thoughtful collaboration to drive impact.
Why Advocacy Matters
Advocating for your brand is a necessity for several reasons:
Influence: By engaging in advocacy, brands have the power to shape decisions that affect their business operations and bottom line. This gives brands an active role in building a more favorable environment to thrive.
Awareness: Advocacy can enhance brand visibility and build awareness for your cause. This is a great opportunity to open doors to new markets and expand business opportunities.
Reputation Management: Reputation management is key. This is an opportunity to promote brand value along with strengths and best practices, while also addressing concerns and needs to make your brand better building public trust.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Advocacy plays a role in fostering a healthy ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship. By advocating for policies that support tax incentives, intellectual property protection, access to capital, brands can stimulate innovation, drive economic growth and create new opportunities for job creation and prosperity.
Equality and Fairness: In advocating for your brand, you add value to a culture of equality and fairness. By asserting your rights, you inspire others to do the same.
Practical Tips for Advocacy
To effectively advocate for your brand, consider the following strategies:
Know your Brand: Self-awareness is the cornerstone of advocacy. Take the time to understand your brand story, values, strengths, weaknesses and needs. This will enable you to communicate your desires more effectively.
Hone your Goals: Have a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve. Identify your swords and shields: what you are willing to fight for and what you need to protect. Having a clear goal in mind (with boundaries) will guide your actions and communication.
Build with Others: Join forces with like-minded brands and others to amplify your voice and maximize impact. Collaborative efforts can broaden support, increase visibility, and enhance the effectiveness of your ask.
Use What You Know: Knowledge is power. Support your ask with compelling data and research. Be able to articulate the economic impact of your brand with success stories and demonstrate the potential impact of your ask.
Develop Thought Leadership: Position your brand as a thought leader in your industry by sharing insights, expertise, and best practices. Contribute articles, participate in panel discussions, and leverage social media platforms to showcase your thought leadership and influence the conversation.
Pack Your Patience: Change doesn’t happen overnight. The road to justice is paved with micro-movements. Count every step as a win and momentum to conquer the next moment. Stay informed, agile and resilient in pursuing your advocacy goals.
Advocating for your brand is a skill worth cultivating. You have the power to shape outcomes, drive change and expand opportunities for your brand and your community. Lean into your value, get real about your weaknesses, and assert your needs. Don’t sleep through the revolution of your brand’s breakthrough, there is success on the other side, but you must speak up.
We’re here to help.