Importance of Brand Consistency
Brand consistency builds trust and helps customers remember your business. This is crucial to your company’s continued success. In order to create brand consistency, messaging must be consistent across all platforms including social media, websites, blog posts, in-person interactions, and marketing materials. The more consistent your company’s messaging, the better your brand will be received.
While many companies are tempted to let multiple employees handle communications with customers, it’s important to set a standard for brand consistency. Each staff member probably has his or her own idea about what your company’s message should be. These mixed messages might be passed on to your customers unintentionally. Unfortunately, this can cause confusion and reduces the chance that your brand will be remembered. By setting clear standards for brand consistency, you lay the foundation for success.
The goal is to make people think of your business the moment they see your brand. This is achieved by providing a consistent message in everything you do. By providing your customers with consistency, you increase trust in your brand.
Consistent branding provides your customers with an opportunity to get to know you as an organization. Consistency eliminates brand confusion and provides customers with an honest impression of your business. Once customers know your business, they’ll feel more comfortable purchasing your products and recommended your company to their friends and family.
Brand consistency starts with careful planning. Once guidelines are set, these are communicated with employees so that everyone understands your company’s branding message. This message is then communicated with customers consistently through every interaction. The following steps can help your organization develop and improve its brand consistency.
Develop Guidelines
Setting brand guidelines ensures that your company’s messaging is consistent and aligned with your company’s vision and mission. These guidelines must be clearly communicated to both your marketing department and your employees.
Brand guidelines are a set of rules about how your company will portray your brand. Every piece of information that is provided about your business should include the key elements identified in these guidelines.
Brand guidelines map out how branding assets such as your logo, fonts, colors, and tagline should be used. Guidelines should be clear and easy to understand. They should include examples of how to and how not to use your branding assets.
Developing brand guidelines is just as important for small companies as it is for large corporations. These guidelines provide the foundation for your messaging.
By thinking carefully and deliberately about your brand, you can shape how people view your organization. Consistency makes people feel safe. It indicates professionalism, purpose, and stability.
Examine Internal Branding and Corporate Culture
It’s not enough to create a message for your customers. This message will get lost if your employees don’t know how to properly communicate it. Simply providing staff with rules about branding is not an effective solution.
It’s important to get employees involved through brand-centric corporate-culture building initiatives. If possible, a designated marketing leader should be placed in charge of this effort. This should be an individual who has a complete and thorough understanding of your company’s branding message. Once your employees share this understanding, they will be able to deliver your message more consistently to your customers.
Create Content That Delivers Your Message Consistently
When creating content for your company such as blog posts, marketing emails, and printed advertisements, it’s important to make sure that your branding message is consistent. The more consistent your message, the more likely your customers and potential customers will remember your brand.
When using logos, these should be original copies, not stretched out or pixelated versions of the original. Make sure that your marketing team and staff responsible for communicating with customers has access to original files.
Create social media cover photos and provide document templates for your employees to use. This will ensure consistent branding across all communications. When creating blog posts or other content for your business, it’s important to ensure that topics are consistent with your brand’s mission and goals.
Share your experiences and offline efforts with your audience. If your product received an award or if your company presented at a trade show, this is the type of information you should be sharing with your audience. Post content about your experiences in your blog and on social media. Being recognized as an industry leader is an important part of growing your brand.
It can be tempting to follow along with the most recent trends, but it’s important to make sure that you only participate in online marketing platforms that align with your brand. It doesn’t matter if everyone you know is using Facebook. If it doesn’t make sense for your business, then you shouldn’t be there. Evaluate your business and its goals before determining which platforms will provide the greatest benefit.
Keep in mind that your brand is meant only for your intended audience. This is typically a specific segment of a market. These are the people that value what your organization does and cares about the promises you make.
Conversion Pipeline provides digital marketing campaigns for businesses across a wide range of industries. Our services are designed to provide businesses with the tools needed for growth and success. We work directly with our clients to determine a marketing strategy that meets their unique needs and requirements. Please contact us for more information about how we can help your company create a consistent branding message.