How to Nail Brand Consistency Across the Board
How to Nail Brand Consistency Across the Board
When it comes to building your brand and gaining customer loyalty, brand consistency is key.
It provides a way for the public to recognize and bond with your identity. And brand consistency helps to create and maintain a lasting professional image and relationship that resonates with your audience.
According to Forbes, a widely trusted leading news source in the business industry, “It is the consistent, desired experience that builds trust and trust is the foundation for loyalty and promotion”.
As multiple marketing channels continue to emerge and evolve, companies must meet new challenges if they are to maintain a competitive, professional image.
The most effective marketing strategies are those that practice brand consistency across the board.
If your brand lacks consistency, you may not be reaching your maximum potential.
Read on to find out how to build a brand that drives lasting consumer connections and lends to your long-term success!
The Recipe for Effective Brand Consistency
First, you need to grasp the fundamentals of creating consistency. This is not only important for your own understanding, but it will help you to establish a critical point of reference and convey the message to employees.
Why Building a Consistent Brand Matters
Here are a few reasons that a consistent branding strategy is vital to the identity of your business:
Conveys Authenticity and Builds Trust
Staying true to your brand’s image shows consumers that you are a stable force and that you’re confident in who you are and what you provide. Consumers are more likely to trust a brand that does not change over time according to the ebb and flow of passing trends.
Provides Clarity and Simplicity For You and Your Audience
An unchanging branding strategy keeps it simple for you and speaks a clear message to your audience.
Establishes Professionalism
Brands that project a professional image lead the competition over brands that appear to follow fads and lack composure.
Guides the Direction of Your Company
A consistent brand works as an internal point of reference as to who your company is and what you aim to represent.
Motivates Consumers to Emotionally Connect
Your brand and its history can evoke an emotional connection with consumers, which leads to increased loyalty and spending.
Where to Start
When formulating a branding strategy, it’s important that you lay a strong foundation. Creating a guide that outlines important factors relevant to your reputation and the image you want to project is a good starting point.
Suggested contents for your guide include:
- A Clearly Defined Mission
- Your Logo’s Design and Colors
- The Message You Want Your Logo to Convey
- Specifics Regarding Usage, Graphics, Fonts, and Color
- Guidelines on Personal Branding vs Business Brand
Once you have established a guide, then you need to make sure to equip your employees and departments with a copy of it so that everyone is on the same page.
Update Marketing Outlets and Materials
If you are creating a new logo or updating an existing one, your next step is to make sure that all of your marketing channels match up.
This includes revisiting business letterhead and in-print materials, social media accounts, your website design, and anywhere else your image is used to make sure that all sources brand consistency is in agreement.
The rise of social media creates an onslaught of brand images and messages in users daily feeds. And, your brand should take into consideration the impact that social media marketing plays in consumer approval.
Many brands have realized that their original logo may have worked fine for other marketing mediums, but have found that it isn’t effective across social media.
If this includes you, that’s a good indication that it’s time for an update.
Creating a Brand that’s Consistent Across Social Media
Social media is a huge force in today’s marketing arena, which means that it requires consideration for branding success. Your brand needs to be socially savvy if you want it to be shared, liked and followed.
Check out these social media statistics regarding the impact that brands have on consumer behavior:
71% of people are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that they follow on social media.
63% of consumers who perform online searches are likely to like or follow a brand on social media whose social media account information is listed.
58% of facebook account holders have liked a brand.
41% of social media account owners have shared a link, video or story about a particular brand.
These statistics prove that not only is your brand’s image shared and promoted through social media, but it also has carries the power to impact consumer buying decisions.
This is why creating brand consistency across social media, as well as other formats, is vital to brand recognition, visibility and your relation to potential customers.
Tips for Tweaking Your Social Media Strategy
The influx of platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin, Tumblr, and YouTube have created multiple easy marketing opportunities for businesses. But, if your brand is not producing shareable images, content, videos or infographics then you are not likely to get the potential benefits that these platforms offer.
Use your logo to identify your content, website, and other links so that customers can clearly relate it to you. Make sure that your logo stands out by using clean lines, clear, easy to read font, appropriate colors, and a classic style.
Remember to keep brand consistency in mind when designing your logo. A logo should be simple and authentic, and should accurately represent the professional image you’re after.
Also, try to use catchy, sharable content headlines, accompanied by original, optimized images whenever possible.
If you share videos, aim for emotion evoking messages that are easily relatable or create a climactic narrative, memorable song lyrics, or are otherwise attention-grabbing.
These are most likely to be shared. And when your content and logo are shared, your brand will get more visibility, increased rankings, and an enlarged audience.
Keeping your brand consistency intact in all marketing mediums is crucial to getting the consumer attention that you crave.
Examples of Brands that are Nailing it
When you are contemplating your branding strategy, look to those who have gone before you and succeeded with nailing brand consistency across the board.
The most recognized and endeared brands are those tried and true stand-outs that we all can name instantly.
Coca-Cola remains a major top-notch brand and has managed to stay authentic while making small adjustments to suit the times. They have the largest following of 89 million on the ever-popular Facebook.
As for the other leading social media platforms, Red Bull is a major force among YouTube viewers, and Nike is a favorite on Instagram feeds, according to an infographic from business2community news.
Take a look at some of the common strategies among these brands: primary colors, classic, unwavering designed logos, and realistic depictions of who they are and what they represent.
Coca-Cola’s traditional red and white logo flows freely. The Nike “swoosh” appears ready for the activewear and shoes that the brand is famously known for.
Red Bull has a strong and energetic image that is associated with its lift in a can.
Their brand consistency resonates with audiences of all ages, demographics, and generations.
Tips to Make Your Brand Consistent Everywhere
Your brand consistency should extend beyond logo and web design, but it also needs to be able to naturally transition to the outside world, where you might encounter presentations and sales opportunities.
To create consistency in all areas of marketing, remember these three gold standards.
1. Know Who You Are
Understanding who you are, what you offer, and who your audience is will help you stay close to the brand behind these all-important components that make up your message.
2. Document What Branding Success Looks Like
Once you have experimented in multiple marketing arenas, create a presentation system that documents what works best. This can then be circulated company-wide to use as a point of reference among the various formats and marketing opportunities as a guidebook.
3. Value Authenticity Above All Else
No matter what, make sure that you don’t stray from your principles to please certain groups or follow fads. Even if it looks like this might be an easy way to get ahead in an immediate situation, it will hurt your brand in the long run. Your audience will grow to appreciate that you can be counted on to stay true to your original purpose.
Need Help Designing Your Perfect Brand?
If you are ready to get started, we can help you design the perfect branding strategy for your logo, brochure, and more.
Check out our site for marketing advice that will make sure you nail brand consistency and gain consumer respect and attention today!