Brand consistency is important in building trust and recognition. To maintain brand consistency, you must remain on-brand across marketing channels and in everything that you do as a brand. More consistency brings you more recognition and trust among customers and potential customers. Here we share 4 things you can do to ensure that your organization maintains brand consistency.
How to Establish and Maintain Brand Consistency
Brand identity is so important in building brand recognition and trust with consumers. Once you have your brand nailed down, you must now remain consistent. This consistency should be present in what your brand values are, how it appears in ads and other materials, and its voice. When your brand voice, messaging, color palette, and visual style are consistent across all marketing channels people will know your brand and what you stand for.
Pepsi brings to mind the colors blue and red. Say Chick-fi-la and the red and white bag with the chicken on the front pops into your head. And when you hear Macy’s, you see the red star they use in all their marketing. All these brands use these colors and logos on everything they offer to the public. It’s on their social media sites, their company websites, and anything else they use for marketing.
Create Your Branding Guide
When you want everything that has to do with your brand to be consistent, you need a branding guide. This guide will guide you, and everyone in the organization, with what they need to know what should be used in messaging and marketing. Your guide should include your company’s vision, the style and tone of your brand voice, color palettes, typography and fonts, graphic styles, and formatting.
When including your style and voice you’ll be taking your brand and translating its personality. What traits do you want to come across? Do you want to appear warm, knowledgeable, funny, or relatable?
Your color palette should consist of a dominant color that will be used in all materials along with a few complementary colors. Choose colors that embody your brand identity. Decide how you want your logo to be displayed and any color variations that are allowed. Set the rules for what images are appropriate for your brand.
Choose a primary font for all marketing materials. Then choose a secondary typeface that will be used for titles, captions, and paragraphs. Your copy will need to maintain the same voice as your main message. For example, define the punctuation that should be used, and whether industry jargon should be used.
Build a visual identity by using your branding guide. Now that you have your logo, color palette, fonts, and more defined it should be easy. Build your visual identity by using them across all channels and marketing materials.
Identify your Vision and Values
Decide who your business is going to be. When you know what you stand for and who you are as a brand, your customers will know. When they understand your vision, they will connect to it and respect it. Think about a few words, taglines, and terminology to use across your brand that communicates those values and your vision. Remember to tie this in with your visual choices and messaging. They should also reflect your vision and values.
Identify Your Audience and Solidify Your Message
Your brand should be conveyed in your messaging. Determine who your target audience is and what that audience needs to hear to trust your brand enough to commit. Understand that you aren’t trying to appeal to everyone, just this audience.
Will they respond to light-hearted messaging? Do they need a more professional tone? How do you want them to feel when engaging with your business? Once you know your message and how to convey it to your target audience you are on your way to creating brand recognition and trust.
No matter where your messaging appears, make sure you keep your message aligned with your brand. Stand by your posts and offers. Every action, message, blog, or social media post should be done with your brand messaging in mind.
Get the Entire Team Involved
What’s the point of doing all of this if not everyone is on the same page? Your team should know your values, message, and why all of this is important. This helps to keep the same face across the entire company.
Building brand recognition is as simple as maintaining brand consistency. This will help your target audience to feel that they know and trust your brand. Using the same messaging and visual elements can help you build rapport with them. By following these tactics, you can maintain your consistency, increase your brand value, and maintain a positive brand image in the eyes of your customers and prospects.
