Brand consistency is about keeping the brand image the same and continuing this through the journey of the business. Whether you introduce new marketing strategies, launch new services or products or adapt to trends, the business still needs to remain identical.
Having consistency in your brand is vital, as this provides customers and followers on social media awareness of what the business does, along with creating connections to the audience you are reaching out to. A story about the brand should be formed by the company to tell customers or potential customers what the brand stands for. Customers or potential customers should understand the brand and create a journey to encourage them to purchase the business products and services.
Advantages of keeping a strong, consistent brand
Brand recognition. If your brand is changing features like fonts, images, themes and messaging, then it can be difficult for customers to distinguish what your brand is. Having consistency provides a purpose for what you are doing and what you provide.
Brand reliability. Reliability is defined as the quality of being trustworthy or of performing consistently well. Providing a trustworthy presence that performs consistently through the business assets and features such as logo, values of the business and communications. This also includes a consistent performance from the team that works for the business.
Brand Trust. Brand consistency goes further than providing the same logo and messaging and repeating this time and time again on your posts, website, merchandise, etc. It’s more about the understanding of the business and providing connections to the audience you are attracting to form a relationship with the customer and the business brand. People pull towards a brand that they feel content with and have a positive memory of rather than a changing, uncertain brand. A reliable, trustworthy brand means that customers receive a great customer service experience. Customers trust the brand because they know that they’ll get what they want when they need it. This results in repeat business, and customers recommend the brand to others.
Having an established background for the basis of the brand provides the business with a foundation to build on.
How to maintain your brand consistency.
Brand strategy is key and building this for the future is vital for a business to grow. Giving customers a familiar brand but not being outdated and working with marketing trends is a method to build a strong brand.
Analyzing the brand includes looking at the business, such as its website, communications, social media accounts and appearance. Do all these reflect your values? Does it clearly explain what you do? Do they reflect what the business stands for? What is the audience saying about the brand and can they recognize you easily from your marketing content and campaigns?
Audience, are you attracting the right target audience? What are they looking for? Are you delivering this in a clear, consistent way via your branding? Who is your audience? The language the brand is using; is this matching your assets? Is your audience connecting with your messaging? All these questions need to be clearly defined and set out.
Brand guidelines are very important in establishing a strong base and a set of guidelines needs to be looked at. Be consistent with:
• Fonts
• Colors
• Values
• Purpose
• Marketing campaigns
• Themes
• How the logo is displayed on the website, social media, printed material, etc.
All these guidelines need to be followed by the team so everyone knows what is expected and what will be implemented with marketing, sales, customer experience and values.
Having consistency in your brand is vital…
Communications within the team of your company need to be followed by the branding guidelines, communications with a strategic plan and forming a clear understanding of what the brand is all about. Documenting these guidelines and having regular meetings so communication across the team on the branding is reinforced and consistent.
Brand consistency can be difficult but defining the above points and spending time on these is time well spent in creating a strong brand that will grow and be successful.
This article was written by Katie Bateman of FranchiseShow247 and was first published in Pillars of Franchising Magazine here
