Brand consistency involves presenting the same experience and messages across all your marketing platforms over time. Not only is this important for building your company into a recognizable entity—it also helps build and maintain consumer trust and loyalty.
confuses customers, reduces trust and hampers brand awareness because it’s harder for consumers to identify you.
Maintaining brand consistency doesn’t have to be a challenge. By setting up the right guidelines from the start, you can ensure your company stays on brand all the time. Here are some tips.
1: Develop a style guide
It’s hard to maintain brand consistency without having a record of what your brand should present to the world. Whether you’ve just launched your brand or you’re
rebranding, take the time to develop an in-depth guide to lead your branding efforts.
A brand style guide contains rules that dictate how your brand looks, sounds and acts in all consumer-facing communications. This guide should include everything from the most recent logos your team should use to the specific colors and fonts associated with your brand, as well as an overview of your brand’s voice and tone, art direction and mission.
Members of your marketing and communications teams should refer to this document for every message or campaign to ensure they follow the same consistent guidelines.
2: Keep your internal team updated
It’s normal for brands to experience minor changes to stay fresh, such as updating a logo. Make a point to implement the change right away across all platforms, so no one platform falls behind.
After you make these changes, make sure you update the style guide and inform or train your internal team, so everyone is on the same page. Employee buy-in to your branding is essential in ensuring the company provides a consistent experience at all consumer touch-points.
3: Brand marketing channels the same way
Most companies today have multiple marketing channels, including their website, social media platforms, mobile app and email newsletter. Make sure all of these platforms use the same branded styles outlined by the style guide. Your logo shouldn’t be different across social platforms, nor should you use different color schemes.
In a similar vein, try to simplify your URLs and social media handles. It’s not always possible to make them exactly the same, but get them as close as you can, so customers can search and find you easily.
4: Communicate guidelines to creative partners
If you choose to
work with a creative agency
to outsource some of your content, make sure you share your style guide with them, too! A creative agency is unlikely to know the specifics of your branding guidelines. Without them, they might create content that doesn’t fit with your brand’s look or messaging, requiring you to scrap it and start over or put out a message that’s inconsistent with your other content.
Building and maintaining a consistent brand is extremely important in developing customer relationships, trust and loyalty. The more consistent your brand, the more memorable and recognizable you will be down the road.
If your team needs help developing a consistent brand strategy to take your company to the next level,
say hello
to the team at Spin Creative!
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
