Your brand is key to telling the world what you do and why you are different from the rest.
Developing a brand identity is obviously important, but keeping your message consistent in everything you do is key to maintaining trust with your customers.
What is your brand?
A brand isn’t just your USP and core values; it is also your logo, tone of voice, typeface, colour palette and style. It is the personality of the business and what sets you apart from your competitors.
Keeping everything in sync
The key to success is to perfectly align your message and your visuals to reinforce your business identity. Having a consistent message and look goes a long way to boosting brand awareness with your customers.
Consistency helps brands feel more dependable. Mixed messages will affect customers’ ability to ‘depend’ on the brand’s message. It also helps build trust and loyalty; to trust someone, you have to know them well, so clearly defining your brand is key.
Customers will remain loyal to a brand if they fully understand and appreciate what the brand has to offer. It takes time and repetition for customers to transition from brand awareness, to brand advocacy, i.e. trusting it enough to buy into it.
This doesn’t mean that every advert you place, newsletter you send or presentation you prepare has to look identical, but there should be a few key themes in sync.
If you get your on-brand message consistent, customers are more likely to recognise your brand in advertising or artwork, before they even see a logo. This is known as brand recognition, or the point at which a brand has provided consumers with a consistent visual or auditory learning experience.
Simple ways to stay on brand
- Your brand should be reinforced through every means of communication, from letter headers, email signatures, business cards, websites and social media. Your logo and style should be everywhere.
- If you have updated your logo several times and still have multiple ones in use, make sure you are just using one. Your employees should do likewise.
- Think about what your colour palette is – are there a couple of colours in your logo that you can feature in other design work?
- Pick a font and font size, and stick with it with all written materials.
These simple steps will help you go a long way to boost brand consistency.
For large companies, or if you outsource some of our design and marketing work, it might be worth drawing up a set of brand guidelines that all employees, departments, and suppliers can keep in sync to keep the brand message consistent.
For help with your brand strategy call us today on 01939 211115 or email info@marblespr.co.uk.
