BRAND CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT TO GET YOU NOTICED

Why Consistent Branding Is Important (and How to Establish Your Brand)

When starting a business, people often get caught up on what they believe are the most important parts of a brand. They obsess over the name, colors, and logo for their business, spending time and money making multiple logo iterations. But, they typically miss the fact that there is a lot more to branding than the visual assets. Focusing on the core elements of a brand and how consumers perceive your brand will ensure brand consistency even if you choose to change your colors or logo down the road.

Brand consistency can be hard to establish, but it's important to focus on it from the get-go. If not, you could have to start over from scratch and lose the momentum you've gained in the meantime. In order to create brand consistency, you need to determine what matters to your business and the feelings you want to invoke in your customers. Find a few key emotional elements to establish as the base of your brand, then build off of them over time.

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Impact of inconsistent brand usage

When you're building a brand, the last thing you want to do is confuse the market. Those people could be your perfect customers: ones that drive your business's bottom line and deliver great ROI on your branding efforts.

However, not using a consistent approach to your brand could limit your chances to generate leads or sales. That's because people buy from brands they connect with, and brands which feel authentic.

It's hard to connect with a brand that doesn't have a consistent appearance.

Source: lucidpress.com

How to Audit Your Brand for Consistency

The first step in ensuring a consistent brand experience is to take stock of where your brand is now .

A brand audit can be a simple, in-house assessment, or an in-depth evaluation conducted by an outside firm. If you're thinking of conducting your own brand audit, we recommend taking the following steps:

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1. Set branding guidelines for your company

Branding guidelines include details about your tone of voice, preferred professional terms and general code of conduct. Every business should have one, no matter their stage in the journey to perfect branding.

But once you've created them, don't let them slip.

While 85% of organizations have brand guidelines, only30% are consistently enforced... hence why these companies aren't seeing results. [ ] Not only does this mean time creating them is wasted, but staff might not understand your true brand, which will make it hard to stick to.

Treat these guidelines like the core of your entire branding activity. It's a central document that all members of staff should use when creating marketing materials or representing your company.

Source: lucidpress.com

2. Audience research

Each business has a unique audience. And different audiences (age, sex, income, etc.) want different things. A brand identity that would work for teenagers will likely fail with senior citizens. Visual design that would be pleasing to college students may not be appropriate for pre-teens. To create a brand people love, you have to understand your specific target audience and what it wants from your business. Audience research helps you generate audience insights about these issues.

3. Value proposition & competition research

Why is your business unique, and what is your unique value proposition? If you don't know the difference between your business and your competition, you will struggle to develop a strong brand.

Competitive analysis can strengthen your marketing strategy and brand strategy and can help you build a strong brand identity.

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4. Consistency builds recognition

Brand recognition is a powerful asset, as you can see from Coca-Cola's example. However, what happens when you change the design of your product incorrectly?

Look no further than one of the most important lessons in the entire history of graphic design. In 2009, juice-selling giant Tropicana went through a significant brand redesign.

This mistake cost the company over $137,000,000 on an estimate and a staggering 20% decrease in sales for their product Tropicana Pure Premium.

Source: mightyfinedesign.co

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5. You Can Shape Customer Perception

Controlling brand consistency also means that a business has control over how people perceive their brand. Customer perception is all about how a customer feels when they think about a brand. Brand consistency allows businesses to mold that perception into a clear and concise message that is positive.

6. Businesses can embrace that consistency throughout the buyer journey.

Marketing messages that build off of each other are stronger because they are able to tell a story. Plus, when there is an unspoken customer perception that is understood by everyone in the room, an ad has to say less to convey a message.

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7. Think wider than your website

Did you know that the average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 10-20%? You could see a huge uplift in revenue if you're always referring back to brand guidelines not just for your website.

Many businesses assume that a logo and a website are enough to put the cherry on the branding cake. They think a simple website theme is enough to give a great customer experience, but that couldn't be further than the truth.

That's because every stage in your customer experience should be branded in order to maintain consistency. So, think about the typical journey that your customer has. That might be:

Found your site on social media Visited your website Subscribed to your email list Purchased from you ...But if your branding isn't consistent across the first three platforms, a purchase is unlikely to happen. Remember how we said people buy from brands they feel connected with?

On social media, it's easy to just rattle off a series of posts to make it look like you've been doing it for years. But remember: all communications need to be consistent. Consumers are savvy if there's an out-of-place tweet that doesn't fit your brand, it'll stand out like a sore thumb.

People will wonder what is going on if you don't have a consistent voice. They won't know the team behind your company (or trust them), leading to asked questions and cash spent elsewhere.

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8. Monitor your brand to maintain its brand identity.

Similar to other aspects of your marketing, it's difficult to know what you're doing right (and what you're not) without tracking key performance metrics. Use Google Analytics, surveys, comments, social media discussions, etc., to monitor your brand and get a sense of how people talk about and interact with you. This will give you the opportunity to implement changes to your brand as needed, whether it's to correct a mistake or to improve brand identity.

Creating a memorable brand requires consistent use of type, color, images, and language, but it's worth it. When consumers instantly recognize who you are and what you stand for all based on a logo, you've become more than just a name and a symbol.

Source: blog.hubspot.com