Brand consistency means consistently delivering the same message that aligns with your brand’s identity and values. Therefore, you consistently target your audience to the same core messages making your business instantly recognizable while also building customer trust.
In this blog, we’ll discuss various reasons why consistent branding is important for your business.
What is Consistent Branding?
Brand consistency means maintaining communication and positioning your messages in line with the values and other elements that make up your business identity.
As you develop your business image, you need consistency across all actions, including tone of voice, slogans, and graphic elements. You must also coherently apply the company’s values in campaigns.
Any variations in these prevent your audience from clearly understanding your brand. Therefore, branding consistency refers to visual and aural elements.
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Benefits of Consistent Branding
The most critical benefits of consistent branding include the following:Brand Recognition
Every company wants to have instant recognition. Therefore, that is the most palpable reason for having brand consistency because it makes your business personally recognizable to your target audience and sets it apart from your competitors. For example, when you hear or read “just do it” or “I’m lovin’ it”, you likely know that these companies are Nike and McDonalds.Builds Trust and Loyalty
With brand consistency, your business builds trust and loyalty with consumers by triggering the right emotions. According to research, 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, making them emotional choices. Therefore, when your message stays consistent, your customers feel like they know your business well, persuading them to buy. Additionally, when they know what to expect, their loyalty increases.They Feel Connected
Another benefit of consistency is that it triggers positive emotions in your target audience, which they begin to associate with your brand. The more connected consumers feel, the more they purchase, and loyalty increases.Set Your Brand Apart
In a highly competitive and saturated market, brand consistency helps set your brand apart from the rest. Even when companies offer similar products at the same prices, those that have consistent branding stand out more thanks to brand recognition, customer trust, feeling connected, and loyalty.Tips for Creating a Consistent Brand as a Startup
Inconsistent branding does not only happen to startups, small businesses, and novices. Even larger companies with marketing departments sometimes lose their way, especially when implementing a new image refresh. Large conglomerates like GAP, Coca-Cola, and Colgate have also stumbled along the way.
Therefore, it’s important to remember your vision constantly and follow these tips:
1. Always Remember Your Branding Guidelines
Your branding guidelines must guide you and anyone else in your business responsible for communicating your message.
Your brand guidelines must include the following:
- Why you chose your company name
- Your mission statement and values
- Your logo and tagline
- The typeface, font, and layout style
- Primary and secondary colour palettes
- Images and photography
- The tone of voice and copy style
Reflect these in all your content, including your brand’s story, buyer personas, social media posts, etc. Then, make the guidelines easily accessible and update them with any changes.
2. Remember Visual Elements
Your visual elements must remain consistent across all your marketing materials. Therefore, don’t forget to use them in your email communications and banner ads, and make it easy to customize everything by having these assets readily available.
Sometimes, you may want to change these visual assets, but remember that the business core identity has to remain the same.
3. You Don’t Always Have to Keep Up with Trends
Marketing trends do change, and it’s good to keep up with the evolution, but you don’t always have to implement something new each time. Of course, you don’t want an outdated look, but being cool at the moment does not always pay off in the long run.
Remember the power of a timeless image and only implement changes that meet your company’s unique branding. When change is required, rather look to the creative elements like colour palette, logo design, and fonts, but consistency and core values must remain your chief goals.
4. Make Brand Fitting Content Across All Channels
Social media channels can help you establish brand consistency because you can share several elements that fit your brand voice. For example, use wording, images, and videos that tell your audience your story, and use the same strategy when responding to comments and reviews.
5. Understand Your Audience
No company should start building a brand without understanding user personas. You must understand your niche, the market, or the audience to help you connect with them as quickly as possible. The biggest mistake some businesses make is that they try and connect with everybody.
When you know who you are chatting with, creating the message you want to convey and building your brand personality becomes easier. Then, you can use it to make all your marketing and branding materials. You likely wouldn’t talk to an older audience the same way you’d talk to a young audience.
6. Choose Your Connections Well
As a business, you may connect or partner with another company to help your marketing efforts. However, attaching yourself to the wrong brands can lead to confusion about your brand identity or brand promise. Find someone within your niche who is a popular and positive influence for the best results! For example, if you create and sell video games, you could try partnering with a Twitch or YouTube streamer who plays games.
7. Always Plan Ahead
Branding consistency requires maintaining regular audience engagement. Inconsistency can lead to a loss of interest in your company and distrust. Therefore, you need to organize yourself with a content creation and posting calendar to ensure that you give your customers the updates they crave.
What Happens when Brands don’t Follow Brand Consistency?
The most obvious problem with not following brand consistency is confusion. If your customers don’t know what you stand for, how will they trust you to provide the right solution to their problems? Therefore, you cannot keep changing your values if you want to continue maintaining the trust you have built.
You create impressions with your branding, marketing materials, and website; even the slightest brand inconsistency can create distrust. Remember that everything, including your chosen colours, voice, image style, logo, and typography, must remain consistent across all your marketing channels.
Let Bold Solutionz Create Consistent Branding
When you don’t have a design team to help guide you, watching for inconsistencies in your branding becomes more challenging. At Bold Solutionz, we ensure you never deviate from your branding message. Instead, we build your brand guidelines according to the base of your brand and follow them consistently across all your content and social media. Our team is ready to help!
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