A Small Business Owner’s Guide to Maintaining Brand Consistency

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Originally Posted On: https://www.onblastblog.com/a-small-business-owners-guide-to-maintaining-brand-consistency/

Brand consistency can increase your business revenue by 33%.

Even though marketers and business owners see the value of brand consistency, they still struggle to create a completely consistent brand experience.

There’s off-brand content, which can detract from the company’s main messages. There are also issues with inconsistent imagery and messaging that can seem all over the map.

There are a few things that you can do to maintain brand consistency throughout your business, whether you run a blog or sell products and services.

Keep reading to learn how to create a consistent brand experience for your customers and learn how it impacts your business.

Do you know what your brand is? Here’s a hint: it’s not your logo.

A brand is the one thing that people think of when they hear your company’s name or see something related to your company. Large corporations have this down to just a few words.

Volvo had a well-known brand known for its safety. Allstate gives people peace of mind. Coca-Cola makes people happy.

As you define your brand, think of how you want people to feel when they think about your company. That emotional connection is the essence of your brand.

As customers move through the buyer’s journey, they interact with your brand in a small way. Each interaction is called a touchpoint.

You want to create a map of each and every possible touchpoint to ensure consistency. These touchpoints will include social media posts, website design, videos, images, and brochures.

It’s easy to forget about personal interactions in the brand experience. A call to customer service, a conversation with your sales rep, and the process to purchase a product online are also customer touchpoints that reflect your brand.

You have to think through every single touchpoint where the customer sees your brand. This is to ensure that each touchpoint is consistent.

Your brand experience really comes from the mission and vision of the company. Many companies forget what they are, why they exist, and who they serve.

As a result, the brand experience is based on whims and what might work to engage people at the moment. That lack of focus is detrimental to the long-term health of the company and the bottom line.

Employees don’t have a clear mission and goal, which can drag down morale. Customers are confused, and they don’t know what they’re going to get. They’ll end up going to a competitor that can provide more certainty.

Take Nike as an example of a mission-centric brand. The mission is to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” The company considers everyone an athlete.

Every ad and social media post that Nike has doesn’t focus on the technology of the latest soccer cleat. It features an ad that inspires soccer players to play better.

Everything else about the company stems from this mission of innovation and inspiration.

You may need to revisit your brand colors to make them aligned with the emotional meaning of your brand. We tend to associate colors with different emotions.

For example, blue is usually associated with stability and security. Yellow and orange are bright colors that convey happiness or playfulness. Red creates a sense of urgency, which is why you see it associated with discount sales.

The imagery across all sites needs to be consistent as well. Think about the imagery that you want to use to convey your brand messages. Nike tends to use a lot of black and white imagery for inspiration.

If your brand is a premium brand, then you may want to use certain filters on social media posts and in display photos.

Typography also has an impact on brand consistency. The fonts that you use can convey a message. A sans serif font is used by modern brands.

You should have a couple of different fonts. This will be most applicable in web design, which will make your site easier to read as well.

As you decide on your typography, imagery, logo design, and what your brand is about, you need to have all of this information in one place. This is your brand book.

A brand book shows everyone in the organization how the brand assets are used. This is necessary if people outside of your company are going to be using your brand.

Apple created this guide for resellers, which documents everything from how the logo should be used to the whitespace around the logo.

Your employees are the embodiment of your brand. You have to make sure that they buy into the mission and vision of the company. You also need to make sure that they understand they are a major part of the brand experience.

Training your employees is necessary to ensure they understand their role in the company. You can also bridge the gap between the work they do and how it helps customers.

That will give them a purpose in their work and the drive to create a better brand experience. You’ll be able to maintain a high level of brand consistency when everyone performs at a high level.

If you want to have a successful business that lasts for years, you need to know what your brand is about. You also have to provide your customers with a consistent brand.

Brand consistency has the power to increase revenue by giving your customers certainty. They know what to expect and they’re willing to pay more for better service and a better overall experience. The most consistent brands remember to align the brand with the mission and vision of the company.

Ready to apply brand consistency to your site? Check out the blog on this site for more tips to grow and market your site.