With Valentine’s Day coming and romantic gestures being shown, why not show your brand some love? For many business owners, the topic of “branding” is often emotionally charged and bypassed at sometimes detrimental costs. However, it’s ALL about brand consistency. I mean, I get it. A brand identity may be seen as an extension of your core identity and therefore, an attempt to reassess it is akin to me critiquing you. That being said, just because something brings up strong reactions, we shouldn’t avoid it. Doing that risks too much for you and your business’ long-term success.
Below are 3 ways to ensure your branding is consistent and clearly communicates your company’s culture, vision, and values.
3 Steps for Brand Consistency
1. Approach Branding Holistically
One of the most significant things business owners should understand is that “branding” encompasses more than just creating a logo. Doing so helps a company see how its identity is reflected across multiple customer touchpoints and strive for brand consistency. Ultimately, this reaffirms your company’s core values and can increase brand recognition and customer loyalty.
Think of branding as how you convey a company’s story via copy, aesthetics, photography style and treatment, and more.
2. Focus on These Key Areas
Successful branding for a business requires considerable self-reflection before trying to market itself to consumers. To draw from the romantic relationship world, understanding what you as an individual stand for and want from life is essential to having a healthy, meaningful connection with another person. Not only does it allow you to minimize the chances of ending up with the wrong person (or customers), it also provides you with a core identity that holds true in good and bad times. The same logic applies to companies and their marketing efforts.
Areas that you should define with regards to branding are:
Company Identity
- Values
- Personality
- Mission
Visual Elements
- Typography
- Color palette
- Photo/video filters
Written Elements
- Tone of voice
- Key phrases/words
- Emojis
3. Apply Consistently Across Mediums
Once you’ve defined who your company is as a brand, the outcomes of this thought exercise can be repurposed in a company style guide. Many clients Duckpin works with signed on without one in-place, but deciding to invest in one helped create consistency across marketing mediums, such as social media profiles, a website, print collaterals, packaging, and others. A great example of how this was done can be seen in our Vim & Victor case study.
Why does this matter? Consistent branding on all of your business’ owned communication/marketing channels does the following:
- Signals to the customer that they know what they’re getting, whether it’s a tangible product or a service
- Helps to reinforce your business’ identity via multiple communication formats and distinguish you from competition
- Over time, makes it instantly identifiable to consumers and something that becomes a status symbol to their networks
Ready to get to work on enhancing your branding? Here’s an infographic summarizing these 3 steps and perfect for hanging up in the office.