Your company’s brand sets it apart from competitors and ensures it will be remembered. It is a promise that you make to your customers, and in the end, it is the thing that makes them want to purchase from you again and again.
But despite how simple it may appear, developing a solid brand can be difficult.
As a business owner, you know the importance of branding. Maintaining a consistent level of quality throughout all aspects of your business is essential to gaining recognition in your field and distinguishing yourself from the rest of the pack.
However, what precisely does it mean for a brand to be consistent? What are some of the components that go into the establishment of a recognisable brand? And how can you maintain this level of reliability?
Let’s find out together!
When people think about brands, they often remember the commercials that have run for decades and become part of popular culture. Brands like Coca-Cola or Nike have become iconic because customers love their products and will pay a premium to keep buying them. Long after the commercials have run their course, these brands remain deeply entrenched in consciousness. That’s because they’ve built a strategy to build their brand.
You must have a strategy to build your brand. It’s the core of your business. Unfortunately, most companies don’t have a plan or a vision for how they want their brand to work. They don’t know how to use it, and they don’t know how to promote it.
“A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.” Michael Eisner
Before creating a successful social media marketing plan, you need to brand yourself and your business. You need to know what you want your brand to say about you and what you want it to say about the kind of service that you offer.
A brand is more than a logo or the colour of your website.
People know everything about your business, remember, and associate it with you. It includes the products you sell, how you talk to customers, and your interactions with employees. Your brand involves all these factors, so it’s essential to understand precisely what a brand is before you start building yours.
Have you ever been to a website and noticed poor brand consistency? It’s really annoying. Consistent branding allows companies to connect with their customers, enhancing the customer experience.
Consistency is one of the easiest things to get right. If you have a logo for your business, ensure it’s on your website, email signature, social media profiles, and business cards. If you want to go above and beyond, make sure that some of your core messaging is consistent as well – use phrases like “We believe in blah blah blah” or “We help solve your problems, rather than I fix your problems”.
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” Henry Ford
Consistency is the key to branding. In marketing, consistency is the ability to be recognised and remembered by your target audience. Consistency can be achieved in several ways, such as choosing a colour scheme, logo, style of photography, etc. If a brand is consistent in its messaging and advertising approach, it can make or break them.
Branding gives your business identity (or DNA, so to speak). And, if you’re not consistently branding your business, you may send mixed signals to customers.
Primary branding includes the colours used in branding, the fonts used, and even the logo itself.
More advanced branding means thinking about how your brand is communicated to customers from the moment they begin interacting with your business.
When it comes to brands like Nike, Airbnb, or Amazon, it’s pretty easy to point out which company is which by looking at their branding on social media, their website, or even on a billboard! By using consistency in your business’s branding, your ideal audience will better understand who you are and what you have to offer.
Suppose your branding looks the same as the competition. In that case, it will be hard for customers to know the differences between your companies – even if your products or services have the edge over the competition! If you are redoing your brand, it’s okay to look at the competition for inspiration, but you by no means want to look identical.
“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.” Massimo Vignelli
During this time, you will want to discover what makes your business unique and capitalise on that. It may even be worth bringing in a digital marketing agency to help you with branding.
Have you ever bought a product just because of the brand name associated with the product? We know we have.
Whether a start-up or an enterprise, your brand is one of your most valuable assets. No other business can take your brand away from you, and your unique branding allows potential customers to easily pick your business out in a crowd.
Brand consistency provides customers with comfort and trust in your brand. A consistent brand helps to build a positive reputation and can help you grow faster.
The key to consistency is to focus on just a few elements of your brand. First, think about what makes your brand unique, then narrow that down to three things you want to promote.
Pay attention to how you use these three elements across your marketing channels. This will make it easier for people to recognise your brand, which will drive more business.
Consistency is a crucial component of building a brand. It can feel like a lot of work initially, but it’s worth the effort. The first step to achieving brand consistency is to create a style guide that outlines how you want your content presented and promoted. In addition, your style guide should include addendums for social media and email marketing.
The second step is ensuring each employee knows and understands the guidelines for using your brand identity. The third step is updating your website and social media profiles to align with your style.
The main goal of a brand style guide is to be shared with others. Taking time to create one means ensuring that your brand image stays consistent — even when handled by external parties. A brand style guide should be a succinct, easy-to-read digital document. It begins with the brand’s mission statement and defines the brand’s look and feel, as well as its tone of voice.
In addition, a brand style guide usually includes the following:
Don’t make changes for the sake of change. That’s the point of consistency. Tasteful changes to improve the clarity of expression or add some richness or liveliness are acceptable, but make sure things are not changed without a purpose. Don’t change things to be different.
However, you can keep it flexible. There’s a difference between style consistency and inflexibility, and you can have fun with it.
Many things can go wrong when branding something. You could get a logo designed that you don’t like. You could choose the wrong tagline for your business. But the most important thing to remember is to be flexible because things can and will change. Don’t get stuck on one thing because it might not work out.
You also need to be creative and remain open-minded. Just because you have a specific vision doesn’t mean it will play out that way. Change is good, especially when it comes to branding.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffett
The thing about branding is that your audience sees it and knows it, even if they don’t know it. Take the Twitter logo, for instance. While I hadn’t really overthought it before, I took a step back and realised how fitting a blue bird was to represent Twitter. Why not a bird? Why not anything else? It’s because the bird captures the light-hearted and casual spirit of the site.
Every company has a branding problem at some point. We’ve all had to deal with a customer who is unhappy with our products or services, or even those we hold dear to our hearts, our brands.
Branding is tough. It’s hard to get it right, but it’s even harder to get it wrong. The consequences can be devastating when you make a mistake with your branding.
It’s inevitable that a brand will be criticised, whether it be due to faulty products, lack of support, or simply poor service. But what can you do when the backlash is too intense and your brand image suffers?
How do you spin this situation around? We all know that the internet can be a nasty place. And when you’re a big company, it can be even worse. Just one negative article can cause a major PR nightmare. But there are ways to deal with it.
Here are some tips on how to deal with negative press and backlash:
With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to handle any negative press that comes your way.
An online presence is a must to survive in this digital world, and it should form part of your brand identity.
A company’s online presence provides information about the company, increases its visibility and serves as a medium to interact with its customers. The company’s website, social media pages, and search engine presence are a few examples of an online presence. An online presence helps your company establish and reinforce its image.
“Identity is cause; brand is effect. And the strength of the former influences the strength of the latter.” Larry Ackerman
The importance of an online presence can be well understood because Google’s first priority is to show website links for a search query on the first page. It’s generally perceived that the websites appearing on top search results are considered the most relevant and trustworthy. An online presence is considered one of the most essential things in today’s world, where competition is fierce.
There are many ways to market your business and build a good brand, but one of the best ways is to have an online presence. This can be in the form of a website, social media platform, or even a blog.
One of the most significant benefits of having an online presence is that it’s easy to update and add new content. For example, if you just had an event or released a new product, you can write an article that instantly updates your readers on the subject instead of sending out a press release.
Even if you don’t have a website or blog, you can still have an online presence through social media. Publishing articles on sites like Medium, for example, allows you to reach an audience of readers and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Nailing brand consistency is one of any business’s most challenging yet essential aspects. It will set you apart from competitors and help generate more revenue for your company.
Proper branding can make a massive difference in the success of your business, and many companies are missing the mark. As we’ve seen, consistency is vital when branding, but other factors play into whether or not a company’s brand will resonate with its target audience.
Brand consistency is essential in creating a well-thought-out marketing strategy. If you have multiple forms of content that are not consistent, it can be confusing for the customer. The goal is to make potential clients or customers feel like they know your brand as soon as they land on your website.
Have you successfully incorporated some of these branding ideas into your own brand? What other practices do you think would help us become better brand owners?
If so, please let us know in the comments section below!
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