How to Maintain your Brand Consistency

Strong brands are founded on consistency. Before buying a product or paying for a service, customers like to feel the company, have confidence in it and recognize it as a provider of certain value. A consistent brand helps to build a sense of community, fostering customer connection and loyalty. A strong brand also helps companies to differentiate themselves from others, serving as a valuable marketing asset to any organization. Here are top tips for creating and maintaining your brand consistency throughout various communication channels.

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Deep analysis

In order to get a firm grasp on where exactly your brand stands as far as its image and public recognition are concerned, it’s best to listen to what people are saying about your brand online. Perform a thorough brand and marketing review to see what are the reactions, interpretations and associations your clients have with the brand.
An insight into the internal view of the company is of great value as well – interview your employees to understand how they perceive the brand. Once you get all the data, you’ll be able to assess if there are any problems with your brand’s image and act accordingly by rebranding.

A consistent look

Brand consistency relies on both abstract and concrete factors. Visuals play a key role in brand perception these days and it’s your job to make sure that all the visual materials across various media are consistent and refer to the same image of the brand.
Whether it’s billboards or newsletters, always use similar images and colours to correspond with one another. If your brand channels a youthful and friendly look in your visuals, don’t ruin the effect by accompanying your images with content written in a stuffy or formal style.

Your logos, colours and typography should all be set out at the very beginning of your marketing operation. Don’t rely on navy or blue, but provide a systematic colour value to make sure that your graphic designers always get the hue right.

Develop your own voice

In order to maintain your brand consistency, you’ll need to develop a certain personality – a style, voice and tone – and then just stick to it. Every time you communicate with customers, you need to send the right messages about your brand.
Your voice should fit your target audience – is your company smart and geeky, or old-fashioned and elegant? Once you decide who will serve as your marketing persona, make sure to keep that voice alive in all marketing pursuits. Only a consistent voice will be remembered by your customers.
All in all, don’t ever overdo it or lie about your brand. Have a look at this article about the value of honesty in creating brand consistency – humanity and truth do still matter.

Communicate your brand narrative

When working on your voice and personality, you also need to think about the context, in which you’d like to situate your brand. In order to maintain its consistency, make sure that the philosophy and values behind your brand fit its visual aspects and marketing tone. Establishing a strong context for your brand will help you to develop a brand narrative, which can be channelled in each and every part of your marketing – your website, brochures, newsletters and material ads. Translate the changes of the market into your voice, making sure that the brand narrative develops in accordance with industry trends and the evolution of the company.

Involve others in your project

If you think that only the marketing section should have a firm grasp on the company’s personality and values, you’re in for a surprise. In order to deliver a coherent brand experience, those working on the service or product need to be aware of your brand narrative. Company presentations, guidelines and resources are all there to help you in disseminating the brand idea to your employees.
Creating a consistent brand requires a lot of effort and time, but what you get in return – customer belief and loyalty – makes it more than worth it.

Photo credit: BFLV / Flickr

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1 Comment How to Maintain your Brand Consistency

  1. Brian (@bbrian017)

    Creating a strong brand is not easy, the worse part is all that hard work can be ruined over night or at the action of bad service or poor product launch. Proactive PR helps maintain brand integrity, #1. rule the customer is always right.

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