Brand Consistency: Do you have it?

Some top tips for keeping consistent

Nov 2, 2015

Trust Concept
Ask yourself this question – Do you think your logo is your brand? Who answered ‘yes’? Well, you are half right. Actually you are about 20% right. Don’t worry, you are not alone. Many companies these days, assume that because they have a logo, they have a brand. But did you know your brand is so much more than that?

What is a brand?

A brand shapes what people think about you and gives your business an identity. It’s a collection of things such as your company values, your logo, your USPs,  your products and services, your colours that all pull together and are presented to people each and every time they have an interaction with your company. That is, each time they see your advert, give you a call or come to visit they are seeing and recognising what you are all about!

Why is it good for business?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could stand out from the crowd and differentiate yourself from your competitors? A good brand can help you do that. It’s a vehicle for delivering your companies messaging, driving trust and building loyalty amongst your customers.If you manage to get it right, your brand can help to shape peoples perceptions about you. They start to understand what you do, and what you stand for, helping to build their confidence that you will do a good job for them. It helps to get you recognized, seeing the same logo, with the same messaging presented in the same way, will plant itself in their memory, ready to be recollected when they are ready to make a purchasing decision.If you get it wrong, that is where the customer gets confused. If you use a different type face on your invoices than on your order confirmations or your signage has a different coloured logo to your website, what message does that send to the world? Prospective customers will wonder if it’s the same company they are dealing with. They’ll worry that you are disorganized, they’ll lose faith and you’ll potentially lose sales.

Top tips for Brand Consistency

How do you actually achieve it? How do you get those customers trusting you, remembering you and coming back to you? Well, here are our top 3 tips to help you on your way:

  1. Keep everything (and we mean everything – no exceptions!) the same. When we say everything, we are talking about the look, the tone, the feel and the terminology of each marketing piece from business cards all the way through to your signage.
  2. Spend some time to develop some Brand Guidelines. These are essentially instructions on how to use all your brand attributes, such as your name, logo, tagline, fonts and colours etc.
  3. Make them available to all employees in the company who will use the guidelines and train them on how to use them. Make them available to any external agencies  (marketing, design, signage) that do work for you so they can use them properly too.

Do you need some help to visually communicate your brand? We are always happy to advise on options and designs that will help build awareness of your brand and deliver your message in a clear and consistent way to your audience. Contact us at Zoo and we’ll happily provide direction!

Read Previous Post