If you are not consistent in how you carry your message or present your business, you will only confuse your followers.
If you use this shade of yellow, stick with that shade of yellow. Imagine if the S. Youcks logo is now orange one day instead of the familiar green and white mermaid. It just does not feel the same, does it?
It does not matter whether you are a business operating in the local neighborhood or planning to engage global audiences by social media. The fact and the matter is, if you want to build trust and recognition, you need to be consistent with how you brand your business.
What is Brand Consistency?
Brand consistency is how a business can maintain its promise, mission/vision, and guidelines through different channels and mediums. People should recognize a brand within just a few moments of interaction, from how your assets look to how you interact with customers.
The main goal of brand consistency is growth, with most veteran marketers believing that it is much more critical in creating direct sales. It only makes sense because prioritizing your brand consistency will help generate customer loyalty and boost sales in the process. It is the first step you want to take if you expect to create a firm institution.
Why is Consistency Everything in Branding?
1. First, it makes your brand recognizable.
Do you know how taxis are colored yellow? Yellow is the one color that human eyes can detect the farthest. That makes it all the easier for taxis to get passengers, right?
It’s just like in branding. If you have a consistent brand guide, people will recognize you the minute they see something that relates to your business. Merely being consistent with your brand’s color will increase recognition by up to 80%! That is a big boost for both your brand. Other consistent branding examples and brand guide examples that will make your business instantly recognizable are logos, mascots, and specific merchandise.
2. It increases revenue.
Brand consistency can help increase revenue drastically. This means a lot for a business's future. The upscale of sales will happen once you start letting customers know that you are firm with your products, vision, and policies.
Whether in logos, captions, deliveries, being consistent will lead you to the passive generation of customer morale and trust. If the goal is to acquire customers who return to your business repeatedly, a steady practice of consistency will get you there faster than you expect. Once you have a stream of customers who return to avail of your service or buy your product, you will also have a steady source of income.
3. It builds trust.
When customers know they have been receiving great service and consistent marketing, then it will build something that can be considered most valuable for businesses - a customer’s trust. This is vital to creating a successful business. Around 81% of buyers claim that they need to trust a business before purchasing. Brand consistency will foster this trust by showing customers that your service and products will not disappoint and meet their expectations every time.
You are basically making sure that the waters are safe and clean before customers dive in. Without taking the first step of brand consistency, no one will be entering your pool.
4. It molds the perception you want.
Brand consistency is directly proportional to customer perception. Customer perception is a shaky concept. It can make or break a business if it ever allows one mistake to seep through its ceilings. With the internet as popular as it is, you can sway people’s perceptions in multiple directions.
The one solution to counter this problem is, of course, brand consistency. It will allow you to be in control of how you want to be perceived, and it is a guaranteed way of shining a positive light on your business. With the right messages, the right business calls, and the right projects, you will undoubtedly be the customer favorite in due time.
5. It creates awareness.
Around 89% of marketers believe that creating awareness is the number one goal of brand consistency, even more important than generating leads and increasing sales.
Moreover, you are 3 to 4 times more likely to have your brand presented to newer audiences if you implement consistent branding across the board. You want to stand out in a crowd here, and with competition at its most fierce, brand consistency will help make you look like a lion amongst house cats. Let them know that you are serious and more dependable than other brands.
6. Satisfy customers’ curiosity.
Customers want to know what they are getting and who they are buying from. In an industry filled with fraudulent behavior and subpar products, customers will value the knowledge they receive prior to doing business with a brand. So, if you build up a strong enough brand identity and uphold a vision that you established from the onset, you would not waver when a potential new customer wants to know what your brand is all about and that you can answer their questions in confidence.
Ultimately, brand consistency is about you being serious about your business and the foundations that it was built on. If you are not firm enough about managing and organizing the walls that hold up your business, you can expect little profit and interest from people.
Tips to Develop Brand Consistency
Now that you understand the benefits of consistency in branding, the next question is, how can you achieve this?
The good news is, yes, you can develop brand consistency if you are serious about leveling up your business. Here are some smart tips that you can do:
1. Enact on your brand’s vision/mission.
Walking the walk. Have some bite along with your bark. Most of the things you do will be divided into two aspects - what you say you will do and what you actually do. When these two things are not done in unison, it is guaranteed to confuse customers. Having contradicting speech and actions will also tell them that you are a marketer who has no idea what to do.
So to make things easier for you, create a mission and vision that you believe can drive your brand forward and shape how it performs. Having a statement or set guidelines will be your lighthouse, steering wheel, and co-pilot. Whether it is a simple caption on your post or a slogan that you associate with your products and service, make sure that your mission can be seen in everything you do. You avoid making lapses in performance, but it will serve as your overall brand style guide as you move forward.
2. Make sure to interact.
Speaking of interaction, sometimes you have to get really deep in the mud to get out clean. Finding new customers is not something that just happens. You have to do some digging. Not only should you be consistent through digital channels, but also when it comes to on-hand interaction. Deliveries, pick-ups, over-the-counter purchases, you need to show the same vigor and energy you give out on social media.
Letting customers be aware of your presence will help build a sense of community and that your brand is reliable and cares about them enough to get up close and personal with them. So, make sure to include projects and campaigns that include getting close interaction with both current and potential customers.
3. Create adjustments.
It will not be perfect from start to finish. Not only will you have mistakes, but you will be managing a group of people that are susceptible to creating lapses in judgment that can lead to sizeable consequences. If consistency is the goal, then even a minor mistake should be taken seriously and addressed as soon as possible.
Having constant reminders of what the goal is is good, but you should be even more strict about fixing these mistakes. Regular check-ups, briefings, and close inspections can create a streamlined and solid workplace that is free from any inconsistencies leaking. You need to be in constant patrol over this and make sure you list all the needed adjustments to create an even more effective brand style guide for you and your team.
4. A team that knows what you want.
A big issue with maintaining brand consistency is when your employees, staff, or partners do not share the same dream that you have. Without coherence, any brand style guide you have will be pointless. It is not their fault either, people have their personal lives and their desires, and your endeavor may not be as important to them. Yet, that does not mean they can not be serious about it, and it all boils down to how you can choose a team that you can rely on and be collaborative enough to understand what it is you want. Make sure you brief every new employee, observe them and how they conduct their work, and whether or not they can impersonate the guidelines that you hand them.
It does not end with choosing the right people either, you need to be an example for them to follow, so you need to be consistent with your goals. A member will only be as effective as their leader, so motivation and action are something that you should spend a lot of your energy on. But hey, if it ends up granting you a team that is an extension of your goals, then it will be worth it in the end.
5. Be on time.
The value of time has always been much appreciated not only in the business world but also in everyday life. Nobody likes someone who is 30 minutes late to the meeting. A business that values time will most likely make effective marketing campaigns. If you are on social media, make sure to post regularly, and if you promise an eight to five, then ensure that the customers will not have to wait or be disappointed. An easy tip for this is to create a schedule, stick by it, run it by your team, and make sure everyone logs on diligently. Being time-conscious is always a method of working smarter and not harder.
6. Consistent visuals.
As we have established before, it takes one look for your brand to be recognized from afar. You will need to have your brand’s color palette be consistent across all products, uniforms, ad campaigns, basically every visual aspect of your business. You also may need to hire a good graphic designer or learn how to use a graphic design tool because consistent visual style can help boost recognition and consistency. If you really want to get a perfect score for consistency, subtly putting your logos on everything that creates an impression will get you just that.
Start Now
It's your turn to take your branding to the next level by always remembering that being consistent is the one road that will lead you to steady progress.
Brand consistency will reflect how you represent not only yourself but also all the staff and customers that are connected to your brand. It is definitely everything when it comes to building your business. With all this said, stick to the aesthetic you choose, create a solid brand style guide, be confident in your brand’s voice, and ensure that your mission resonates in every single marketing ad or every product you release. By learning how to be consistent with your branding, you will gradually be more and more in touch with your brand identity, which should be the heart of every business out there.
.jpg)
