Publish Date
October 7, 2024
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Your brand is more than just your company’s name, logo, trademark(s) and who you say you are, although those are all important aspects of it. Your brand also encompasses how consumers think and feel about your company, products and/or services and brand, otherwise known as brand perception.
Why is Your Brand Important?
Your brand is a representation of your business, telling current and perspective customers who you are, what you stand for and what sets you apart from your competition. And for those in competitive markets, a strong brand is essential for survival.
But to create and maintain that strong brand, you’ve got to make sure that every touchpoint reflects the brand you’re trying to present. And here’s where brand consistency comes into play.
What is Brand Consistency?
Brand consistency is all about creating a unified look, feel and message across your digital touchpoints – website, social media and advertising – and beyond, into your physical space, work and interactions.
How to Build Brand Consistency?
Through Visual Elements
Logo
Your logo is one of your brand’s most visual components and should appear everywhere – your signage, business cards, bids, estimates, invoices, website, social media pages, email marketing, work trucks and the list goes on. But regardless of where your logo appears, it should be consistent in color, layout and clarity.
Colors
Your company’s colors are another part of your brand that should be kept consistent. Once decided on, the color palette should be incorporated into wide variety of things, from your company’s apparel to carpeting, logo and so much more. And for those of you with work trucks, there’s a unique opportunity available to create a moving billboard reflecting these colors, helping to further strengthen your brand identity. (Get tips for branding your company’s vehicle, and see how one Oregon-based plumbing company set itself apart.)
For those without an established color palette, we recommend two things:
- Research your competitors. You’ll want to choose colors that’ll distinguish you from others in the market, not get your business easily confused with them.
- Learn about color psychology and its impact. Colors are often associated with certain emotions and may impact how consumers perceive your brand. So, if there isn’t a clear winner after looking into your competition, let science help decide!
Through Messaging
At some point, you’ll need to come up with messaging, copy, captions and/or a tagline to use on your marketing materials. And you’ll want to make sure that whatever you use, you’re living up to. After all, if you were running a plumbing company, you wouldn’t want to go around promoting your business by saying, “Don’t wait a week for a plumber to fix your leak!”, if your customers are repeatedly complaining about service delays because it’s not genuine.
Through Customer Interactions
Your business interacts with current and prospective customers, day in and day out. These interactions are sometimes as simple as responding to easy questions on your business’s Facebook page to more complex face-to-face meetings with clients for new projects. But regardless of the scale and magnitude of the interaction, maintaining consistency in how you handle each is vitally important to your brand. After all, “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is,” Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, said. So, be sure to provide a consistent, positive customer experience, whether online, in person, over the phone, etc., because you never know how far that individual’s network might extend, or who it might include.
Why is Brand Consistency Important?
It Improves Recognition
Clearly and frequently utilizing your company’s logo and specific brand colors on customer touchpoints will make it easier for consumers to distinguish your brand from others. And this visual consistency will help improve recognition, which is essential for companies in competitive and crowded markets.
It Builds Trust
When your actions match your messaging and your customers have consistent, positive interactions with your company, you prove yourself reliable, and along with that, build their trust in you.
It Boosts Customer Loyalty
Brands that consistently create positive customer experiences are more likely to experience return customers. And you know what they say about returning customers… They’ll become your brand champions, build up your brand to others and be some of your most valuable customers. So, in summary, it pays to be dependable.