5 Ways to Maintain Brand Consistency + Boost Your Recognition
You’ve just finished branding or rebranding your business, elevating the look and feel of your website, shop, marketing collateral, and beyond. Congratulations on this significant step! Now, it’s vital to maintain brand consistency to increase your brand awareness and recognition.
What is Brand Consistency?
Establishing brand consistency means ensuring that every aspect of your business is cohesive and recognizable across all platforms.
Simply put, branding elements (e.g., business name, logo, color palette, tagline, and messaging) should align across all of your marketing and communication channels (e.g., website, ads, print materials, social media, email, and events).
How Can I Create Brand Consistency?
Think back to two essential questions you pondered during your branding (or rebranding) process: What experience do you want to deliver to your audience? How do you want them to feel when they encounter your brand?
Whatever the answer, it should be the same no matter where and how your clients, prospects, and employees interact with you. This is how you build their trust in your brand to deliver a positive experience every time they work with or purchase from you.
When you add it all up, there are a lot of areas to review for this cohesion. Not to worry, below are five ways to maintain brand consistency, including a checklist that you can refer to time and time again!
Stay True to Your Brand Strategy & Identity
During your brand design, you should have developed two indispensable guides:
Brand Strategy: The who, what, and why behind your business (e.g., mission, vision, values, target clients, etc.)
Brand Identity: The visual elements of your brand that we mentioned earlier, including logo, color palette, fonts, photography, and other brand marks (e.g., icons and patterns)
Refer to these brand guidelines for every marketing project, event, and new client. Make them available to every team member so they know how to accurately represent your brand at every customer touchpoint.
Your brand identity will help ensure your visual brand is consistent across all marketing channels, from your digital presence to your print and packaging. Consistent use of your logo and brand colors will help increase brand awareness.
Consider a brand that you are loyal to. What about them makes you want to go back again and again? When you interact with them, how does it make you feel? What stands out about their business that makes you recognize it anytime, anywhere? Whatever your answer, that is their brand!
Assess Your Brand Assets & Presence
Use this checklist at least once a year to evaluate all of the places your brand appears and ensure a cohesive presence.
Online & Digital
Website: Audit your website to ensure it reflects your brand and current offerings, including:
Design and elements
Copy and overall messaging
Services and/or products listed
Current imagery
Social Media: Review the following for all of your social media accounts:
Regular posts
Profile copy and business details
Profile images
Cover photos
Email: Ensure consistency in all email correspondence by checking:
Email newsletter templates
Marketing and promotional email templates
Automated email series content and templates (e.g., New Subscriber or New Customer series)
Email signature format
Digital Products: Regularly review and update free and paid digital products, like:
Online courses
Downloadable worksheets
eBooks
Videos
Digital Ads: Make sure the brand identity and information in any of the following are accurate to create a cohesive customer experience:
Social media ads
Paid search ads
Native advertising (also known as sponsored content)
Print & Packaging
From design to information, be sure all of your printed materials are up-to-date, including:
Business cards
Stationery
Brochures
Posters
Print ads
Pricing guides
Lookbooks
Product packaging (e.g., boxes and bags)
Labels and tags
Events & Point-of-Sale
Create your client’s ideal environment, build trust, and drive them to take action with on-brand:
Signage
Window art
Car wraps
Photography
Invest in annual photoshoots, so you have updated imagery to use in all of your marketing efforts, including:
Headshots
Candid working photos
Styled shoots of your products or services
Conceptual/environmental images (to help tell your stories)
Guide Your Customers on Their Journey
What does your customer’s journey look like? What ultimate action do you want them to take? Show them the steps to achieve their goal or version of success! As you do, keep the brand design and messaging consistent from one point to the next.
For example, if you are running a social media ad campaign for your boutique, the ads might lead customers to your online shop. The ads should contain eye-catching photos and brief descriptions of your products. Each link should lead directly to the product page with full details, so people can easily shop.
Or perhaps you’re an interior designer with a free download of tips to create a more calming space, which you’re using as a lead magnet to grow your email list. You could feature a sign-up form or pop-up on your website, with a brief description of the guide and why someone should subscribe and download it. When that freebie lands in their inbox, the email and the guide itself should align with your brand identity and strategy.
Listen to Your Audience
Convince & Convert founder Jay Baer has said, “Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa.”
But in order to know what people think of your brand, you need to ask the right questions and truly listen.
Fortunately, there are now many tools available to constantly gather feedback from your audiences, from clients to employees. Listen to and take them seriously to ensure you’re creating an experience and culture that aligns with your brand’s values and mission. Act and evolve when necessary, whether that means updating creative elements like your brand colors and fonts or changing practices to reflect your mission accurately.
Partner with a Professional
If you haven’t already, work with a designer to create and establish your brand identity and strategy. Ideally, hire someone you can go to for future branding efforts, such as new packaging and print materials.
Can that same individual help you develop your brand messaging and written content? If not, it may also be worth investing in a copywriter who can ensure that your messaging is consistent across all avenues, like your visual brand identity.
The thought of hiring an outside person can be a bit daunting. We get it! It’s not easy entrusting your passion to someone else. But there are two significant perks of hiring outside professionals like a branding and design professional:
Outside perspective: As someone with an external view, we can provide you with fresh ideas and even point out concerns or inconsistencies you may not have noticed, being so close to your own business.
Expert knowledge: You don’t have to spend time learning how to design a brand, website, and other marketing collateral. Your designer (who’s been doing it for years) can take that off your plate, translate your vision, and bring it to life—all while you get to stay focused on your zone of genius.
Whether you recently went through a brand design or rebrand or you haven’t yet taken the leap, SkyHouse Creative can help. We’ll elevate your identity to reflect you and where your business is at today while equipping you with the assets you need to show up consistently. Tell us a bit more about yourself in our brief client inquiry form, and we’ll contact you to discuss your branding and design needs!
