Want Loyal Customers? Be a Consistent Brand.
“Brand consistency” is critical to every company’s success. When a company projects a consistent message to its customers, those customers begin to trust that company. Trust begets loyalty, and everyone knows that a loyal customer is worth his/her weight in gold.
Utilizing repetition and consistency in messaging and behavior is the essence of brand consistency. Coupled with high quality performance and product, brand consistency is the best way to influence the way people feel about your brand.
To establish and maintain brand consistency, the [ 2 one 5 ] Creative team recommends the following approach:
Thoughtfully consider your company’s goals and values, and the message you want to express.
Know thyself! The first step towards establishing brand consistency is to know what your company stands for, and who you are. Give that some serious thought, and make sure you can walk the walk, not just talk the talk – actions speak louder than words. (How many sayings can we include in this blog? Only time will tell.)
Communicate those values to your team.
To be able to communicate appropriately about your business, your team needs the proper tools. Share with them the goals, values, and messaging that define your business, and make it an ongoing conversation. As notes above, make sure your actions contribute too – the message should be clear and consistent from all points.
Create a space to house key resources for company marketing and communications.
Establish and circulate a brand guide that spells out the proper and improper usage of your logo, colors, typeface, images, and more. Use that guide when creating all marketing or communications materials. From company letterhead to email signatures to social media profiles, do all you can to ensure consistent, authentic design and messaging.
If your company is international, take care to consider translations and your brand message abroad.
That messaging or imagery may have different meanings in other places due to colloquialisms or translation errors, and that can get awkward. Fast.
Audit everything, and don’t stop.
It’s not uncommon for a company’s messaging, look and feel, or tone to undergo subtle tweaks, both intentionally and unintentionally. Continually take stock of what your company is currently putting out into the world, and consider if it aligns with your goals, values, and messaging. If it doesn’t, change it, because it’s diluting the brand consistency you’ve worked so hard to establish.
Building consistency is about the experience that you give your consumers. Eventually, with the right blend of style, brand, and consistency, you’ll be able to market yourself without saying a word – people will start to recognize an ad or image as having the “feel” of your company. That’s next level marketing, and it’s the payoff for all the work that preceded it.
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