Building a brand takes time and talent, both of which can be hard to come by for a small business on a tight budget.
It’s not impossible by any means, although it is a strenuous endeavor without the right tips, tools, and experience.
In short, brand consistency is extremely important for many small businesses, as it essentially services to represent its recognizability and positive familiarity when it comes to the product or service.
Some of the best and most recognizable brands in the world can conjure up vivid images in the mind at the mere utterance of the company name, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, the list goes on.
Admittedly those giants have been around for a while, but this doesn’t mean the way they build a brand will differ too wildly from your own methods.
Here are some of the many reasons why brand consistency is important to your small business and how to go about achieving it.
Recognizability
First and foremost, brand consistency aims to achieve that all-important sense of recognizability in the eyes of the customer.
If they can notice your brand, they can revisit it with ease, it can stick in their memory, they can show it to their friends, and they can spread the good word of your brand.
How does consistency help you to maintain this sense of familiarity? Because it helps your brand remain cohesive.
Building consistency is essential in marketing, and that often means everyone needs to be on board about which assets to use and at what time.
A reliable DAM (digital asset management) system should be able to help you greatly in this area, particularly one that can be accessed via the cloud. You may want to check out Brandfolder’s guide on DAMs to develop a much stronger understanding of just how important the software can be.
Recognizability is important in brand building for a great number of reasons, some of the main ones being:
- It Helps You Stand Out – Your products or services are likely going to have an easier time standing out if your customers can recognize your brand from a distance.
- Repeat Business – If you made a good impression, and you consistently make that good impression with your products, you can develop a loyal customer base. Your brand needs to be consistent to then meet and exceed people’s expectations.
- Improving the Customer Experience – A customer should look at your brand and feel happy. If you aren’t able to offer them any consistency in your branding, you may be missing out on this side of the overall experience.
Recognizability is a huge benefit of maintaining brand consistency, as long as you make sure you are recognized for the right reasons, of course.
Developing Trust
Trustworthiness is an extremely important part of modern business. If customers do not trust your brand, why should they buy your products or pay for your services?
Developing trust is critical to business success in many instances, so this aspect of your branding journey should not be overlooked.
Maintaining consistency can help you in this regard, as it essentially offers a constant representation of your brand for your customers to get to know, and if you’re able to keep to your word at the same time (i.e., your marketing promises), you can bolster your trust levels.
People should automatically see your brand and trust in its promises. Consistency in brand building is a way to ensure this style of engagement happens when your marketing efforts are regularly consumed by your customers.
For example, you don’t need to think about what kind of products Nike makes when you see the famous tick logo, you already know and trust them to make sports-related products.
- Be careful whenever you decide to make any kind of promise in marketing, however, because if you cannot stick to it, you risk breaking the dependability of your word, and you may even find yourself in a legal dispute over false advertising claims.
Standing Out
Standing tall among the competition can be tough nowadays, especially considering how easy it is to quickly build a good-looking website.
Consistency can help you do this to superb effect. If you are able to market yourself a little bit differently but continue to do so, you can easily establish a talking point among your audience.
Establishing a strong identity is the whole point of branding in the first place. Cohesion and consistency are crucial when it comes to fully realize this identity and marketing it in the real world.
A great example of this is Wendy’s and their penchant for replying to social media comments in a consistently funny tone. It’s different, it’s often genuinely hilarious, and it helps them stand out online.
- Creating unique brand assets can also be a superb way to establish yourself and maintain consistency. Think about what makes certain brands stand out so prominently to help you with this. Is it the artwork on their advertisements? It is the color scheme? Maybe it’s the font itself. Whatever the reason, just make sure your own assets (pictures, logos, graphics, slogans, copy, social media posts) are unique and high-quality.
Accessibility
If you aim for brand consistency, you may be able to offer your customers a greater level of accessibility, particularly if you consistently market your brand across a wide array of platforms.
Not everyone uses the same platform to consume marketing or to shop in general, so making sure you adopt at least some form of variety is vital in extending your reach.
If you are consistently established at multiple touchpoints, customers can always find you through that medium, a medium that they prefer to use.
Reflecting the Brand’s Message
By capturing the true message of the brand and remaining consistent in its presentation across every level, including the way your frontline employees approach your customers and represent your values, you should be able to build loyalty fairly quickly.
Branding is a key part of business, one that will always have an important role to play at every stage of a company’s life. If you can opt for cohesion, you shouldn’t go too far wrong at all.
