Why Brand Consistency Counts

Images Courtesy of Michelle Proctor Photography

Last week I had the pleasure of joining an amazing group of women at a community-building event hosted by Salt and The Local Picnic. It’s been a long while since I’ve attended a networking event in person–long enough to almost forget how underwhelming networking events can be! This one was truly something different. 

There were a few reasons I was excited to attend. The venue: Sundown Point Farm on Salt Spring Island. The food: Chef Deb from Dos Amores. The concept: an event for women in business, hosted in the great outdoors. And then of course there was the theme: brand consistency.

Over a fireside chat, we talked about brand consistency and how local Vancouver Island brands have used it to grow their businesses. This got me thinking about the value of brand consistency and how overlooked it can be.

Importance of Brand Consistency

At the heart of it, brand consistency is all about building trust with your audience. The more consistent you are, the more recognizable your brand becomes. This is critical because most people won’t become customers the first time they engage with your brand. It takes multiple positive engagements with your brand to convince someone to make a purchase.

This is true for both low-consideration products like an energy bar that will be consumed in minutes, and for high-consideration products like a SaaS subscription that requires extensive time and financial investment. The more consistent you are with your messaging, the better people will be able to understand what makes your company and your product the right choice for them. 

How to Create a Consistent Brand Experience 

Consistency doesn’t happen by accident. The best way to create a consistent brand experience for your audience is to start with a solid brand strategy. From your social media posts to your website, everything you write, design, say or share should be informed by this strategy.  

No matter where or how people discover your brand for the first time, they should walk away with an impression of what your company stands for. In some cases, this can be very subjective, like the feeling you get when you see a new product on the shelf at the grocery store. In other cases, it can be clear and explicit, like the message you see on a landing page on a website. 

By documenting brand guidelines for your visual, verbal and written communications, you make it easy to decide what is and isn’t a fit for your company.

Visual Brand Consistency

A thoughtfully designed visual identity package is a great place to start for companies seeking to build a consistent visual brand experience. Your logo, fonts and colour palette shouldn’t just look good, they should be a reflection of your company’s values, your products and your target audience. A skilled graphic designer will take all of this and more into account, and they’ll give you clear instructions for how to use your brand assets most effectively.

Photography and videography are also not to be overlooked. How your images look and feel communicates something about your brand. The more consistent you are, the easier it will be for customers to distinguish your brand from everything else out there. 

With a visual brand identity as a foundation, you can start to develop creative assets, like social media graphics, a website, or product packaging, all while maintaining a recognizable brand. Think of your brand identity guidelines as a tool to create consistent, high-quality content while flexing your creative muscles.

Consistent Brand Messaging 

What does your company stand for? Who do you serve? What problem are you solving? How does your business make life better for people? Why would someone choose you over your competitors? 

With consistent brand messaging, you should be able to answer all of these questions for your audience. If you can get this right, you’re well on your way to building a brand that converts casual browsers into enthusiastic purchasers. 

So what exactly should you say, and how can you create original content that doesn’t get stale?

You can start by developing a brand messaging platform that every person who writes or speaks on behalf of your company understands. This isn’t a hard and fast rule book, but rather a guide to inform your messaging across whatever channels you choose to use. 

If you need help developing your brand messaging, please drop me an email. I’d love to connect with you!

How to Maintain Brand Consistency As Your Company Grows 

For a personal brand, being consistent may seem as simple as showing up authentically in everything you do, but you’re leaving $ on the table if you’re not backing up your intuition with what works for your audience. This is why it’s so valuable to have a brand strategy that’s backed up by research.

Of course, for larger companies, the need to document your brand strategy becomes much more obvious. The more people you make responsible for sharing your brand with the world, the more important it is to have clear guidelines to ensure that the content you’re putting out is a true reflection of who you are and how you want to be perceived.

As your company grows, pay attention to what your customers respond to, and never stop listening. From reading comments on social media to combing through product reviews to setting up interviews on a regular basis, you can learn so much from your audience.

Use these insights to inform and evolve your strategy over time. If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it. Brand consistency does not mean staying stagnant. It’s about knowing who you are and how to communicate it effectively as your company evolves.