The Importance of Brand Consistency

April 2, 2020 / Branding

Why brand consistency matters

Your brand identity is made up of everything from your logo to your tone of voice. Every aspect of your brand influences how potential clients’ feel and this means that each and every inconsistency erodes the strength of your brand. To be effective your brand must be consistent across all channels including your website, social media, emails or printed materials like letters and business cards.

It’s so important to develop standards for brand consistency both on and offline to build trust and customer loyalty as well as making you easily recognizable. In a world where design templates are available at every turn, it can be easy to get off track. Crafting a consistent brand can be hard! Luckily, I’ve explained all below so that you can get clear on your brand and use it in everything you do for your business.

1. Get clear on the Elements of your brand

Logo

It’s important to understand how and where your logo works best. Having clearly defined guidelines on how to use it will help you be consistent. For example:

• • If your logo includes an icon or graphic element, under which circumstances could that be used without your brand name as a submark?
  • Should a certain color version of your logo be used on a specific background pattern or color and are there colors your logo should never be paired with?

Colors and Fonts

Using a consistent color palette and a small selection of fonts helps with brand recognition. These days we have graphics for multiple social media channels, our website, blog and printed media. With so many pieces of content it can be easy to overlook these basic things. Pick your colors and fonts and stick to them. 

Tone and Personality

If you haven’t worked with a branding specialist it can be easy to overlook this integral part of your brand. Making a conscious decision about the tone and personality of your brand will help you connect with those ideal clients. 

Think about whether your brand is:

• • playful or formal
  • masculine or feminine
  • informative or unapologetic
  • organic or sophisticated

As a start you should have 4-5 words that describe your brands personality. These words will help you when you’re creating anything for your brand, from written content to social media graphics.

If your brand is fun and cheeky on Facebook, you should use a similar tone on your website. It doesn’t mean that your content needs to be identical for every platform, you are likely to be less casual on LinkedIn for example, but it’s important that the message sounds like it’s coming from the same person.

Imagery

Using a style of imagery at every customer touch point will help with brand recognition. You should decide on the style of images you’ll use, the light, colors and atmosphere of these images all contribute towards how people feel when they encounter your brand. Think about those words that describe your brand personality and make sure your images, graphics and icons align.

2. Write down your brand guidelines

It’s easy to make decisions and then not stick with them! Creating a brand guide is essential if you want your brand to work hard for you. A brand style guide will include things like:

• • colors
  • fonts
  • patterns
  • style of illustrations
  • images
  • icons

It can also set out standards for using logos, sub marks and logo variations that include the size, positioning, rotation and colors of logos. Having even a simple style guide, will take your brand from disorganized to strategic and powerful.

Use our Brand Checklist to ensure you are including all the essential brand elements!

3. Check brand consistency across all marketing channels

Once you have your brand guidelines it’s going to be easy to see where you might have gone wrong with your branding. Go ahead and take a look at your marketing materials from the last 6 months and see what doesn’t fit or should be updated. You’ll want to check:

• • social media
  • website
  • blog posts
  • email
  • proposals
  • business cards
  • stationery
  • promotional materials

To make sure you have all your branding ducks in a row, download this brief Brand Checklist. I hope this helps you get a basic understanding of brand consistancy that you can build on as your business grows. If you have any questions or just want to chat, reach out at courtney@gracebuiltco.com.