Why you need brand consistency to drive your business growth

In marketing, having a consistent brand message increases trust and loyalty while cementing an emotional connection with your audience. Customers gravitate to dependability. They want to know exactly what they will get, with no sudden pivots or changes in tone. Strong brands understand this, and they invest to make sure they present a clear and consistent message, both offline and online. 

Just look at some of the 25 top global brands, like Apple, Toyota, Louis Vuitton or Disney. Even if they are from an industry that is not important to you, or they offer products or services that are of little or no personal interest, we’re willing to bet you still recognize them and have a clear picture in your head of what they’re offering and what they stand for.

Branding inconsistency is simply bad business. Brands that fail to maintain a clear and cohesive message risk their customers becoming confused, disinterested, and cut adrift. If you don’t appear to know who you are and what you stand for, how can you expect others to have any trust in you and your products?

The good news is that it isn’t hard to design a solid strategy to maximize brand consistency. You just need to have a clear idea of your core value proposition and overall business goals. 

What do we mean by brand consistency?

When we talk about the consistency of a brand, we mean everything from its look and the language it uses to its core values. Brand consistency ensures that each of these separate elements combine into a coherent whole, each part in step with the other, to create a solidified vision of what you stand for. You will want to consider the following, and how they will tie in with each other to create a consistent brand message across all media and platforms:

Logo, fonts, colors 

To make your brand instantly recognizable, you want to make sure that these visual brand elements represent you, and are then used consistently across your marketing materials. If your brand and logo colors are green and blue, running an ad with red and purple will be confusing. Likewise, keep your font use consistent.

Images and photography

Consider how the images you select align with your brand. If you are selling botanical beauty products, you may want to use images of plants and nature – but a tech brand – probably not. Think as well about the people you feature in your images and who your target audience is. In most cases, these should align.

Tone of voice and vocabulary

Are you a technical voice of authority? The supportive voice of a peer? The aspirational voice of a mentor? Different brands will have different answers, but for all of them, it’s important to keep that same tone of voice, so your customers know where they stand with you. Suddenly switching to soft emotive language for a jargon-heavy technical audience will be confusing and ineffective. 

The value of brand consistency

When your brand is consistent, your customers know what to expect. Repeat messaging makes you memorable and builds trust and credibility in your audience, who know what it is that you’re offering. It sets you apart from the competition with a unique and distinctive identity and slowly builds brand awareness over time.

That all sounds very touchy-feely, but brand consistency also has a measurable positive impact on your bottom line. By investing in your brand and prioritizing brand consistency, you will see returns on that investment.

Customer loyalty

The holy grail for any business is brand loyalty. And to inspire loyalty in your customers, you first need to achieve brand recognition. A clear and consistent brand message is the first step to brand recognition - for people to see your logo and brand colors, or read an advert or social post - and inherently know that they are connecting with your brand. Loyal customers return time and time again, and once you have enough of them, the less you need to spend on reaching out to connect with new audiences.

Higher brand value

The more your brand is recognized and valued, the more you can charge for your products or services. With consistent brand messaging, consistent appearance, and of course a consistently positive customer experience, you establish yourself as a high-quality brand, and people are prepared to pay a premium for your products.

Marketing efficiency

By creating clear brand guidelines for maintaining brand consistency, you streamline your marketing operations, making the whole workflow more efficient. With a consistent branding strategy in place, your internal teams will be able to create marketing materials at a faster rate, and will be better equipped to organize and execute campaigns.

How to deliver brand consistency

Understand your audience

You need to consider who, specifically, you are trying to reach. You can’t target everyone because everyone is different. Promoting the kids’ menu at a local restaurant is very different from selling computer parts to an engineer. Knowing your target audience helps you deliver the appropriate message in the right tone. Tone is the very spirit of your brand, and it’s important to get it right.

Set clear brand guidelines to follow

Adhering to specific guidelines makes it easier to develop consistency. Create brand consistency examples for your team, with a toolkit detailing all the visual aspects of your brand. This should include the logo, colors, typography, shapes, and the type of images you want to use in your message. A natural face cream might focus on botanical imagery while a car manufacturer might want to showcase engineering and structural diagrams, for example.

The toolkit should also have precise descriptions of the tone you’d like to portray in your advertising, and how it should be adapted for different platforms. For example, are you appealing to the LinkedIn market with confident professionalism, or are you aiming for the fun and energetic Instagram crowd? Having a specific tone makes it easier for your customers to recognize your brand.

Create a marketing plan and stick to it

Here is where you align your actions with your brand. A marketing plan is essential for achieving results and brand consistency. Establish clear goals and develop action plans to ensure your message is coherent and designed to achieve your goals. Use a marketing calendar to keep everything organized. It will help you gauge levels of consistency. Where your efforts are lacking, fill in the gaps.

Deliver a consistent brand message across multiple channels

Planning ahead of time gives you room to make changes, deliver a consistent and coherent message, and find the right communication channels. Make sure to deliver your message where your target audience is. Social media, blogs, TikTok, YouTube – these are all unique channels, and you need to craft a message that works across all of them. Again, make sure you know who your audience is and what you are trying to achieve.

Make adjustments based on what's working

Not all branding success is the same. It depends on your product or service, what you’re trying to achieve, and what message you want to send. As you craft your messaging strategy and implement it, keep a record of what works and what needs tweaking or changing altogether. It’s normal to make adjustments to hone and perfect the best brand message within consistency guidelines.

Build trust with your customers

Creating brand consistency can be challenging if you don't have the correct tools and guidance. Your brand needs to be clear from the beginning to engage your customers, build their trust and achieve your goals.

At Semiya Agency, we are experienced in asking the right questions to help guide you towards your core values, defining your brand identity, and delivering a content strategy for clear and consistent brand messaging. We are a creative marketing agency offering expert branding and content services, tailored especially to your unique business needs.

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