Corporate branding has been around for ages, and consistency has always been a key part of the branding process. With Internet branding and the vast number of communication channels available today, keeping your brand consistent has become even more important (and more difficult).
Why Consistency Matters
A primary function of branding is to increase the awareness and recognition of your company. Your brand allows people to make the mental connection between the various marketing messages they see at different times and in different media. If the branding is not consistent, it will be harder for a casual observer to connect the dots. They will be less likely to remember and recognize your company, and therefore less likely to consider buying from you.
An inconsistent branding message is also not conducive to building trust and credibility. If you portray your company as the luxury leader in one advertisement and as the low-cost leader in another, you are likely to turn off both target markets.
Internal Consistency
Brand consistency matters for more than just your external marketing, though. Your brand includes your company's personality. It therefore helps drive your internal marketing and company goals. A consistent brand allows your employees to know whether they should focus on being professional or laid-back with clients and whether the goal is to design and produce products that are of the highest quality or the lowest cost. If your own workforce is unclear as to your branding goals, you can be assured that your customers will not get the point.
Improving Brand Consistency
So how do you develop a consistent brand?
- To begin with, you have to define what image you want your brand to portray. This choice will be heavily influenced by the personas you are trying to market to, as well as the natural strengths that help set you apart from the competition.
- Don't change your brand too often. You may want to change your brand now, if you are in the process of making it more consistent, and every once in a while your image may benefit from an update. But changing too much too often clearly hurts your efforts to build consistency.
- Use the same logo, slogan and name in everything you do. SEO makes this kind of basic consistency more important, as "Acme HVAC" and "Acme Heating and Cooling" could be seen by search engines as completely different entities.
- Though different social media networks may encourage different types of content, make sure that your overall message and brand personality remains consistent across platforms. This includes the "messages" that take the form of responses to individual comments or questions. If different employees help manage the different accounts, make sure they each fully understand the company's brand.
- Carefully consider who you partner with. Co-marketing efforts can help your brand if done well, but you need to work with other brands that serve to reinforce your own.
- Don't forget the importance of having consistent in-person branding. The experience of clients or in-store shoppers has the biggest impact on how those people perceive your brand.
Creating consistency between all of your marketing channels takes work, and building a consistent brand in the minds of consumers takes time. But if you want your company to stick around and be successful in the long run, it is a necessary and worthwhile long-term investment.
* Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
