Do you ever have one of those moments when you’re watching TV and you instantly know whose commercial you’re watching without the mention of a brand name? Or how about when you visit a company’s Instagram and Twitter and have no doubts about the legitimacy of the accounts? Do you ever wonder how you just know these things? Well, the answer very well may be brand consistency.
Branding across multiple platforms can be difficult, especially for small businesses. It can feel tedious and time consuming when you have a never-ending to-do list. Nowadays, you can’t haphazardly get a domain name, produce marketing materials, and advertise your business without consistency tying all the elements together. It just doesn’t work when you have branding powerhouses such as Starbucks, Target, and Amazon operating in the same sphere. So how does a small business adopt the concept of brand consistency like the “big guys” do? You have to ask yourself a few questions first. Who are you as a company? What are your goals? What do you represent? How do you want to communicate all this?
As a business operating online, you have to stay dedicated to your brand and its identity. Think of your identity as a character. Name your character. Establish how your character will act, what tone they will take on, what colors represent them, how they will interact with others, and how they would present themselves to people they have never met before. What’s their style, their interests, and their passions? Put this character down on paper and discuss it with your business partners. Let this character encompass what it means to truly be your brand and let them guide you through everything you do online. Further, let them grow and develop as your brand does the same.
Creating a character for your brand isn’t as crazy as it may initially seem. Say you’re looking for a new restaurant to try and decide to do some online research on that place you’ve never been to a few blocks away. When you get to their website, you can’t find any information you need. When you find their Facebook page, you can’t even tell if you’re still looking at the same restaurant. Now translate these frustrations, inconsistencies, and annoyances into an actual person. This fictional person is probably a bit confusing for you to identify. Maybe they appear to be frazzled and unprepared to take your order since they clearly aren’t ready to serve your needs online. They can’t seem to put any effort into their brand and yet their goal is to provide you with a great meal? In the end, you’re probably going to look for an alternative restaurant due to the impression it made online.
With all this emphasis on consistency, you might be wondering what the benefits are. It really comes down to just three reasons: brand differentiation, customer recognition, and a cohesive identity. With a solid brand identity, you are able to set your brand apart from competitors. In result, customers are able to understand who you are as a brand and the services to expect. And the more you present your brand consistently, the more customers are able to positively associate you with the things that matter to your business. This is how loyalty and trust are cultivated and how businesses grow.
