When you start your brand by yourself, it’s fairly easy to maintain brand consistency. After all, your brand most likely comes from your personal values.
Then come customers and more customers and things start getting wobbly because you wear all the hats. So you start hiring people, and now it’s harder to maintain brand consistency. Because the more stakeholders you have, the harder it may be to keep your brand consistent in all touchpoints and platforms.
Failing to do so would confuse your audiences. They would be wondering:
- “What on earth is this brand trying to do?”
- “They keep changing. What do they provide, really?”
- “With so many changes, are they even authentic?”
Why is brand consistency important?
When audiences notice that your brand is getting inconsistent, they start getting confused. And, trust us, when they get confused, they also start losing trust in your brand. Therefore, to help you maintain brand consistency and avoid confusing your audience, ask yourself the following questions.
1. What’s your business about?
This can be your elevator pitch — a short explanation about your business background and purpose. Explain your customer’s pain points, the unique solution your product/service provides, and how your customer will be after using your product/service to solve their pain points.
2. What does your business stand for and against?
Just like a person, a brand needs to have integrity. Find out what area you want to strive for, and what line you would never cross. This can help provide a clear vision, mission, and purpose for your entire business.
3. What internal and external values does your brand have?
Once you know what your business stands for and what it’s against, you’re automatically able to identify your internal and external brand values. Internal values are evident in the way you manage your team members, and external values in how you communicate and commit to your audiences and customers.
5 ways to maintain brand consistency in your business
The questions above will lead you to brand clarity, which is the root of brand consistency. Once you have it, everything else comes strategically in a way, and the following tips will help make the process easier.
Develop a brand guideline
Create a comprehensive brand style guide that outlines your brand’s mission, vision, values, tone of voice, color palette, typography, logo usage, and any other visual and verbal elements. All team members, including new hires, should understand and have easy access to this guideline.
Remember, though, that your brand is not set in stone. It evolves over time. So, schedule periodic reviews and update your guidelines to accommodate any necessary changes while maintaining core brand elements.
Create a design system
A design system is a master data of all your brand assets, templates, and resources. By having one, you centralize assets like logos, images, templates, and design elements. Every stakeholder can access them and you prevent the use of outdated or incorrect materials.
In yous design system, you can also develop templates for common marketing materials, such as videos, presentations, social media posts, and article layouts. This saves time in the design process and, in times of emergency, non-designer team members could even help make small edits.
Use collaboration tools
Utilize project management and collaboration tools to streamline communication among team members and external partners or vendors. Don’t forget to assign a project manager responsible for overseeing and enforcing brand consistency across all levels and departments.
Align with external partners
If you decide to work with an agency, vendor, or partner, make sure to include access to your brand guidelines and design system in the contracts and agreements. This way, all parties involved understand and follow the guidelines to maintain brand consistency.
Lead by example
It’s important to always walk the talk. As a business owner, you need to consistently demonstrate and promote brand consistency in your own actions and communications, setting the standard for others to follow.
And as your business expands, make sure that new products, services, or divisions are integrated into your brand strategy in a way that maintains overall consistency.
Continuously maintain brand consistency in the years to come
Your business might change or pivot, but the fundamental core of your brand will remain the same — and that’s how you stay consistent. As long as you have clear answers to the three questions and practice the five tips above, maintaining your brand consistency should be less challenging.
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