A 5-Step Guide to Revamping Your Brand Consistency

The goal of any brand is to provide a recognizable, positive brand identity people will remember. Without a consistent brand presentation, you cannot achieve that goal.

Why? There's a phenomenon known as context-dependent memory, which states that people remember information best when they are in the original context in which they encountered that information. However, brand messages usually occur in a wide variety of places (online ads, business cards, outdoor signage, product packaging, email campaigns and more). This means that your brand messages often lack the necessary context that would make it easiest for people to remember them, so consistent presentation is often necessary to bridge that gap and reinforce your brand recognition. This is especially true for new and younger businessesConsistent branding allows your business to be perceived as the same business they've interacted with in the past. After enough consistent exposures to a brand, customers often begin to feel as though they know it personally and the relationship begins to grow.

On top of that, the more customers are exposed to something — a product, a service, or your brand — the more inclined they are to like it. This is a psychological phenomenon known as “mere exposure.”

Take stock of your current branding efforts. 

Brand consistency occurs when a business presents the same visual face, values, personality, and brand messaging across every customer touchpoint. This can be challenging to accomplish if you don’t fully understand your own brand. That’s why truly getting to know your brand is the first step in any brand consistency effort.If you already have a logo and visual branding elements, conduct a self-audit. Ask yourself if these elements properly represent your brand. If not, it may be time for a logo refresh or a complete visual rebranding.

Create a style guide.

A style guide is a way to keep track of your visual brand. This document outlines a set of rules to follow any time a member of your organization wants to publish, present or promote content for your brand. If your brand isn’t captured in a style guide, it can quickly drift into an inconsistent experience for your customers and employees.

A comprehensive style guide will provide all of the information needed for an employee to accurately create consistently branded content, including visual info such as fonts, brand colors, logo, signage specifications, typography style and any other commonly used branded graphic elements. It should also cover less tangible items like ideal voice and tone, your branding mission and company philosophy.

Brand from the inside out.

Your employees are the guardians of your brand.

Employees should be as well-educated and passionate about your brand as you are. Without their understanding and buy-in, a consistent branding effort could be doomed to fail. This is one of the reasons why many of the best brands are built from the inside out.

Authentic brand values that evolve naturally from your company culture will likely be easiest for your employees to embrace and enact. However, don’t necessarily assume that because your brand values are genuine, that your employees will know how to — or that they will — articulate them. Provide brand education for all employees so that they understand their role in presenting a consistent brand identity for your company.