What is it and why is it crucial to growing your business?
When it comes to growing a business, I think we can all agree we want the same things:
1) For others to recognise us
2) Remember us
3) Talk about us
4) And most importantly…trust us.
To achieve this brand recognition, you must be consistent with the way your brand is represented in all of your marketing. If you are familiar with the social media marketing world, I’m sure you would’ve heard, “be consistent!”, “consistency is key”, or something along those lines more times than you can count. When I first started learning about social media marketing I figured this was simply referring to how often you post and the type of content you produce.. but let me tell you, brand consistency goes FAR beyond that and it is crucial to growing your brand and a loyal following.
It is the underlying creative principle that guides all your digital branding. Basically, the look and feel of your marketing. The colours, fonts, logos, layouts, tones, filters and the images you use all contribute to this Instagram aesthetic and are part of your visual identity – aka how you display your business to customers. A strong visual identity can help strengthen your brands message, convey your brands personality, offer a more professional look, help your followers instantly recognize your content when it appears on their feed and converts visitors into lifelong followers.*
So what exactly is the definition of “brand consistency”?
In a nut shell, it is the underlying creative principle that guides all of your digital branding - aka the way you display your business to customers. This includes;
visuals, patterns, textures, icons
logo(s)
layouts
the tonality
colour scheme and fonts
values and overall message
photography / video / graphics / editing style
Now - to achieve brand consistency you must be consistent with each of the above ↑
This means you must include each of these elements into the content that you produce and publish to social media in the same way(s) each time you post. Maintaining a strong visual identity will help strengthen your brands message, convey your brands personality, offer a more professional look and help your followers recognise your content which creates trust between you and your customer. When you build trust with your audience, they will decide themselves that you are a business they want to work with / spend their money on.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU’RE NOT CONSISTENT WITH YOUR BRAND?
If your audience doesn’t understand or get your brand and what your business represents;
-they won’t remember you
-they won’t know it’s for them
- and it simply won’t stand out from the other business’s in your same niche.
To ensure consistency, I would highly recommend creating a brand style guide to refer back to so that you don’t ever steer off path!
This is a visual representation of your brand identity and is the template to everything you would include in all marketing and advertising. It’s always handy to have and refer back to, or if you start growing and need to outsource, your brand kit is your marketing ‘bible’ when it comes to content creation so people know how you like it done! It includes colour palettes, fonts, logo’s, themes/graphics.
If you’re needing some extra help, I offer a branding service to help bring your brands vision to life so you can maintain brand consistency and create the aesthetic feed your brands deserves.
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