What is brand consistency? If you don't know much about branding, you probably don't know a lot about what brand consistency means and how important it is. To put it plainly, brand consistency refers to the proper, cohesive presentation of your brand values, brand personality, visual identity, brand messaging, and marketing. The ultimate goal of any growing organization should be to present a trustworthy, recognizable brand identity to maintain long-lasting influence with your audience.

Consumers are drawn to consistency. For example, say you love and follow a brand on Instagram that had really colorful, fun photos and a friendly personality. Sometime you decided to visit their website, and found it was full of impersonal language, poor quality images, and no calls to action. You'd likely be skeptical, and so would your audience.

This consistency goes beyond having good products or services. Your audience wants the same quality experience and feel every place and every time they interact with your brand. That's why consistency in your brand visuals, brand messaging, and products/services is vital to building your brand.

Let's dive into some of the major reasons behind the importance of brand consistency.

Market Growth Relies on Brand Awareness and Recognition

The driving factor here is that brand consistency leads to brand recognition which leads to brand trust. It can help turn your audience into ambassadors for your brand because they know you and like you. People can recognize your brand from its tagline, musical jingle, logo, or even the colors alone. But this is only possible if you build strong brand consistency wherever your audience interacts with your company or products/services.

Consistency is key.

It's difficult enough capturing your ideal audience's attention in the highly saturated web and social spaces. You will hinder your reach by having an inconsistent or ineffective brand presence. You can build brand awareness by creating intentional brand assets: a logo, messaging, color scheme, and other assets all based on the likes and preferences of your ideal audience. Remember, your company isn't serving you, it's meeting your ideal customer right where they can find you and attracting them as quickly as possible.

A great way to achieve this consistency is through brand guidelines. Brand Guidelines are a set of unique instructions and parameters surrounding your brand that allow you to maintain consistency across your digital and physical platforms.

If you’re looking for help creating and implementing brand guidelines, we can help you get started. Set up a FREE intro call with us (C’mon, who doesn't like free stuff?).

Consistency Develops Loyalty and Trust Among Audience Members

Trust is crucial in regards to marketing a product or service. Your audience makes purchasing decisions usually based off of an emotion rather than a practical decision. Brand loyalty means your audience likes you enough to not even consider your competitors ever again.

When consumers know and understand your brand, they will trust you and want to buy your products or hire you. Brand consistency develops customer loyalty and trust because your audience knows what to expect from you based on how you appear, not just what you say. Thus, you need to give them a similar experience across all your channels.

Have you ever considered why you buy the same Starbucks drink or take-out item over and over again? Likely you do this because you know what to expect and you grow fond of it. A consistent outcome often provides comfort in decision-making.

Brand Consistency Helps You Stand Out From the Competition

Most businesses want to be the best in their industry and become trusted authorities. Of course, the competition can be different depending on your niche industry, but brand consistency doesn’t depend on your niche or the target audience you deserve.

If you continually change your tagline, color scheme, products, or logo, your audience will get confused. You can lose your authority in your niche by not having a strong, consistent brand. As a result any web or social engagement may plummet the minute your audience thinks they can't trust you because they don't recognize you.

Remember when I mentioned brand guidelines? Studies have shown that over 90% of companies have brand guidelines. However, only around 25% of them actually follow and enforce these guidelines during daily content creation. Adhering to a set of rules and accountability measures will help you rise above the competition when it comes to your brand consistency.

In Summary

A brand is not just an important asset. It reveals the heart of your business. Developing and maintaining brand consistency is a full-time job that has some challenges, but even greater rewards. Hopefully, this article helps put into perspective for you just how important brand consistency is to your business growth.

To learn more about how you can achieve brand consistency, schedule a free call with us; we’d love to help!