The Importance of Brand Consistency for Your Business

What does brand consistency mean for your business? A consistent brand is easy for customers to recognize, and it is the result of having all of your marketing programs working together to develop a consistent image. That sounds impressive, but what does it really mean? It means that if you can develop a consistent brand, then you start to become recognized as an industry leader and your company will benefit from all of the perks that come from being considered the best at what you do.

Image Is Extremely Important

Your corporate brand is the reputation you have built throughout your target audience based on your marketing message and your company's actions. When you talk about quality and dedication and back that up with good products and service, then that becomes part of your brand.

A consistent brand is much more than a good logo and a corporate color scheme. It is the way that your customers identify your business, and it is the image your business projects. If you want to build a successful company, then broadcasting a consistent and positive image is extremely important.

Agencies Are The Key

If you want to create a consistent brand, then you need to develop consistent marketing messages across a variety of platforms. The materials you bring to trade shows need to deliver the same message in the same way as your magazine advertisements. The best way to keep all of that information organized and deliver consistency is through an agency.

Maintaining and building your company brand is a full-time job that you simply do not have time to perform. If you want to do it right, then you need to work with a professional agency that knows how to build your brand and deliver a consistent message across every marketing medium that you use.

Make Your Marketing More Powerful

A strong brand makes your marketing more effective and powerful. When your target audience is constantly exposed to your brand building efforts across a variety of platforms, then your marketing becomes recognizable. Your company logo becomes a symbol of quality to your customers that increases sales through your normal distribution networks. Your company name is the only reason customers need to buy your products when your brand is consistent and strong.

Enhance Your Marketing Investment

As you can imagine, a strong brand means that you can start to diversify your marketing programs and spend less money on basic brand building activities. An agency knows how to sustain your brand once it is established, and then continue to grow your brand to make it more valuable.

Expand Your Exposure

A consistent brand can withstand exposure to industries and markets that are outside of your normal target audience. For example, consider the insurance company that is seen advertising at professional hockey games. While the idea of an insurance company and professional ice hockey are not consistent, the strength of the brand means that the added exposure brings in more revenue. Your brand can benefit from the same type of cross-industry exposure when your marketing is strong.

Growing a business becomes a little easier when your target audience recognizes your company's name and associates that name with quality products and services. The only way to have a positive reputation precede your company is to have a consistent brand that creates excitement in your target audience.

Four Marketing Elements That Must Be Instantly Recognizable

When you spend years wearing the same type of clothes and having the same haircut, people recognize you even when they do not see your face. If you are smart, then you use that high level of recognition to generate revenue in some way. But when you change your clothes and cut your hair, no one recognizes you anymore and the magic is gone.

Consumers like to be able to recognize the companies they use instantly and there are several things you can do that make your company instantly recognizable. Once you have achieved a high level of recognition, all of your marketing efforts become more productive and your revenue starts to go up.

Your Logo

The very best logos can be recognized almost instantly and immediately associated with their respective companies. Nike, Coca-Cola, and McDonald's all have logos that consumers can recognize immediately and that does wonders for increasing sales.

For example, when you and your family are on a long driving trip and you want to stop for lunch, if you see those Golden Arches, then you know you are stopping. A recognizable logo becomes something everyone can agree upon and something that brings in business all on its own.

Your Corporate Color Scheme

If you work in the computer industry and you see something in the colors of blue and white, then you instantly think of IBM. If you like drinking soft drinks and you see a cup with red and white on it, you automatically think of Coca-Cola. It does not matter if IBM or Coca-Cola have their logos in plain view. What matters is that these companies have worked hard to associate their organizations with those common color schemes in the minds of consumers.

Your Company Name

Kentucky Fried Chicken became so popular that two could be having a conversation and refer to Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC and they would both know what restaurant each other was talking about. When your company becomes so popular that consumers start abbreviating your company name and making it part of conversational dialog, then you know that your marketing work is effective.

Your Product

You may have never heard of a company called Kimberly-Clark, but you probably use a product called Kleenex every day. The facial tissue known as Kleenex is so popular that most people do not realize that the product is actually called facial tissue. Most people call all facial tissue Kleenex and that makes Kimberly-Clark a very wealthy company.

A company has to make a lot of decisions when it comes to marketing. The right decisions could lead to a product becoming a household name, while a wrong decision could put a company out of business. The worst thing any company can do is cut its marketing budget, even when the economy takes a turn for the worse.

Good marketing creates images that are burned into consumers' minds and result in ongoing sales. When your marketplace starts referring to generic products by your company's brand name or when consumers shorten your company name into a nickname because they refer to your company so often, then you know that your marketing is effective. Take the time to develop the four most important parts of your company's marketing image and you will see returns several times over for years to come.