Why brand consistency is your secret to customer loyalty and how to ensure it
Did you know that brand consistency has been shown to increase revenue by 33%? Or that 87% of customers think brands should work harder at delivering a consistent experience? As these statistics clearly show, brand consistency is not only important but a critical factor in the very success of your business. But what exactly is”brand consistency”? In essence, brand consistency is giving customers a consistent experience of your brand. It’s about ensuring that your imagery, tone of voice, key messaging, customer experience, logos, and virtually any other element to do with your branding stays the same across every channel. So, why is brand consistency so important, and how can you ensure it? Keep reading to find out.
Why is brand consistency so important?
Creates brand recognition
It takes between 5-7 impressions even to start creating brand awareness. So if each impression your customers get of your brand is entirely different, it will be much harder for them to remember you – especially with the crowded digital channels we use today. Keeping your brand consistent directly correlates with brand recognition. The more customers see the same colours, language, logos, imagery, and copy – the more brand awareness and, therefore, trust you’ll generate – inevitably leading to more sales and customer loyalty.
Earns consumer trust
81% of the 16,000 consumers surveyed by Edelman think brand trust is a deal-breaker or a deciding factor when considering a purchase. How can you win that trust? Brand consistency. If any of your brand assets (newsletters, website, social media posts, ads, product descriptions, etc.) don’t look the same, your customers will likely think something fishy is going on. Or, they might think that if you can’t stay consistent online, how can they trust you’re paying enough attention to product quality and customer support?
Enhances customer experiences
When customers have certain expectations of your brand, and you consistently meet them on every channel, they’re much more likely to feel satisfied and maintain a positive view of your brand. Whether it’s how you communicate with customers through your support channels, the tone of voice you use in your social media posts, or the way you represent your products across retailer sites – keeping every element consistent is the best way to build better customer experiences.
How to ensure your brand stays consistent
Brand consistency isn’t just about creating a set of brand guidelines and distributing it across all marketing departments and retailers. Despite your best efforts, people don’t always stick to it. Here’s how to make sure your brand stays consistent.
Make brand consistency an organisational goal
To be effective, you must create an ongoing company-wide strategy for maintaining brand consistency and ensure key figures take ownership of implementing and regularly revising it to measure success and fish out inconsistencies.
Create a set of branding guidelines and share them
Branding guidelines encompass every element of how you come across online and offline. These are strict protocols you put in place to make sure you look and feel the same to your customers every single time – whether they’re scrolling through your Instagram page or checking out your products on Amazon. What to include in your branding guidelines:
Branding assets
Include a comprehensive list of all imagery, logos, graphics, and icons associated with your brand and the dos and don’ts of using all of them. Make it crystal clear to retailers what they can and can’t do with any assets to comply with your guidelines.
Brand language
Decide on your key messaging points and sentence structure for consistent messaging you’ll use across your brand materials and assets. Make sure to include the font type, size, colour, capitalisation, do’s and don’ts etc. Be as specific as possible.
Brand voice
What is your brand’s “tone of voice”? Is it fun and quirky? Formal and luxurious? Outline the key traits you use to define your brand tone of voice to ensure every piece of marketing material you or your retailers put out aligns with the right tone.
Product descriptions
Is there a specific way you want products to come across online? Are there standard product descriptions your retailers need to use across every channel? Outline everything you can about your products to ensure retailers present them correctly.
Mission and values
Including your mission statement and core values in your brand guidelines is essential, as they may be displayed across marketing materials and some areas of retailer sites and will impact how your team interacts with customers and represents your brand.
Choose Convert Group to improve brand consistency
If several retailers stock your products, checking every page to ensure each product description, company bio, availability level, and visuals comply with your guidelines can be a serious time suck and a huge headache. Convert Group’s innovative platform makes maintaining brand consistency a breeze, freeing your team to focus on other business priorities. It allows brands to easily share data with retailer websites and create content that converts and complies across all retailers. Using our API, you’ll be able to better collaborate with retailers to optimise product content, spot errors automatically, and, most importantly, stay consistent! Through our game-changing platform, you can also check product availability across every retailer’s website and see what ones need to increase their stock – making sure your customers can always buy from your brand on their favourite channels.
Ready to save time and increase brand loyalty?
We hope you now understand just how important brand consistency is for today’s discerning consumers and the steps you need to take to ensure that consistency at all times. Convert Group helps brands maintain visibility across all retailer websites with comprehensive data insights and market analysis. Easily identify issues with retailers representing your products online, oversee product availability, and turn complex data from several retailers into actionable insights to help you better understand shopper behaviour. If you’re interested in developing a more data-driven branding and marketing strategy, get in touch with us today, and our team of experts will help you understand the benefits of Convert Group for your business.
