When it comes to brand consistency, video is the ideal medium to create and maintain strong and attractive visuals for your audience. Videos need to both provide tangible information about the product or services being offered, as well as serve as a representation of the values of the company. This can help you ensure that, even when talking remotely, customers have an idea of who they’re connecting with. With consumers staying at home and actively seeking out more video content from brands they support – now’s the perfect time to instill brand consistency through your videos.
In this article, we’ll dive deep into many ways you can maintain brand consistency to ultimately grow your business and create a better connection with your prospects and customers.
The definition of brand consistency is the practice of ensuring that all of a company’s materials—including its videos, website, social media accounts, and other content—maintain the same look, feel, and messaging. This means that all elements related to a company’s brand should be consistent in both visual appearances as well as tone.
Brand consistency is important because it helps ensure that customers and potential customers recognize your business, know what to expect from you, and trust your brand. When all of a company’s materials have the same look and feel, customers can easily identify which products or services are associated with the company. It also reinforces the message that a company is trying to advocate.
Ok, so now you understand the definition and why it’s important, but how do you actually put this into action? Here are 7 effective ways to build brand consistency:
Before creating any content, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your brand’s core values, mission, and messaging. This will help ensure that all content aligns with your brand’s identity.
To create a brand messaging strategy, explore the following:
A value proposition is the foundation of a company’s communication strategy, influencing how it positions itself in the market. Establishing a clear and well-defined value proposition is critical in determining success when marketing products or services. It provides a concise overall representation of what makes your company distinct from its competitors.
Every company should have its own value proposition that reflects its purpose, offered brand, and capabilities. Take, for example, a digital solutions firm whose value lies in delivering innovative software. In order to drive customer acquisition, recognition, and return patronage such an organization must emphasize this distinction in all aspects of their marketing campaigns—from sales to advertising initiatives.
Without emphasizing this core concept their message will not have the same strategic impact nor reach its desired audience in an efficient manner. Therefore, creating a memorable and unique set of values to present is essential in forming a strong hold over potential customers or partners.
Creating a video style guide is an important part of any company’s overall branding and marketing efforts. A video style guide serves as a set of guidelines for producing videos that reflect your company, its message, and its brand identity. A well-crafted guide will help ensure that your videos all share the same aesthetic, tone, and messaging which can have a sizable impact on how viewers perceive and interact with your brand.
A comprehensive video style guide should include what type of language to use in the videos, any common terminology used in the industry, and how many people should be actively participating in each scene. It should also cover topics like camera angles and blocking shots, sound effects and music selection, the timing for transitions or fadeouts, font choices for titles or closed captioning, lighting techniques to adopt or avoid, clothing suggestions for presenters or actors in a scene, any necessary logos to include on-screen at certain points in time during production – even the preferred way to transition from one scene to another.
Creating such a detailed guide ensures that there are no surprises within post-production while keeping any inconsistencies across projects down to an absolute minimum.
Consistency is key when it comes to branding.
Extending your visual branding across multiple platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube can do wonders for your brand recognition and audience engagement. Establishing consistent aesthetic elements in your images, videos, graphics, and other content help build social proof and trust with customers that they come to expect certain aspects when viewing content from your business.
When extending your visual branding, it is important to note the elements that are key in doing so. This includes consistent color schemes such as complementary colors or a company’s official brand identity palette, distinctive font styles for overlaying text on posts or even incorporating brand mascots into visuals when possible. Doing this allows customers to have an understanding of what type of content to expect from your brand when visiting each platform and gives a sense of familiarity with each post without having to mention the logo or handle each time. With enough practice, customers will begin to recognize and remember when an image or video is from you without ever seeing your logo.
Maintaining a consistent brand voice is an important aspect of projecting a positive impression of your business. A style guide is the first step toward creating a uniform brand identity and providing customers with a straightforward way to interact with the company. Style guides can include recommendations for tone, diction, common terms, formatting preferences, and more.
Having access to this guide will ensure that everyone who writes external-facing copy or interacts directly with customers is using the same messaging and style—saving precious time and resources in the process. It’s important when creating your style guide that you make it as easy to understand as possible so employees don’t have to spend time deciphering what a certain rule means. Keep your document well-organized and use clear language throughout so there’s no guesswork involved when working within its confines. Making sure that all employees are consistently following the same guidelines will go a long way toward helping customers connect with your company efficiently and effectively.
Instead of simply stating your brand messaging, try to incorporate it into the story or narrative of your video. This will help your messaging be more memorable and impactful.
A brand story is a powerful tool that has the ability to shape how people view and interact with your company. From helping convey your mission and values, to giving potential customers an understanding of why they should work with you, every company needs a compelling brand story. It’s essential to distinguish your product or service in a way that resonates emotionally with customers.
A good brand story will tell its audience who you are and what makes you different from others in the same sector.
Positioning is also critical when crafting a well-defined brand story. It helps brands set clear expectations for their audience about the purpose of their products or services. For example, if you want to position yourself as an eco-friendly brand in the fashion industry, you need to communicate this through visual design, messaging, and product packaging that shows customers that sustainability is important to you.
The positioning also gives an opportunity for companies to explain why their product or services should be chosen over others. Every part of the positioning process plays an integral role in forming customer impressions about a business – so it’s important for companies to get it right the first time!
Branding consistency should be a team effort for all of your employees, not just something you mandate from the top down. The best way to ensure that everyone is using your brand style guide correctly and consistently is to provide regular training.
Make sure your sales and customer service teams are fully trained so they know how to interact with customers. A single negative sales experience can cause a loyal customer to disappear, so stay on top of any customer complaints, concerns, or reviews. Don’t just focus on negative experiences, make sure you’re interacting with customers that leave positive feedback and reviews as well!
Training doesn’t have to be a difficult or time-consuming process. You can include elements like tutorials, online workshops, in-person meetings, webinars, quizzes, and even fun activities to keep everyone engaged and interested in learning the ins and outs of your brand style guide.
Ensure that the training isn’t too punitive; instead, focus on praising employees who practice good compliance. Using friendly language while emphasizing core themes like consistency will go a long way toward making sure everyone across all departments understands and adheres to guidelines regarding how your brand should look, sound and feel. Give simple examples of how following various rules accurately reflect your values as an organization so that everyone feels supported by their teammates.
When it comes to branding and marketing strategies, it is important to evaluate performance in order to assess whether you are on the right path or not. To do this, you need to ask yourself some hard questions, such as if your message is resonating with your target audience. Have you been sending out the wrong messages? Are there any associations that are perhaps impacting negatively how loyal customers perceive your product or brand?
It might also be beneficial to review the competition, comparing their messaging and actions against yours. From here you can make adjustments according to which approach proved more effective.
Additionally, consider seeking external opinions about current trends so that when defining your strategy, you take into account changes in trends that could affect your approach. Ultimately understanding what works for a certain market will help ensure success in formulating a successful branding and marketing strategy.
500 108th Ave NE, Ste. 1100 Bellevue, Washington 98004