Image Credit: Pexels CC0 Licence
When you look at the big brands, you recognise them immediately. They use the same colours, fonts and images everywhere. They also share the same message and ideals. Go into one branch and you will find much the same as any other.
Though your small home business might not need to be consistent with any other branch, you do still need to have consistency within your own business. This means deciding on your branding and sticking to it, whether you are printing receipts, writing proposals or putting up a poster.
How to be Consistent
When you design your corporate brand identity, you should think about all the different places your branding will appear and how to create a consistent look. This means that as well as designing a logo and picking out the right colours, you should also think about the font you want to use in subheadings or the size of the text.
To ensure consistency, it’s a good idea to create a brand guidelines document for yourself. This document essentially provides a set of rules for you to adhere to whenever you create a document or other marketing materials. It doesn’t matter whether you are building a casual dog boarding business or getting ready to build a business empire, consistency is key.
Consistency Makes You Recognisable
The reason that you should be consistent is that doing the same things over and over again will make you recognisable. Repetition is one of the main ways that people remember things, they see a thing once and it might make an impression, they see a thing a few times and they come to understand what it means. Think about it – you probably see the same advert over and over again for a few months at a time and that is the kind of consistent repetition you need.
On the flip side, if you aren’t consistent, it will take a lot longer for people to recognise your business. Putting out a basic poster is fine but if it looks nothing like your previous posters, it will probably not get the attention it deserves. Not only will it be less recognisable but it also won’t help you to build your reputation.
Consistency Builds Your Reputation
Imagine your brand is a person for a moment. If that person was consistent and you knew what you were going to get every time you saw them, you’d probably be more inclined to visit than if they kept changing their identity. This is exactly what branding is about.
When you see a new advert from a company you are familiar with, you are probably more inclined to pay attention. But more importantly, you are more likely to trust the message and respond positively because you know the brand well. Because you have spent time and energy making sure that your brand is reputable and well-liked, you need to make sure that it is consistently recognised for those characteristics.
Even if you are only creating a small side hustle, consistency is really important when building your brand and reputation. Ignore it at your peril!
This is a collaborative post.
Leave a Reply