Building a strong brand rests on consistency. A consistent brand gets noticed. This recognition brings prospective new business. This is important with B2B brands, because B2B customers often want to recognise a company, have confidence in it and feel they know it before paying for a service.
To ensure your brand is recognised and understood by customers and prospects, it is vital to be consistent across all communication channels. But what are the best ways to do this?
1. Scrutinise your brand
Companies tend to grow organically and often introduce different services along the way. It is essential to take a look at your brand over time and ensure it remains true to the business. Researching how your brand is perceived can highlight issues you never knew existed.
Completing a brand and marketing review, which should include interviews with clients, will give you a better understanding of customer interpretations and reactions to your marketing and brand. You can also do an internal review with employees to better understand their view of the company.
In 2010 Daryl Willcox Publishing (DWPub) did some research that revealed there was confusion and lack of clarity around the company and individual services, both from a brand and structural point of view. Following the research, we decided to rebrand in the second half of 2011 to achieve clarity and consistency in both these areas.
Once you’re aware of any problems, you can act accordingly. Rebranding, albeit evolutionary rather than revolutionary, was the right decision for us but for you it may only be necessary to make smaller changes to bring your brand together as a whole.
2. Appearance
It is important to get it right at the foundations of your brand so you have a strong platform from which to build. Your appearance should achieve clarity and consistency across the foundations of your brand – fonts, logos, colour palettes, images and most importantly, the presentation of your service names and descriptions.
Consistent brands create strong recognition. Think of any strong brand and you are likely to be able to list its colours, use of imagery and the products it sells. This is what creates recognition, trust and therefore engagement.
No matter whether someone sees an email, advert, brochure or social media profile, or attends one of your sponsored events, they will recognise immediately it is you and that they can trust it.
3. Messaging
Your audience should know what to expect from your brand. Regularly changing your media spokesperson or sending messages that don’t tie-in with what you stand for is likely to cause confusion.
Having the same person quoted each time there is a mention in the press will show a human side to your brand and companies will be more likely to recognise you.
A brand message should achieve recognition, trust and engagement. If the audience recognises a piece of communication they are more likely to engage with it. One of the problems DWPub’s research revealed was that the audience often didn’t recognise a piece of marketing as being from DWPub, as the services and parent brand were not consistent in look and feel. This meant they would be less likely to engage with it.
Following the rebrand, we now have a much more consistent tone. That doesn’t mean every single thing has to look identical all of the time, but using a consistent tone of voice and look and feel will ensure your communications are instantly recognisable.
Brand presence is much more than a nice logo and a bit of advertising – it is the summation of everything you stand for, everything you believe in and everything you do. It is how you look, how you talk and how you act.
Creating a good impression in the minds of your customers and prospects is vital in today’s market. It can help deliver a competitive advantage, a greater return on investment and long-term brand loyalty. It can help build a better business.
A consistent brand creates trust. If prospects trust you they are much more likely to buy your services. If your customers trust you they are more likely to stay with you, but even more crucially, they are more likely to recommend you to others.
