Business owners and executives are always looking for branding advantages they can use to move ahead of their competitors. They have to – without Fortune 500 budgets to spend, they need to make the most of each customer interaction to make a strong impression.
This drives many of them to (understandably) read lots of books and attend expensive seminars. Meanwhile, they miss one of the easiest opportunities they have to establish a strong brand identity in the marketplace: simply being consistent.
The very best thing you can do for your branding campaign is to plan out the kind of identity you want to build and then reinforce it again and again. That means having the same visual identity messaging, etc. throughout all of your communications. Your brand should be consistent on the web, in your company emails, throughout your print advertisements, and across your social media platforms. While the way you use your branding might change, the distinctive elements themselves should not.
Why does consistency give you such a big business branding advantage? Let’s look at a few of the most important reasons…
Brand Awareness is Largely Subconscious
Just because you spent weeks and weeks composing and analyzing your branding strategy, that doesn’t mean your customers and prospects are going to do the same. In fact, you can be virtually assured that they won’t spend more than a few seconds at a time looking at your logo design and tag-line. They may not even notice them at all.
Believe it or not, that’s not a problem. The biggest effect of your branding campaign is subconscious. It happens beneath the level of rational thinking. It’s repeated exposure to your brand, and small subliminal impressions, that help you to create an identity. That can’t happen unless your branding is prominent and consistent.
Brand Strength Can Be Monetized Through Top-of-Mind Awareness
Taking the point about subliminal brand awareness one step further, stop and think for a moment about the real value of building a strong brand. For all the theory and hype that’s out there, the reality is that you need good branding to generate sales. How can that happen when customers aren’t really paying attention to your branding efforts?
The answer lies in top-of-mind awareness. When customers can easily identify your company’s identity and positioning, they tend to think of you first when they have a need for your products and services. Again, this is an area where consistent branding can give you a big boost.
Being Consistent Makes Marketing and Branding Easier
It’s worth mentioning that building a consistent brand doesn’t just make it easier to sell, but also improves your marketing at the same time. A lot of companies drift from one concept or idea to the other because they don’t have a focus that leads them in a distinct direction. When your branding strategy is tight, though, you tend to stay on message.
In a day-to-day sense, this means you know what your ads, social posts, and billboards (as examples) should look like. Because your brand is strong, it’s easy to develop and execute campaigns. This saves you time and money while boosting the results you get from all of your outreach efforts.
Need Help Reaching Your Branding and Marketing Goals?
At SmartNet Solutions in New York City, we don’t just create logo designs and build websites. We get to know our clients so we can help them create branding packages and marketing campaigns that make them stand out to customers and generate real-world results.
If that’s the kind of service you’re looking for, we invite you to contact us today to schedule a free consultation!