An effective Branding strategy begins and ends with one word: Consistency! Every company should have a brand style guide and it need not be complicated or burdensome.
An effective branding strategy affects everything you do. It defines your brand, what your brand does, and how you communicate that to your customers and prospects. A consistent brand creates credibility and trust.
In short, a brand style guide is a collection of specifications that help to present a consistent visual brand to the world. It is how you communicate what your brand stands for in your marketplace. It is tangible and executable. It gives your employees, contractors, and partners access to visual assets to create content about your brand.
You can create a brand style guide that is simple and easy to follow by including these simple steps:
Define your brand story.
Decide what you want your brand to say, what its values are, how you will communicate its concepts, and which emotions you want your customers to feel when interacting with your business. Do you want your customer to feel confident, trusting in your ability to help them? Do you want them to look up to you as the expert in your field? Do you want them to feel on an equal basis with you as a partner? Your brand story should include your company’s mission statement.
Present your official brand name.
What does your company name mean? How did you decide on it? How is it pronounced? Does it mean something else in a foreign language? Is it a word you coined by combining two other words? People are often fascinated to learn where a company’s name originated. If your company name has unusual capitalization or unique spelling, communicate exactly how the name should be presented.
Maintain your brand’s core color palette.
Your logo should always be presented in your selected color(s). Sometimes companies have multiple color schemes to add vitality to their brand communications, but to keep brand recognition strong, it is important to be consistent and make sure that core brand colors are used.
Impose a typography hierarchy.
Select type fonts that fit your brand. Typography may go unnoticed if it is done consistently, but the use of different typefaces is an obvious sign of a less-than-professional treatment and can cheapen your brand. Some elements may be bolded or in a medium or light font style. Being consistent here is very important.One more word about fonts: incorrect spacing can ruin a visual, so be sure to include a section in your style guide to show how to correctly space the graphics. For example, how much space to leave around logos and photos.
Define your brand voice.
Your content (text) should be presented in a consistent voice. Spend the time to discover the style that will resonate with your customers and prospects. If you have certain industry or company jargon, be sure you define the terms and be consistent in their usage throughout your marketing.
Specify your brand’s visual style.
Do you want to present your marketing message with photographs or do prefer illustrations? Determine how and when each of these visual styles can be used and how, if appropriate, they can be mixed.
Use logo guidelines.
If you use a logo graphic or present your company name in special typography, you want to be consistent in its use so that people will immediately recognize it as belonging to your company. A visual brand helps to create top-of-mind awareness and several elements come into play when creating a logo. Your main logo is how your logo should be used most often if not always. Sometimes it isn’t possible to use your logo color (as in a black and white ad), so you will need your brand style guide to outline rules for exactly how to use your main logo whether in its logo color or in black and white. A secondary logo helps when you need your logo to appear in a different way. For instance, using the first capital letter of your company name instead of the entire name or using a simplified version of the logo graphic. The point is to create this secondary logo and include it in your style guide so that you have it when it is needed.
Creating a Brand Style Guide is all about consistency.
Don’t send mixed messages when it comes to your brand. Build your own brand style guide so that anyone representing your brand can produce your marketing materials confidently, efficiently, and without error.
If you feel it is time to create a Brand Style Guide for your company or if your current guide needs updating, email Noel or call him at 978-505-2783.