It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the game for a long time; building a strong, cohesive brand is one of the best things you can do for your business.
A brand isn’t just the colors you choose for your website or the style of your logo, it’s much, much more.
Your brand is the very essence of your business. It’s your company’s personality, it’s your reputation, it’s how you communicate with your audience, and it influences your entire customer experience.
Without a cohesive (and unique) brand, you’ll be one of the many companies that get lost in the sea of boring sameness.
If you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors, then you must create a brand that’s cohesive, consistent, and full of life.
Today we’re going to show five steps you can take so you can create a cohesive brand for your business to take the top spot from your competitors.
Your brand tool kit is your one-stop-shop of assets to keep your brand cohesive and consistent across every physical and digital medium you have.
In your brand tool kit, you’ll have things like:
- Your logo in a variety of sizes and file types
- Your tagline
- Your color pallet, along with the exact color codes
- Your typeface for both your logo and copy
- Your tone of voice including a detailed guideline on the language that should be used to help create your brand voice
- Imagery and illustrations that represent your brand
- Templates for media such as newsletters, blog posts, presentations, and social media posts
A brand toolkit is a perfect way to make sure your branding stays on track. It helps you effectively and consistently build your brand by ensuring your visual and written communication stays consistent across all mediums.
By packing your toolkit full of guidelines and resources, you can make sure that everybody involved with your company can promote your brand correctly.
Organize your brand assets
The first step in creating a cohesive brand is to get your brand assets in order.
What are brand assets?
Well, we’re glad you asked!
Brand assets are things that people associate with your brand and interact with. They’re what makes your brand physically memorable.
This can include:
- Your website
- Your social media profiles
- Brochures and printed materials
- Business cards
- Exterior and interior signage
- Employee uniforms
- Product packaging
All these are essential aspects of your brand, and to create a cohesive brand, these brand assets have to be consistent.
For example, if your website’s brand colors are navy and orange, then your employee uniforms, business cards, and logo should follow the same color scheme. If you’ve had four different logos over the years, make sure all of your assets are using the most up to date version.
People are on social media every single day. In fact, the average person spends over 2 hours on social media every day.
Imagine if that person was interacting with your brand for even a fraction of their time on social media.
What would they see?
Would they see a timeline full of content that reflects the personality of your brand? Would they be blown away by the excellent and informative content you’ve posted proving that you’re an essential part of your industry?
Or, would they find an empty, barren landscape with a few retweets and a couple of competitions that were dated from a few years ago?
Your audience wants to connect with your brand, so to create a cohesive brand, you have to make sure your social media is up to date.
Not only this, but you have to make sure your social media fits in with the rest of your brand assets.
This means:
- Updating your profile picture to feature your latest logo
- Having a banner image that matches your brand’s color scheme, font type, and voice
- Making sure your username is consistent on every platform you use
- Making sure all your links lead to relevant pages of your website
- Your phone number, address, and email address are all up to date and correct
All this is vital for creating the cohesive brand that will get your company noticed when squaring up to your competitors.
Keep your Google My Business up to date
The next big thing to focus on when it comes to making sure you’re creating a cohesive and consistent brand online is to make sure your Google My Business is updated.
Google My Business (GMB) is usually one of the first places a potential client will look when trying to figure out if a company is worth working with. If your GMB isn’t up to date and is full of outdated information and imagery, then that potential client might think twice before working with you.
Not only have you lost a client, but you’ve got a hole in your branding.
Make sure you fix up your Google My Business, so it better represents your brand. This means updating it with:
- Your current logo
- Correct contact details
- The right opening hours
- Your current address
- Links to your website and social media
- New, high-quality photos that show off the fantastic work you’re doing for your clients
How you come across in your Google My Business listing will contribute to how your audience views your company and your brand. 91% of people regularly read online reviews on Google My Business so be sure yours is set up and optimized so your customers leave you 5-star reviews.
Make sure you brand voice is consistent
Tone of voice is often overlooked when it comes to branding. Not many companies even consider it when looking at the different parts of their brand, so they just write their blogs and their website copy however they like.
This is a huge mistake.
Your tone of voice is vital to your brand’s cohesiveness. If your audience is used to hearing your company speak formally, they’ll be shocked if your social media is incredibly informal and features a bunch of cat memes.
The tone of voice you use with your brand will all depend on your target audience and how you want to be seen as a company.
You should already know who you’re aiming your services or products towards. If they’re a group of people who prefer formality, then you should use a formal tone. If they’re a more laid-back audience, then you can be a bit more informal with them. If you’re a law office, keep it approachable but professional. If you’re selling plushies, you want to be fun, young, and friendly.
Remember who you’re talking to and choose the tone of voice that not only represents your brand but also speaks to your audience.
By improving your brand into a cohesive online (and offline!) experience, prospects and customers alike will learn to look for your company as the solution to their problems.
You’ll become known as the go-to authority in your industry – and the only option customers will even consider.
If you’re looking to make your brand cohesive then our team of branding experts can help.
At Emtwo, we help businesses just like yours craft the perfect online presence and succeed online.
If you’re ready to create the right branding for your company then get in contact with our team today!
About the author
(she/her) I’m a brand strategist, award-winning designer, business consultant, and artist. You can usually find me being followed (herded) by a pack of dogs with paint on my face. I dream of living on a huge farm with a bunch of goats, chickens, and dogs. And my husband too.
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