Your brand helps your customers recognize you, influences how they perceive you, and guides their interaction with you. A strong brand will help you grow your business by increasing product recognition and market share.
Building a truly memorable brand takes hard work and constant consistency.
Why is consistency in branding important? Trust and expectations are key
Customers begin to doubt your brand if it looks or feels inconsistent. They don’t trust you or feel familiar with you.
To maintain brand consistency, you must protect the brand and the trust and loyalties it has earned. Maintaining brand consistency for a small operator is simple. When managing a large network of franchises or outlets, there is a high risk that a team member will inadvertently deviate from brand standards.
Here are five tips for maintaining brand consistency on a national scale.
Set robust brand guidelines
Your brand is much more than just a logo or a collection of colors; you need to ensure that your brand guidelines reflect this.
Your brand guidelines should include the following:
The tone of voice strategy
Key messages
Brand vision and values
You can also include other information relevant to how the brand is represented on the market.
Brand guidelines are not static. As your brand grows, the guidelines should also evolve.
Brand guidelines that are robust and adaptive are comprehensive. They are comprehensive and adaptive.
Align Your Partners
Aligning your partners is a key factor in maintaining the consistency of the brand.
The risk of inconsistencies and brand irregularities is greater if you use a different printer in each location.
This problem can be solved by a single print provider who offers national solutions and local connections. You can control your brand nationally, and your branches and stores can connect with local partner centers that adhere to national standards and guidelines.
Asking about how your printing partner’s solutions support national brands with a large footprint should be on your list when looking for your ideal printer.
You can focus on higher-level marketing by choosing the right print partner who provides national support locally.
As you ensure print brand consistency, align your digital and media partners. You can ensure brand consistency throughout your entire creative portfolio by doing this.
Brand Consistency Create a Centralised Brand Platform
It is important to make your brand guidelines easy to follow and control to maintain brand consistency.
Accessibility is the first step to achieving this. Create a central platform that houses all brand guidelines, brand assets, and local branch information so suppliers, stores, and local branches can find what they need.
A centralized brand platform that is effective must:
You can grow your business with the right flexibility.
Make it intuitive, easy to use, and accessible.
You need to have reliable technical support.
Design, print, and digital services to meet your needs
Put in place a governance system
They are worthless if you do not support your brand guidelines with effective governance.
You can ensure your team understands what you expect of them and how they should represent your brand.
Governance is fairly simple for national initiatives. Approve assets at the head office and inform your network once they are ready to order and use them.
You need to be more careful about implementing workflow governance for LAM. You can require stakeholders to approve any changes to your designs before they are used online or in print.
Creating a brand consistency checklist that ensures collateral and assets always reflect the brand is also recommended.
Conduct audits Tip Brand Consistency
Even with the best checks and balances, you can expect some brand inconsistencies from time to time. This is especially true when you introduce new processes or initiatives.
Visual audits can help you identify and correct inconsistencies, preventing future incidents.
Partnering with companies that offer local solutions, are familiar with your brand guidelines, and have national connections can be a good way to ensure quality.
How to maintain brand consistency
You need a print partner who can deliver and understand your brand at the national level.
SNAP is here to help. We live your experience with our 130+ centers in Australia. We understand how difficult it can be to keep your brand consistent. We know how to achieve brand consistency.
Contact us to discuss your national and local printing requirements and learn how SNAP can help deliver brand consistency.
Snap Corporate Solutions was designed for businesses and corporate clients with a multi-site or national footprint. We aim to provide a range of print management solutions tailored to each client’s needs by combining a centralized national centralized provider with the responsiveness of local businesses.
Our clients enjoy several benefits at the head office level. These include a centralized system for brand management, governance, and systems, as well as national coverage and risk reduction. Adaptability, speed, and communication are among the benefits at the branch level.
