You may have seen this before, where you go to a business' website, and it looks great.  And then when you check out their Facebook page, it also looks great, but it seems a bit different than what you saw on their website.  And then you see their eNewsletter, and it is also impressive, but again, somehow seems different than their website or Facebook page.  

This is all a symptom of a lack of brand consistency.

WHY IS BRAND CONSISTENCY IMPORTANT?

There are several reasons why addressing brand consistency is so important for ensuring the maximum effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Reinforcement:  Your branding sends a message to potential clients.  Having consistency of your branding across your multiple marketing channels serves to build and amplify this message.  And inconsistency in branding, even if each channel is done well, has the opposite unwanted effect of diluting your brand message.

Professionalism:  Having consistent branding across all of your marketing channels, of course, looks much more professional and helps send the signal that you have a sophisticated organization.

Clarity:  When branding is inconsistent across channels, in the low-attention-span world we live in today, it increases the likelihood that a client could see your branding in one marketing channel and not realize this is your business when they see your branding in another channel.  Remember that in sales, a confused mind says "no," so you want your branding across your marketing channels to support the clarity of who you are.

ACHIEVING BRAND CONSISTENCY

Here are some of the key elements for creating brand consistency across all of your marketing channels:

Complementary Imagery:  One strong element of brand consistency is having images across your marketing channels that are complementary.  Sometimes that can mean using the exact same image, but it can also be images that are very similar in style or color scheme that clearly connect to each other.

Corporate Colors:  Using common colors and using them in similar styles is another method of achieving brand consistency.

Common Themes:  And employing common themes across your marketing channels is another important element of brand consistency.  This can include common use of a tag line or other content, and it can also include using a common 'voice' style in your messaging.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

It would be fantastic to have a marketing budget the size of Apple Computer, and every six months to roll out fresh new branding across all of your marketing channels.  But, of course, that is not the real world.  For most businesses, a more practical approach to leveraging brand consistency is to treat each new branding opportunity with an eye for how to make it highly complementary to current channel brandings.

For example, when setting up your eNewsletter, it only takes a few minutes to right-click on the background image from your website and download it to use as the background image for your eNewsletter.