As humans, we like things that feel familiar, things that we trust - brands like IKEA, John Lewis, WhatsApp, and Cadbury are all instantly recognisable and immensely popular. Brands that take the time to build consistency across their channels are rewarded with loyalty because their customers know what to expect. But how do you create brand consistency in an era of ultra-savvy consumers and ever-changing trends in marketing and audience behaviour?

The key elements of brand consistency

Visuals

More often than not, your visuals are the first thing people see of your brand, and so they need to be refined across every single part of your business. Your brand’s visual identity is vital in helping customers take what are known as ‘mental shortcuts’ - unconscious thoughts that feed our quick decisions.

Take the ad below - it's instantly recognisable as McDonald's, even with just a tiny snippet of their logo, because their branding is so consistent.

Messaging and tone of voice

What does your brand sound like? Is it friendly and easy to understand? Is it sharp and witty? Is it aspirational? Whichever route you decide to take with your messaging, you need to ensure you stick to it across every single channel, from your email marketing to your Instagram captions.

Values and purpose

Your brand’s values shape your decision-making, inform your direction, and influence how and where your business shows up. This isn’t just for your marketing behaviour, either - your values should inform your customer service, too. Customers will be attracted to brands that share their values, so it’s important that you shout about them where necessary, and make sure you stick to them at all times.

How to build brand consistency

Be authentic

Building a recognisable brand voice takes time, testing, and some trial and error. From your tone to your messaging, customers need to feel like your brand is speaking to them in an authentic way - not just marketing products and services to them at every possible opportunity.

If you feel like your brand has something to say about current events, or industry news, or anything that’s not directly sales-related, it’s crucial that your approach aligns with your usual marketing strategy. Reinforce your brand messaging with all content or communications - it’s how customers will come to see you as a voice they recognise.

Train your team

There’s no use spending all that time devising brand guidelines if your team doesn't know how to use them. Make sure everyone is up to speed with the brand voice, messaging, and other pillars so that every bit of communication is aligned. Disjointed comms can quickly dampen the impact of your message.

Take the time to establish clear, defined brand guidelines and then help everyone in your organisation get comfortable and on board with them, especially if it’s different to what they’re used to. Whether their role is customer-facing or not, true consistency requires everyone to be on-brand, not just a select few. Inconsistency is brand trust’s worst enemy.

Listen to your customers

In our recent article about empathy led marketing, we highlighted the importance of listening to your audience in order to refine your offering, and it’s just as important in this context. Monitor social media to see what your audience is talking about, and learn from the common threads in any feedback they give you in order to better cater to their needs. Not only does this help to improve your brand consistency, but it also shows your customers that you truly care about delivering a better experience for them, which will further solidify their trust in you.

What you say must align with what you do

If what your brand says doesn’t match up with what your brand does, then something has gone wrong somewhere. If customers are drawn in by your brand’s friendly, personable and witty advertising and marketing, only to find customer service that is stuffy and corporate, then they’re going to feel somewhat misled.

According to Yotpo, 36.5% of US shoppers will spend more on products from brands they’re loyal to, and 59% will tell their family and friends about that brand. Your branding creates expectations - directly and indirectly - so think about what those are, and whether or not your service aligns with those expectations.

What happens without brand consistency?

Your customers won’t know what to expect

Consistency breeds familiarity, and that familiarity is a key reason for people returning to a brand over and over again. From your branding to your tone, your audience comes to expect the features that drew them to you in the first place, so it’s jarring and off-putting if a once-trusted brand starts switching logos and changing how it speaks.

You only need to look at WHSmith’s poorly received rebrand from last year to see what can happen when a business deviates from a much-loved and familiar identity.

You’ll waste time and money

Rebranding costs a lot. Maybe not as much as BP, who spent $200m on changing their logo in 2000, but it still requires a lot of resources for ideation, design, development and rollout. Hastily choosing your branding, or changing branding to fit trends and other fleeting parameters is a costly exercise that uses up time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. We’re not saying ‘never refresh your brand’ - all branding needs it from time to time, but it must be carefully considered and backed by strong research.

You’ll shake customer confidence

Inconsistent messaging, constant branding changes, confusing customer experiences. Those things all have something in common: they give the impression of a confused organisation that doesn't really know what it wants to do and how it wants to come across. You can’t expect your customers to believe in your brand if it looks like your brand doesn’t believe in itself.

Final thoughts

Brand consistency should be a priority for any business, as it’s key to customer retention. Allow these statistics to illustrate our point:

• According to CallMiner, customer churn costs US businesses $168 billion every year
• BIA found that repeat customers spend 67% more than new customers
• 39% of customers are willing to spend more with a brand they trust, according to Yotpo

By taking the time to establish your brand guidelines and by implementing them across every channel, you’re strongly increasing your chances of customer retention. Learn from your audience, train your team in your values, and build a cohesive approach to your brand identity that keeps your customers coming back.