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In this edition of “Ask the Board,” we asked Stephanie Johnson, Vice President of Marketing for AlphaGraphics, a global company that offers custom print and marketing solutions for small businesses, to share her advice on how small business owners can take their brand identity to new heights and stand out from their competitors.
Regardless of if you’re a startup or have been around for decades, your brand identity is important. It’s what will allow you to build meaningful relationships with your current and prospective customers and vendors. Here are a few ways you can elevate it.
Establish a strong foundation
Start by defining your brand's core elements. Begin with a distinctive logo that reflects your brand’s identity, and select a color palette that compliments the logo and evokes the desired emotional response. Choose typography that aligns with your brand’s voice and ensure your photography style is consistent and high-quality to strengthen your visual messaging.
Once these elements are in place, craft comprehensive brand guidelines that document the usage rules for each brand element, providing clear examples and templates. This meticulous documentation will help maintain a cohesive and professional brand image, essential for building trust and recognition with your audience.
Be consistent
Consistency across channels is crucial for brand integrity and recognition. On the website, design coherence and navigation consistency ensure a seamless user experience. Furthermore, social media should exhibit a unified visual style and tone to reinforce brand identity and engage the audience.
Continue a cohesive presence offline by reflecting the same branding elements in print materials such as brochures and business cards and signage such as posters and banners. Finally, packaging design must maintain the same principles to create a lasting impression on consumers.
Utilize tools for brand asset management
Implementing Brand Asset Management (BAM) tools is crucial for maintaining brand consistency and efficiency. These tools act as centralized hubs for storing logos, templates, and other brand assets, accessible via user-friendly interfaces. BAM tools, such as agEnterprise, enable easy customization and localization for remote teams and multi-location brands and even facilitate direct asset delivery to preferred vendors for print and signage.
Consistency across channels is crucial for brand integrity and recognition.
Stephanie Johnson, Vice President of Marketing for AlphaGraphics
By investing in BAM tools, businesses can save time on asset design and distribution, focusing more on strategic initiatives. Furthermore, these tools monitor marketing funds and co-op dollars, offering better budget visibility and ensuring a unified brand presence across platforms and locations.
Prioritize continued training and communication
Ensuring that a company's brand remains consistent and effective involves thorough training and communication strategies. Educating your team is a crucial first step, which includes conducting training sessions on brand guidelines to ensure everyone understands and adheres to them.
Regular updates and refresher courses can help keep this knowledge current and top-of-mind. Additionally, it is essential to ensure alignment across all departments by fostering collaboration between marketing, design, and sales teams. Establishing clear communication channels is vital for maintaining brand consistency, enabling different teams to work together seamlessly and uphold the brand's integrity across all touchpoints.
Conduct regular brand audits and updates
Regular brand audits and updates are essential for maintaining brand consistency and ensuring that a company's image remains relevant and effective. By conducting regular audits of brand assets and gathering feedback from both customers and employees, organizations can monitor and ensure their brand remains cohesive and recognizable. This process involves not only checking for consistency across all brand materials but also staying attuned to how the brand is perceived internally and externally.
Adaptation without compromise is a key principle in this context; updating brand guidelines to reflect evolving market trends is necessary, but it must be done in a way that preserves the core brand identity. By making thoughtful adjustments, businesses can stay current and competitive while maintaining the essence of what makes their brand unique.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
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