Brand guidelines: what’s the deal?
In a world of growing competition, social media, and overall online noise, it’s important your customers can remember and recognise your brand straight away.
And to do this, you need brand guidelines, which help businesses present themselves consistently and professionally. Fail to get them right, and your brand’s visuals and messaging might come across as confused, muddled, and forgettable.
Not sure where to start? We gotcha.
They might sound fancy, but brand guidelines are basically a set of documented standards for how a brand should look and communicate. Not just on your website, but your social media, emails, and print and advertising too!
Your brand guidelines will usually cover:
They act as a handy reference point for everyone representing the brand, new and old. Everyone knows where they stand!
It may sound obvious, but it’s true!
Nailing a consistent branding is a first-class ticket to making your business stand out and become instantly recognisable. Some of the biggest brands in the world can be recognised by just a single letter, or even a colour!
Not only that, but customers are more likely to trust brands that appear cohesive. It shows you know what you’re talking about, which is particularly important for smaller businesses.
With a consistent brand locked in, every interaction reinforces your brand’s identity.
In businesses big and small, efficiency is everything. Time is money, as they say!
With clear brand guidelines, you cut out unnecessary confusion and uncertainty when creating marketing materials. From your internal team, to freelancers and agencies, you’ll all be on the same page from the get-go.
Clear standards can be one of the most important time-savers in your business.
Following nicely on from business efficiency, having clear brand guidelines in place helps make scaling your business a breeze.
Not only is it automatically easier to maintain consistency (there’s that magic word again) as the company expands, it also helps to protect your brand’s identity across new platforms and campaigns.
Plus, it makes onboarding new employees and external partners soooo much easier.
You might be thinking that collating and documenting clear brand guidelines might sound a little over-the-top for smaller businesses. But hear us out!
Small businesses benefit from consistent and cohesive branding just as much as the big guns. Even a simple set of guidelines can help build your business’ identity in the early days – especially when paired with your own brand messaging.
Not to mention that establishing standards now will prevent issues later when your business is on the up. 😉
Okay, we hope we’ve got you on board with the whole brand guidelines thing. But what now?
The trick is to not overcomplicate it, and start with the basics. Decide on a firm, consistent choice for the following:
It can also be handy to include some examples of correct usage – do’s and don’t’s always help clear things up for people! When it comes to sharing this with your team, keep all this info in one document, stored somewhere accessible for people to refer to whenever they need.
And if you make any branding changes – don’t forget to update it!
Brand guidelines are absolute game-changers for any business, big and small.
They’re a one-stop shop for building consistency, trust, and recognition, not just among your customers, but within your team, too. They also support long-term growth and protect your brand’s identity for years to come.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will be a business’ branding. A strong brand is built through consistent experiences over time, so start with the basics (see above), and enjoy the journey!
Help is at hand – after all, we know branding at Zap.
So if you want to put your best foot forward with your marketing and branding strategy, get in touch. We’ll take it from there.
