Brand Consistency
Why everything should look like it knows each other
Want something you can act on right now? Go look at your Instagram feed. Then pull up your website. Then find a business card or a brochure.
Do they look like they belong to the same business? Or does something feel a little… off?
Brand consistency is one of the simplest things you can do for your marketing and one of the most commonly neglected. And the cost of neglecting it is higher than most people realize.
What brand consistency actually means
I am not talking about making everything look exactly the same, or curating your feed until it looks like a stock photo catalogue. That is not it.
What I am talking about is keeping your brand recognizable across every place someone might encounter you. The same fonts. The same colours. The same general visual feel. So that when someone visits your Instagram and then clicks through to your website, they feel like they just walked into the same home, not a completely different building with a different address.
Your marketing channels are extensions of each other, not separate entities
Think of your website, your social media, your business cards, your signage, and your correspondence as best friends. They should complement each other, reference each other, and feel like they are clearly on the same team.
When someone moves from your social feed to your website and the visual experience shifts entirely, it creates confusion. And confused visitors do not convert. Even if they are not consciously confused, there is no visual recognition to anchor the memory. The next time you show up in their feed, the connection to your site will not be there.
Brand consistency = brand recognition
Write that down. Tuck it in the corner of your brain you use when creating content, designing marketing material, or updating your site. Brand consistency is how you become recognizable. And being recognizable is how you stay top of mind.
This applies to print too. Your brochures, your signage, your invoices — do they share the same look and feel as your website? They should.
“But I don’t actually know my fonts or colour codes”
That is not something to be embarrassed about. It is more common than you think. If you are not sure what fonts your site uses or what the hex codes are for your brand colours, reach out. Send me your name, email, and your website URL and I will pull your font names, sizes, weights, and colour codes for you. No excuse not to be consistent after that.
Unless, of course, you look at your site and realize you do not actually want your marketing to match it. In that case, that is a whole different conversation we should have. Let’s talk about what a site you are proud to send people to actually looks like.
Written by: Brenda Sargeant
Brenda runs Unlimited BS Web Design out of Central Alberta, where she builds WordPress sites for businesses and non-profits. She loves to share her knowledge about industry BS in an easy to understand way so business owners know what they’re paying for. Her clients have been sticking around since 2011, which she takes as a sign she’s not the worst to work with. Find her on Google.
