Ensuring your team's communication with prospects and current clients is as tight and as compelling as possible is in your best interest. Maintaining brand consistency in messaging across the whole organization, as well as your sales team, is essential to conducting effective sales efforts. Here is how you can ensure consistent branding.
Brand consistency means your target audience and ideal client are being exposed to consistent core messages, visual branding, and other consistent brand and content material. With consistency, your audience will begin to recognize your brand's range more efficiently, and they'll be more likely to act on that content.
According to Funnel Amplified, a study by eMarketer states that "about 33% of USA B2B sales and marketing professionals struggle with implementing brand identity consistently." There are several reasons why companies struggle with brand consistency.
Here are few of the reasons:
Companies can often be so focused on increasing revenue that brand consistency and messaging may get deprioritized. For example, when information is sent in multiple messages over an extended time, or when essential information gets buried in a lengthy message, the key points can be easily missed.
One major pitfall for young companies is that they may not have narrowed down their ideal client. Salespeople, especially new and inexperienced salespeople, are often eager to show a robust pipeline and close deals, but they often find themselves chasing the wrong clients.
Much like miscommunication, if several groups within an organization are acting upon their agenda without aligning with other departments, then that can cause a lot of inconsistency with brand messaging.
A consistent sales message is one of the essential elements of success for your sales team. Consistent messages create the perception that your company is unique, which is valuable in today's competitive market. Fortunately, this "uniqueness" can also then increase your price value.
According to Small Biz Genius, "Presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%." Likewise, it would help if you had consistent sales organization messaging so that your customers get the same message from everyone at your organization, thereby creating a solid impression of your company.
Not only does consistency help you stand out, but it also helps with things like:
Consistent messaging allows your ideal clients and prospects to recognize you immediately across different platforms. In addition, customers are more willing to purchase from companies they trust, and consistency only adds to that.
Here's how you can encourage brand consistency within your team.
Does your team know that you expect them to maintain brand consistency? Have you told them? If you have told them, how clear were you? Establish your expectations first around using images, logos, tone, word choice, colors, and more.
Make it easy for everyone across your organization to access approved brand materials using technology. For example, limit access to specific tools or decks with a secure sign-in, and customize the look and feel of your tool to match your corporate branding.
Create a presentation for your team on why you use the language, logos, and colors you use. Make sure they have a starting point and know when they can and can't use it.
Like anything, this will take time. Make sure you set a timeline for when you want everyone to be using the branded material exclusively. That could be one month or three months, but the sooner, the better.
Make it a point that you keep reinforcing this either in your 1:1s or weekly team meetings. Be sure to follow up and keep driving the importance of brand consistency.
A Lucidpress survey found that customers perceive consistent brand messaging and images as indicative of high quality. The survey of 200 brand management experts also "concluded that there was a whopping 33% increase in revenue from brand consistency."
Brand consistency helps your company stand out and be recognizable. It also allows you to build more trust with your clients and add value. This can lead to more leads, higher revenue, and increased brand awareness.
