One of the key reasons for anyone to invest in a franchise can be the power of the brand. So it’s worth considering if the franchise system reflects brand consistency across all aspects of business.
What does the business entrepreneur need to do to sustain a high energy brand? Aligning all aspects of the business speaks not just to the brand image and marketing, but the value of and need for compliance across a franchise network.
Brand consistency
Your brand personality sets the look, attitude, tone and style of your brand energy and of everything you do. Your unique brand personality attracts the right customers to connect with your product and business and become friends with you.
The personality you portray in the marketplace through all aspects of your marketing, needs to be consistent, and reflected and reinforced by everyone who works for and represents you. Individually, they need to represent and reflect the collective personality of your business.
In doing so, your marketing (who you say you are) will be supported and strengthened by the energies and actions of everyone who works for you (who you actually are). When your marketing and actions are consistent and aligned, your business will enjoy a powerful brand.
If your representatives don’t contribute positively to your unique brand personality, they contaminate it. When there is misalignment, when your team doesn’t reflect the look, attitude, tone and style of who you say you are, your brand suffers. Your business may be perceived as inconsistent and suffering from a personality disorder. Because of this inconsistency, customers become wary and mistrustful of your brand
The stronger you can align all aspects of your personality and present a consistent image, attitude, tone and style in the marketplace, the stronger your brand will become.
So, be consistent. Don’t reinvent your look with every new promotion in the marketplace. Stick with the key components of your brand – your logo, corporate colours and working fonts. Make sure everything you create in the marketplace is coordinated with everything else.
Your key aim is to be consistent so everything you do reinforces everything else you do. Your brand is being built and strengthened with every communication in the marketplace, from staff uniforms, to brochures, to signage, to advertisements. You want everything you do to inspire recall, recognition and a greater understanding of your brand.
A word of warning. Your brand needs to faithfully reflect your business and products’ personality. Stay true to you. Don’t try to be something you are not. All the pretending in the world will never work.
Be consistent for a powerful brand
It’s also very important that each time you go out to your market you are the embodiment of your brand personality and you turn up with a consistent look, attitude and style. Consistent presentation allows your market to recognise you, get to know you, trust you and, if aligned, become friends with you.
If you present an inconsistent image, attitude and style, it will take longer for your market to recognise you, get to know you, trust you and, if aligned, become friends with you. In fact, they may never really get to know you.
So get your look right. There is no point spending considerable time and money creating a range of different looks to impress your market, if no one recognises you. To enjoy a powerful brand it is vital that you present one clear, defined and consistent image every time you make contact with your market.
This clear, defined and consistent image needs to faithfully reflect your brand personality. Everything you do needs to be consistent, co-ordinated and aligned. This way, even the briefest contact with your market is instantly recognisable.
Do an audit in your business of everything that contributes to and accessorises your brand: your logo, corporate colours, office fit out, store fit out, signage, uniforms, online presence, marketing collateral, brochures, promotional items, letter and email communications, and check if every component:
- Reflects your brand personality
- Positively contributes to your brand image
- Reflects every other component
Review and refine all of your brand accessories to ensure they are coordinated and powerfully contribute to your one clear, defined and consistent brand image. The more defined and refined you can make your brand components the more powerful, potent and recognisable your brand will be.
5 benefits to strong branding
The benefits of having a defined brand image and coordinated brand wardrobe are:
- Once a look or brand has been established, every brand component, including each piece of marketing material, can be created using one style guide or template. This will save you time and money on design costs.
- Every brand component lays the foundation for every other brand component. This fuels and reinforces your brand with more power and impact to successfully promote and sell your product.
- Your brand becomes instantly recognisable. Customers recognise your brand even when they are only exposed to it for a very short time such as flicking through a newspaper or magazine. This gives you more value and impact for your marketing dollar.
- You can also mix and match all your coordinates (marketing material), knowing they all work together.
- Consistency leads to knowledge, which in turn leads to friendship and trust.
- This is an edited extract from Creating Brand Energy – How To Transform Your Business Energy into Market Power. Visit www.consciousbusiness.net.au