Brand Guidelines

Your companies branding is vital. It defines who you are, what you stand for and communicates which values you want to attract in your customers.

Your brand establishes ownership within your niche, creates unity with your customers and delivers a set of brand rules for your team and suppliers to follow. If you do not have a set of brand guidelines, your brand communication with the outside world will become inconsistent, messy and potentially even bastardised without your control.

If your communication is not consistent, this will come across to your customers and trust is lost before you’ve even started.

If you create a good branding system which is supported by a comprehensive set of brand guidelines, you can give it to your employees, your suppliers, your marketing team, your customers (to show how strong your brand is), your strategic partners and anyone else who has responsibility for communicating your brand when you aren’t there to watch every move.

On a basic level, a comprehensive yet flexible set of brand guidelines will provide you with a framework of instruction on how to apply your brand across any material or media. They will also help you to create and maintain a clearly defined brand identity that will contribute to the understanding of your business, motivating both your customers and employees to share in your company’s vision and ethos.

Your brand guidelines must be specific to ensure your identity is protected at all times. They should express your culture, your values, your character, your vision and mission, etc… In turn, your brand guidelines will help you to play a leading role in establishing your reputation in the minds of your customers.

It may appear a little pedantic to have pages of detailed rules about your logo design, colours, fonts and even tone of voice, etc… Yet there are plenty of reasons for creating them and sticking to them if you use them as a guide, not a creative straight jacket! Here are some good reasons for having brand guidelines:

• Your image will be immediately recognisable wherever it is and on whichever medium it’s printed
• They create consistency of image in your audience’s mind
• You will gain visual credibility and a perceived quality to your organisation
• Increase your profile whilst enhancing your competitive advantage
• You will spend less time worrying about the how your logo looks
• They will deliver an accurate perception of your identity
• You will build stronger brand value over a shorter period of time
• Improve your customer’s confidence in your business

As you will already be aware, the implementation of your logo is so vital in any communication strategy because an effective logo applied badly without instruction amounts to wasted opportunities for you. If your company already has brand guidelines, please use them. If not then give us a call. You can’t afford to be without them.

For more information about brand guidelines, branding from your business or to pop in for a coffee, please call 01904 430 666 or get it touch via the contact us page.