Achieve Brand Continuity in 2020

Are you strug­gling with brand con­ti­nu­ity? Get ready for 2020! 

To achieve Brand Con­ti­nu­ity in 2020, it will take inten­tion and time. Inten­tion because it’s care­ful­ly thought out, and time because you’ll roll out that plan strate­gi­cal­ly. Both are nec­es­sary to cre­ate a rec­og­niz­able iden­ti­ty in the mar­ket­place. Done right, your audi­ence will begin to con­nect col­ors, images and the copy voice with your business. 

NCD is here to help! We’ve cre­at­ed a path to inten­tion­al brand con­ti­nu­ity in just three steps, and offer a work­book to make it easy to imple­ment it all!  With the new year right around the cor­ner it’s a great time to take a fresh look at your brand as a whole and ask your­self if yours has been as con­sis­tent as it could be. And, if you have a client who needs brand­ing or if you your­self are launch­ing a new prod­uct or ser­vice, the tools we pro­vide will be invalu­able! Let’s get started: 

Achieve brand continuity in 202

1. List Your Branding Goals

Start with a list of spe­cif­ic goals defin­ing what you want to accom­plish. For exam­ple, brand goals can be to raise brand aware­ness, cre­ate sales for a prod­uct or ser­vice or to uti­lize emo­tion­al brand­ing and make that price­less con­nec­tion with your audience.

Let those goals guide you to cre­at­ing con­tent that aligns with them. This applies with­in the con­tent as well. Make sure your visu­als and brand mes­sag­ing are tru­ly in sync, a sur­pris­ing­ly fre­quent over­sight. Then, apply this to every pro­mo­tion­al ele­ment at your dis­pos­al: your social media, blog, web­site, newslet­ter, cards and let­ter­head. Even speak­ing engage­ments and the way you speak and present your­self should be max­i­mized to inten­tion­al­ly cre­ate a con­sis­tent brand. 

2. Prioritize for Brand Continuity

Pri­or­i­tize your goals to focus on what will most help build your audi­ence, up engage­ment, inter­est new clien­tele or increase income.

Don’t try to do EVERYTHING at once. This falls under man­ag­ing time and is key to tru­ly suc­ceed­ing. Base your pri­or­i­ties on what you aim to achieve with­in a cer­tain point in your cal­en­dar year bro­ken into time frames that fit your needs, whether by quar­ter, month, week or day. If a goal is big, break it down into pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary goals, and lad­der your plan to achieve them.

3. Schedule Time to Create Content 

We get it — busi­ness can keep you SO busy, espe­cial­ly at the end of the year, or when you’re focused on client work instead of your own brand. But this is an invest­ment, and the best you can spend on yourself!

Most impor­tant­ly, we rec­om­mend you to set up a ded­i­cat­ed time (a full day, or set hours over a few days) to plan what’s need­ed. You can include tasks, like redo­ing your web­site ban­ners, or deci­sions, like what social media plat­forms mat­ter most and how reg­u­lar­ly to real­is­ti­cal­ly post. Tar­get dates to cre­ate that con­tent, then sched­ule reg­u­lar times in your cal­en­dar to get it done. Respect that like you would if they were client appointments! 

Last­ly, how real­is­ti­cal­ly plan reg­u­lar­ly you can post on social media to put your brand out there is crit­i­cal to your plan. Con­sis­ten­cy counts here too, whether you have a ded­i­cat­ed SM per­son or use a tool like Buffer or Hoot­suite. There­fore it’s one less headache and you can eval­u­ate if con­tent is work­ing syn­er­gis­ti­cal­ly for your brand and goals.

TIP: Always put your poten­tial clients as the hero. Instead of say­ing, “I did X,” instead say. “ We helped this client over­come X, Y and Z pain points they were expe­ri­enc­ing by… ” 

Why recre­ate the wheel when we’ve done all the work for you? Down­load our NCD Brand Con­ti­nu­ity Work­book! Get more inten­tion­al in the new year. Start Q1 2020 strong and achieve brand continuity!