The Power of Brand Continuity

Har­ness the pow­er of brand con­ti­nu­ity in 2016! Many of our clients come to Nicte Cre­ative Design seek­ing to cre­ate, strength­en or recre­ate their brand­ing. And now is a great time for it!

The dawn of a new year is full of oppor­tu­ni­ty, fill­ing us with a sense of refreshed moti­va­tion and new per­spec­tive. The world seems a lit­tle qui­eter as every­one recov­ers from the hol­i­days and focus­es on what’s ahead — so Jan­u­ary nat­u­ral­ly becomes a great month for reassess­ment and goal setting.

Harness the Power of Brand Continuity

Since our process is to work with our clients in an in-depth way, one of the first things we do to is to help them assess their com­pa­ny and ser­vice or prod­uct identity.

We see brand con­ti­nu­ity as three fold: 

1. YOUR VISUAL IDENTITY 

Your logo, col­ors, typog­ra­phy, pho­tog­ra­phy, pat­terns, tag lines, mas­cots or characters/spokespeople.

2. YOUR DIGITAL PRESENCE 

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing with your clients online — from your web­site to social media to blog posts, ads and articles.

3. MARKETING CONTINUITY 

Car­ry­ing your brand into the world with con­sis­ten­cy, across all on-site visu­als to print­ed col­lat­er­al to posts on your social media plat­forms.  

Once you have your visual identity set, the other two elements need attention.

Whether your web­site is well estab­lished or you are cre­at­ing one, we ask:

  • What do you do/offer cus­tomer? Is that clear on the top of the land­ing page?
  • Is it easy to know what to do next? Is there an obvi­ous call to action but­ton to buy, book, get more info or con­tact us?
  • Is your con­tact info – email, phone num­bers, address — CLEAR and OBVIOUS, on the top and bot­tom of the “fold”?
  •  Do the drop down menus clear­ly illus­trate what a cus­tomer may be look­ing for? Are they easy to nav­i­gate or do they have to dig? Are terms too ambigu­ous? Can a user get to what they want direct­ly by using them?
  •  And — key for SEO — are you adding valu­able con­tent of some kind each month?
  • Do you have the icons that hyper­link vis­i­tors to your social media plat­forms? And are they clear and easy to find and click?

Here are two great exam­ples of com­pa­nies who do that well.

We love work­ing with PetsBest.com, a pet insur­ance com­pa­ny. Their web­site is easy on the eyes and makes it sim­ple to do what you’re there for — find more infor­ma­tion on what they do, get a quote, or con­tact them.

The Power of Brand Continuity

Their bold col­ors are appeal­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing: navy and teal on white, with calls to action high­light­ed by a deep orange-red. Notice how they have their phone num­ber list­ed both above and below the fold. And at the bot­tom, siz­able icons hyper­link to their four social media platforms.

Social media is where the brand con­ti­nu­ity ball often gets dropped. Learn­ing to max­i­mize it as a busi­ness mar­ket­ing tool has become, for many, an essen­tial pro­fes­sion­al skill.

The good news? Social Media mar­ket­ing is low cost, poten­tial­ly far reach­ing, and offers some­thing extreme­ly impor­tant that’s often over­looked: one to one con­tact with your cus­tomers. Not to men­tion that you have total con­trol over your posts and how your com­pa­ny inter­acts with the public.

  • Which you choose depends on your prod­uct or ser­vices. But DO choose plat­forms — usu­al­ly two for most— that best reach­es your tar­get market.
  • Focus on get­ting con­tent up on a reg­u­lar basis.
  • Com­mit to at least one post a week every month. (If this is a chal­lenge don’t let the ball drop. Find some­one who can help you with con­tent and scheduling).
  • Your brand­ing con­ti­nu­ity should car­ry across your social media plat­forms just as it does to your web­site. If this is a prob­lem area, Nicte Cre­ative Design can help.

The Flat­bread Com­pa­ny is a great exam­ple of brand­ing con­sis­ten­cy that excels across the board.

The graph­ics they use are imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­able and the com­mon thread in all they do, along with their theme of great food at great prices, com­mu­ni­ty and phil­an­thropy (from giv­ing 10% of all pro­ceeds each Tues­day to neigh­bor­hood caus­es, to serv­ing much of their healthy fare from local farms, to hav­ing local entertainment).

Each of their 14 loca­tions also has its own Face­book page, with con­ti­nu­ity of graph­ics, menu, and mis­sion through­out… yet each express their own per­son­al­i­ty, which is shaped by the loca­tion –again, part of the brand­ing. So the one in Maui and Hamp­ton, NH, are surf ori­ent­ed, the one in Whistler, B.C. reflects the ski area, and so on.

As you take a look at your own brand­ing and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, study com­pa­nies sim­i­lar yours who reach out to the same mar­ket as you and are doing a great job of it to inspire ideas that we at NCD can help you execute.

Now is a per­fect time to do this! Con­tact Nicte Cre­ative Design and let’s talk about how we can part­ner with you to har­ness the pow­er of your brand’s con­ti­nu­ity and make 2016 be your best year yet!

About the Author

As Marketing Consultant, Rochelle brings the element of written media to NCD’s branding process, creating the link between the design that connects emotionally with your clients and the message that embodies the intention. Her extensive background in entertainment and media, working with all the major television, cable and radio stations across the country for over 20 years, fuels her ability to craft messages that appeal to each unique market.

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