A stronger and more consistent brand identity translates to more effective marketing.
Marketing is the process of generating leads and sales, but branding is the foundation on which your reputation and client loyalty are built.
It’s easy to understand how a resort may become confused attempting to maintain consistent, strong brand identity with so much stuff flowing through it, from ad campaigns and branded marketing materials to digital media content and social media updates.
What is brand consistency?
Consistency refers to the degree to which your brand remains unchanged over time.
In the world of marketing, we often talk about “branding” versus “consistency.” But they are one and the same. If you don’t know what your brand is, then you don’t know what you’re trying to communicate to your market. You need to define your brand before you can build your marketing strategy around it.
Why is a consistent brand image important for your resort?
Brand Recognition
Brand recognition is the most straightforward advantage of brand consistency.
Every company should seek to be instantly known by its target market. It not only helps to create a strong link between your key ideas and values and your brand’s visual features, but it also helps to distinguish your brand from the competitors – a particularly useful benefit in highly competitive, saturated marketplaces.
Stand Out From Competition
When you establish your own distinct and strong brand identity, you stand out from the competition. People will notice your brand when they see it. They’ll remember it when they hear it. And they’ll associate it with positive feelings like trust, confidence, and satisfaction.
Building a strong brand identity gives your resort a powerful and memorable presence in the marketplace. It creates a lasting impression that builds customer loyalty and ensures repeat visits.
Establish Trust with Guests
Customers and clients are more inclined to trust a company with a professional, authentic, and well-defined brand image.
A strong brand allows guests to feel confident that they are dealing with an established, reliable, and trustworthy organization. This sense of security encourages them to spend money on your products and services.
Builds Authenticity
When you stick to your core identity, it demonstrates that it is a part of who you are, not just a marketing or promotional tool. When you consistently use the same language and imagery, it shows that you understand your audience and are able to connect with them.
It makes your resort seem genuine, honest, and real.
Projects Professionalism
A well-coordinated brand appears more professional than one whose marketing and branding are disjointed. That authenticity is something that potential customers want to experience. Your brand should always make sense. It shouldn’t be confusing or contradictory. It should be clear, concise, and easily understood.
Creating a Consistent Brand Identity
Consistency is key when building your brand. But how exactly does this work? Let’s take a look at some examples:
Create a Brand Guide
A brand guide is a document that outlines all aspects of your brand. It includes everything from your logo design to your website copywriting. Everything that contributes to your overall brand message needs to be included here.
Your brand guide should include:
- Mission & Vision statement
- Tagline & slogan.
- Corporate colors
- Logo design
- Design Elements
- Copywriting voice
The brand guide would optimally come from a single source. If you’re working with multiple designers, make sure they’re all using the same guidelines.
Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can build upon it.
Audit and Update Existing Brand Materials
The difficulty here is that in order to develop a long-lasting brand, the information used by designers and brand strategists must be accurate and future-proof. Businesses develop and adapt, and even if you did everything “right” the first time, your brand may become obsolete.
Check your existing templates and materials if they are in line with your brand guide. You might need to update any outdated content, such as logos, taglines, slogans, and other graphics. If you find that there are inconsistencies among these items, then you need to address them immediately.
Unite Visual Elements
Using your brand guide as a focal point, create visual elements that represent your brand. These could be anything from your logo to your brochures to your signage. Make sure they all align with each other.
If you’re designing new artwork, make sure it matches what you already have.
It’s important to get everyone involved in the process. Designers, writers, marketers, salespeople, and executives will all play a role in developing the brand. They’ll all need to agree on the direction and tone of your brand as well as your design choice, color choices, and identity elements.
This visual branding signals to your audience that you know what you’re doing. It communicates confidence and professionalism through your online presence (through social networks) and more traditional meals.
Create On-Brand Consistent Brand Templates
One way to ensure that everything is in alignment is to create standard templates that you can reuse throughout your company. This helps you avoid having to rework every piece of material you produce.
You don’t necessarily need to go overboard with this. Just use templates that are relevant to your industry. As a beach resort, you might choose to use a template that has a beach theme.
You can also use templates that help you maintain consistency across different platforms. For example, if your website uses WordPress, you can create a template for your blog posts. This approach works best if you have an established brand image.
Templates can be used with your various marketing collateral. For instance, if you’re creating a brochure, you can use a template that contains all of the necessary text and images.
Make Approved On-Hand Consistent Brand Templates Accessible
After you’ve approved and given the go-ahead with your templates, it’s time to make them accessible.
It’s important that you share the templates with all, especially designers. Having them all using the same templates means that they won’t be reinventing the wheel.
This is where you want to start thinking about how you can automate processes within your organization.
For example, if you have a designer who creates all of your print collateral, you can set up a workflow that automatically sends him or her the files when you approve them.
This saves you time and money while ensuring that the design stays consistent. It also makes it easier to track changes and updates.
Digital asset management becomes important as you scale your business. With multiple people working on projects, it’s easy to lose track of which version was last updated. When you’re dealing with digital assets, you can use tools like Dropbox to share files between collaborators.
Conclusion
Unlock your full potential as a beach resort brand with a consistent brand image.
A consistent brand is essential to building trust and loyalty. It keeps your audience engaged and ensures that their experience remains positive. Creating a brand guide is only half the battle. Once you have a solid foundation, you still need to consistently implement it into your marketing efforts.
By keeping your brand guide updated and making it available to all members of your team, you can ensure that everything is in sync.
As a beach resort, you should always strive to provide a great customer experience. To do this, you need to build a strong brand that represents your values and vision. By following the tips above, you can achieve this goal.
If you need help in creating and, most importantly, maintaining your brand image, you can contact us for a consultation.