How to Maintain Brand Consistency in a Sales Organization

For brands, few objectives matter more than creating an impactful, positive impression. Consider how Tide stirred up social media after its memorable Super Bowl LII ad campaign. Many jokes and memes sprang up through various social media channels, centered on Tide ads. If you can make a favorable first impression, you'll create a favorable conversation around your brand. Related: 15 time-tested trigger words that boost sales Keeping that conversation in your favor is a little bit trickier. It requires maintaining a consistent brand message and voice across your organization. If you go all over the map, your target audience will be confused by your messaging and you will lose their attention. Such a scenario can cause a negative ripple effect for sales and customer retention. What should you do to make sure your brand doesn't take an unintended fork in the road? Here are a few strategies to make it easier to develop brand consistency for your sales organization. Always share the right message Want to stand out from the crowd? Start by zeroing in on your target audience with a message that speaks directly to what they want and what they need. Find a message that works and stick with it. One mistake an organization can make is to tinker with a message too much. If you persist in changing your message, your brand loses its focus and purpose. Brand consistency isn't achieved if your brand never establishes a clear voice or identity. When your target audience doesn't really know who you are or what you do, it's tough to expect them to remember or come back to you. Communicate a clear brand message across the board with marketing (from print ads to social media) to sales (from initial pitch to closing time). Figure out who you want to reach with your message, then focus your energies on reaching that audience again and again. Find your niche Consumers have come to expect a certain level of innovation and customization in the products and services they use. They're excited by new creations or a fresh spin on a traditional product. You can use those expectations to your advantage. It starts with being creative in your pitch. Find ways to show your target audience why they should choose you over your competitor. If your brand voice feels unique, you can progress up the sales food chain. If you don't find ways to be unique, you get devoured by the latest trendy new thing. Identifying your brand's natural niche can help you develop better brand consistency. Apple flourishes, for example, because it focuses exclusively on creating sleek, innovative products. It's a brand that knows what its audience wants, and it tailors each product to meet those expectations. Focus on your strengths. A big mistake with branding is trying to do too much. It isn't an effective strategy to be a jack-of-all-trades with all people. If your brand ventures too far into foreign territory, it can send a signal that your organization is desperate or out of touch. A brand's voice should be clear, compelling, unique and believable in each interaction with its target audience. Guard your perception Your brand voice is defined by how people see it. Influencing how people perceive your organization or your products is as important as getting consumers to buy from you. Everything from demos to packaging impact the overall perception of your brand. Social media can be a powerful tool for crafting and shaping your relationships. Interacting with consumers and potential consumers can make it easier for you to create a conversation. If done well, you can support a strong brand identity in the process. Social media channels are an incubator for ideas and will spur growth for your organization if used in the right way. They're a great way to engage with customers and make your brand feel accessible. These same channels can turn into brand killers, however, if you fail to connect with your audience and fail to stay consistent in your brand voice. Pay attention to brand guidelines If your marketing team is worth its snuff, it's already created brand style & usage guidelines to ensure all messaging stays consistent. These guides cover how to use various brand assets in internal & external communications. They can cover items ranging from appropriate fonts for brochures & flyers to the correct use of logos & slogans in advertisements. Such guides not only help your organization's marketing team, but they also serve as a useful reference for other employees, managers and departments—including sales. Brand guides should align with your organization's overall vision and mission. Brand consistency is much easier to achieve when it's grounded in the core principles that drive your organization. Always refer back to your brand guidelines when developing sales content and planning your outreach efforts. Customers will find you through more than one channel, which means multiple avenues exist to make a good first impression. Creating brand consistency across all of these channels is important for keeping your brand strong. Streamline brand consistency with Lucidpress Using document templates & social media templates can help your organization achieve the goal of building a consistent brand. It helps to maintain standards for visual content such as photos, graphics and logos so these things are always used correctly in sales & marketing materials. Lucidpress makes it a simple task to create a uniform brand identity. It's a brand management tool that helps you to quickly create & share stunning visual content that brings your brand to life. A drag-and-drop editor, advanced template locking, and other user-friendly features take the learning curve out of designing. Publishing or updating a brochure, newsletter, one-pager, slide deck—or any other material your sales team needs—is far easier to achieve with these tools. And when you take the work out of maintaining your sales team's content library, not only do you maintain a strong brand, you build better relationships and close more deals. Learn more about how to achieve consistent storytelling across your sales org in our free sales enablement workbook.