Businesses work hard to create their brand. It is what customers remember and a good brand creates loyalty that can last a lifetime. Think about your favorite brands: Apple, Google, Instagram, they are all easily recognizable because of their brand identity.
Is your company often mistaken for a competitor? This can happen when businesses offer the same services and don’t take the time to differentiate their brand identity. With so many brands fighting for space in the minds of customers, how can you prevent brand confusion?
Follow our easy, 6 step guide for preventing brand confusion and start earning the loyalty of your customers!
6 Steps to Prevent Brand Confusion
1. Create Brand Standards
Brand standards include logos, fonts, colors, values, mission statements, and other unique items that pertain to the brand. When a customer sees your standards and hears your messaging, they should immediately know who you are.
The number one way that brands can prevent confusion is by creating a strict set of brand standards. These are a set of rules and guidelines that protect the look and feel of your organization.
2. Use Your Logo Consistently in All Marketing Materials
Once you have a solid logo, it should be implemented into all aspects of your business. Business proposals, social media, and documents should all have your logo on them. Any material that you present to the public should be branded because, without branding, confusion can seep in.
3. Be Consistent With Product Names
The product and services you sell should reflect your brand identity. For example, take Apple’s line of tech products. iPhone, AirPods, MacBook – they all have consistent product names and with each new version release, the name stays consistent. Customers don’t have to question where the product came from because with a recognizable name, they know.
4. Create Clear Employee Titles
Customer service is key for preventing brand confusion and one easy way to begin is by creating clear employee titles. Customers who visit your website looking to contact someone can easily figure out who they are supposed to talk to by knowing their job titles. Make sure all employees use titles in emails and letters as well.
5. Keep an Eye on the Competition
How are you supposed to prevent brand confusion between your company and others like it without knowing who the competition is? Record all the competitors in your business area and use your list to do a competitive analysis. You can even record the colors, fonts, and logo design of your competitors and use that as a way to differentiate yourself.
6. Host Messaging Workshops
To keep your employees engaged and up to date on your brand identity, host yearly messaging workshops. This is an easy way to get all your employees involved and on the same page. The more your company can be consistent in the messaging they use, the less likely brand confusion will creep in.
Tips We Suggest
- It can be helpful to work with a graphic designer to craft your brand identity. They will help create your unique brand and highlight the ways that color and fonts integrate with it.
- Take time to understand why customers are getting confused with your brand. If you don’t understand the confusion then you won’t know how to fix it.
- Be honest. Honesty is the key to preventing confusion and the more honest you can be in all of your marketing promotions the better you can serve your customers.
- When you create your brand standards, make sure that they are easily accessible. This could be as easy as adding it to Dropbox or Google Drive, or you could even print out the standards so that every employee has a copy.
Get Started!
Now that you have our formula to prevent brand confusion, it’s time to get started! Meet with your team and communicate new company changes. They will be excited and thankful that as a leader you are creating a more positive, trusting work environment that will clear all confusion for them and your customers.
