5 reasons why you need to include content in your brand guidelines
Are you getting serious about your marketing? As your business grows and you bring in new team members a need emerges to document processes, solidify ways of working and to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. That’s where brand guidelines come in.
Your brand is one of your biggest visual assets. How your logo’s used, the colours in your promotional materials and the fonts all need to be consistent. There’s no doubt about that. There’s one thing that can sometimes be overlooked when it comes to brand guidelines.
That’s content.
It’s no good having guidelines that just deal with the visual side of your brand if every piece of written material has a completely different voice. So before you sign off on just your visual brand guidelines, let me explain why you need to add content to the mix.
Brand recognition
I’m not denying that an element of brand recognition comes from the bits you see. But think about brands like Innocent, M&S, Aldi. You can tell from the words they use and their tone of voice who they are. It’s their brand personality that creates an expectation from their audience and that becomes part of their brand. M&S has a luxurious, almost sensual tone to the writing. Aldi is the cheeky chappy in the corner. Innocent just want to have fun while being a bit cute. Words add to your audience recognising and identifying with your brand. Don’t overlook them.
Professionalism
I once worked somewhere that had rules stipulating the instances where a short hyphen - could be used instead of a long one — . Why? Because they wanted to show off their professionalism and accuracy. It was important to them and so it was in their brand guidelines. I’m not saying you need to have guidelines relating to hyphens BUT your guidelines will make you look professional. That in turn gives your audience confidence in your business
Consistency
You’ve just created a new brochure and sent it to a potential client. The first page talks about how the business was set up eight years ago and the business has twenty-three employees. Turn the page and suddenly it’s “we’re launching our newest product”. Which is it? The business or we/us?
Confused?
So’s your lead. Thinking about how you want to come across and what words you’re going to use to do that helps everyone who puts together any written content be consistent. That might be pitch decks, social media posts, brochures, web copy - even emails and proposals. When everything sounds the same, it makes sense, it offers reassurance and creates a far easier reading experience for your audience.
Share responsibility
When it’s all in your head you’re the only one who can do it. If no one else knows that you want to use we not I or that you’re happy to crack the odd joke if appropriate then even if you get someone else to write something you won’t like it. It won’t sound right. Brand guidelines help you delegate the responsibility and bring in extra help. That might be internal or it could be an external content writer that you bring in. Whoever it is, can be sent the guidelines and instantly understand your tone of voice, how you want to come across, words you want to avoid, even which bullet points you use.
Write it down, be clear and share the load.
Set standards
Your online reputation is critical to your success. You don’t want different people writing different things in different ways. You want one set standard that can be used, by whoever is doing the work. That’s exactly what brand guidelines do. They set the standard. You set the standard. Then any content that’s created needs to meet that standard, creating consistency, reinforcing your visual brand, creating recognition by your audience. It all comes together exactly how it should.
That’s it. That’s why you need to include content in your brand guidelines. It’s the same reasons why you’d create them for your visual identity but, in my opinion, more important. Your logo goes in one place. The words you create for your business are everywhere and you need to make sure they’re professional, consistent and bring your brand to life.
If you need help working out what to include in your brand guidelines drop me a message.
