B2B Brand
Marketing Guide
Ensuring Brand Consistency
Becky Tugwell, Marketing Manager
Digital is the status quo.
We’re all doing our best to meet the ever-growing demand for organisations to ‘go digital’.
Whether we’re trying to reach more customers, more effectively market our products and services, minimise our carbon footprint or deliver more cost-effective business solutions, finding a digital solution – and often a more accessible one – is often your expected course of action.
The opportunities when we meet a new audience in a new (online) space are obvious. But what about the pitfalls?
The potential for being misunderstood, taken out of context, or having your brand diluted across multiple platforms becomes more likely – especially when considering the speed at which online content is delivered.
And so your brand identity becomes even more important. And having guidelines to maintain its integrity is a must.
What are brand guidelines?
Your brand guidelines are the rules that determine how your brand is presented to the world. It usually contains information about your brand name and how it’s used, your corporate logo and any variations, along with brand colours, fonts, your tone of voice etc.
Your brand guidelines should clearly illustrate how your brand identity is portrayed and communicated to customers and prospects, providing a reference point for employees and clients alike.
Why do we need them?
Because when your brand remains consistent, it remains recognisable.
According to PwC’s consumer insights survey, customers selected trust as their number one reason for choosing a retailer. The same applies to B2B brands. How can you expect customers to trust your brand if you don’t remain consistent?
The need for maintaining brand consistency across all platforms and touch points is critical, because it promotes authenticity and trust. In fact, ensuring a consistent representation of your brand can increase revenue by as much as 33%.
With 80% of customers agreeing that a signature colour increases brand association and recognition, the importance of sticking to your guidelines cannot be overstated.
Imagine you nip into your local corner shop to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola. Only, the label on the bottle looks strange. In fact, it’s not the typical Coca-Cola red at all – it’s bright orange.
And, come to think of it, the font looks different too: It’s narrower than you remember. And not as cursive. Plus, the bottle’s neck is slightly longer. But the drink is still claiming to be authentic, traditional Coca-Cola – what’s the likelihood it’s an imposter?
Maybe you risk it. Or maybe you pick the more familiar-looking bottle of Pepsi instead.
But what about a refresh?
There’s nothing wrong with intentionally refreshing your brand. In fact, updating your branding every few years keeps you contemporary and relevant to your audience, as well as demonstrating your company’s ability to evolve with the times.
Still, during every brand refresh your guidelines need to be updated to match.
Many organisations keep their brand guidelines in a PDF or printed format, so they need to factor in time-consuming tasks: updating documents, checking and proofing them, making amendments, art working them, and having them signed off – all on top of your rebranding process.
But there is a better way. Digitising your brand guidelines allows for swift and resource-light updates to guidelines – ones that are quick and simple to roll out and to distribute to all relevant stakeholders.
Creating digital brand guidelines
A digital brand bible can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, and on any device – without the trouble of having to locate a physical copy, or share a long-lost PDF that’s buried on your desktop. Simply share the link and go.
At Proctors, we use Webflow to create and update our clients’ digital brand guidelines. Whether they’re used by your colleagues, customers, media agencies or external business partners, making your guidelines accessible on Webflow gives everyone clear and consistent direction to present your brand consistently.
Even better, with Webflow, elements such as your logos, fonts and colours can be downloaded by anyone you share the link with. So in today’s digital-first world, your media partners or social media managers can remain responsive when it comes to pushing out branded content.
Plus, with digital-first fast becoming the norm, companies who use motion graphics in their brand elements can demonstrate real, live examples among their digital guidelines too – something that isn’t possible in other formats.
Even large organisations with lots of different sub-brands can benefit from Webflow’s flexibility. It’s a quick and efficient process to create and update your guidelines, whether you need to edit a single page, or build and deploy several new chapters. Plus, any changes or updates can be highlighted on the landing page, so all employees are brought up to speed.
With Webflow’s no-code format, any brand updates can be easily executed by your marketing team, so you’ll save masses of time on updates. Not to mention avoiding the need to print – and that’s one big environmental benefit.