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Want to go beyond the goals you’ve set for your business or expectations from your customers?
The first thing you may want to do is to ensure a perfect harmony between the vision, values, and mission of your organization and all things related to your brand.
The catch? It only sounds simple on paper.
Imagine putting out some content from your social handles that is starkly in contrast to the brand belief you had initially set out with. It would break your loyal customers’ trust, shaking your brand positioning and even losing revenues.
That’s when implementing brand compliance can prove beneficial.
If you’re wondering brand compliance meaning, why and how you should go about it, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll explore all that and more in this blog; keep reading. Also, bookmark this article if you want for easy access in the future.
» What is Brand Compliance?
Brand compliance refers to the business practice aimed to ensure that the content, messaging, and assets of your brand always stay in line with your organizational value and brand identity. Doing so helps you maintain brand positioning and value.
The conventional means to keep brand compliance in check is through a solid set of brand guidelines.
Think of these guidelines as your rulebook on how your brand should be represented at all times. Across mediums and channels of communication. That also includes internal communication and external modes and IPs, like sales and marketing messaging. The brand guidelines literally cover everything - from the font style and logos to the color palettes, images, and graphics.
The best part? Everyone on the team regardless of their level in the organization has to maintain brand compliance. Even your external stakeholders need to comply with the same rules.
Put simply, brand compliance makes for a universal truth about your brand that everyone associated with your company has to follow.
Okay, but curious about..
» Why do You Need Brand Compliance?
Maintaining a brand on your own is easier when you’re just starting out. But as your business grows, more people join you. Soon, there are multiple professionals across departments working towards shared goals. And it is in this relentless pursuit that the brand identity often gets compromised, especially when you don’t have a robust brand compliance playbook to lean on.
Brand compliance brings with it not only a strong set of actionable processes to maintain brand consistency but also multiple long-term advantages. Retaining customers and acquiring new ones, for instance.
Let’s go through some of the benefits in brief:
› A boost to your brand identity
With a proper brand compliance checklist in place, everyone on the team has access to the right resources, guidelines, and assets. That translates into zero confusion whatsoever about what to say or which tone to use at any given time. That ensures your brand, along with its messaging, remains consistent no matter the channel. The result? There is increased brand recognition and awareness across every consumer touchpoint. And the consistent effort of it all strengthens your brand, ultimately boosting your goodwill by manifolds.
› Increased trust in your brand
Brand compliance makes it easer for you to provide your customers with the same level of service or the quality of products/service over and over. It’s like knowing what to offer and how to offer it right every single time. With quality services and interactions over a period of time, the consumer trust in your brand only increases, making them your repeat customers.
Take a popular brand like Apple for example. People across the world are Apple’s loyal consumer base who religiously wait for the company to unveil new products. That’s an ideal brand trust level every business aspires to achieve. Customers don’t fall for brands that are clueless and inconsistent in their offerings and interactions, after all.
› More transparency in your internal processes
For your business to thrive, it is important for your entire workforce to have a clear idea of your brand mission, values, and the means to convey them to your target audience. Something which brand compliance makes it smoother to achieve.
Through a brand compliance practice, your employees have clear expectations and an understanding of their part in the broader brand-building picture. This awareness drives more engagement, transparency, and seamless collaboration. Everyone is aligned on critical aspects, be it messages or designs. As a result, your internal processes become more coherent, transparent, and effective.
› A shield for your brand against risks
One of the biggest benefits of implementing brand compliance is the way it protects your firm against potential risks, such as copyright infringement or trademark violations. With such compliance in place, your employees can create brand assets, including content or designs, following the set guidelines or pre-approved templates. Things become even simpler if you’re using brand protection software tools. These tools let you control who can access or edit critical brand assets. That further ensures your brand identity remains intact, maintaining its market reputation.
» What are the Primary Elements of Brand Compliance?
If you are worried that implementing brand compliance at your organization is going to be too much of a hassle, let us blow the bubble. You neither require an exorbitant budget nor an army of people to manage it. All it takes is a careful definition of a few necessary elements and you will be sorted. Let’s discover what these components are:
› Clear Brand Guidelines
Whether it’s visual, textual, or voice, your brand guidelines must include clear, actionable instructions for everyone to follow. Moreover, it should contain practical examples and use cases. Think of showing which fonts and color palettes to use, when to use them, and how to use them, for instance. Include multiple format files for graphics, such as logos and other vital images.
Being as specific and comprehensive as you can be in your brand guidelines is the key to successfully comply with the brand compliance.
› Training Programs
For your brand to be consistent, it is important that all your employees are in tune with your brand values, practices, and inherent identity. And to ensure this, nothing works better than employee training programs.
Make your brand assets accessible across departments. Think beyond design and marketing teams. Include brand compliance within the onboarding process itself to introduce new team members to your brand and its values from the word go. Share the guidelines so teams and individuals can ensure adherence without constant supervision.
The most important thing? If there’s any change in your brand elements or guidelines, make sure that everyone in the organization is aware of the same. And remember to update your digital and conventional assets accordingly.
› Asset Libraries
The simplest way to ensure brand compliance is to create a centralized library of brand assets. This library would consists of everything that you’ve approved for the brand - from logo files, email templates, and sales decks to color palettes, creative templates for social media, and marketing messaging tone.
Such libraries help you steer clear of unwanted off-brand imagery, content, and other materials. And since it is centralized, it offers seamless access and collaboration. You can opt for platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox to create brand asset library. Alternatively, you can go for your a dedicated brand management software system to manage these assets.
› Approvals and Reviews
The best thing about a brand is that it keeps evolving over time. And even though you may have all the guidelines, templates, and training in place, you can’t avert the suggested modifications or innovative use cases by your teams. While some suggestions may be absurd, some may take your brand to new heights. All of it can only happen if you stay flexible and open to ideas.
Thus, it is only wise to develop a solid review system where you can filter the customizations and additions to your existing brand assets. It not only helps you establish quality assurance but also maintain the integrity of your brand.
» 7 Tips to Enhance Brand Compliance
Brand compliance is a collective initiative; for every role in the organization impacts the reputation of your brand. You have to come together as a team to strengthen and maintain your brand identity. Luckily, there are certain tips you could use to boost brand compliance in your company.
› 1) Create centralized brand guidelines
The core idea behind creating a style guide or guidelines for your brand is to make it accessible for your workforce to use. While PDFs have been a standard way for years, it is a hassle to keep it updated. However, the advent of technology has provided a simpler way through dedicated brand management tools as well as file sharing platforms.
Use a cloud-based platform to create your brand guidelines. It is not just easy to share and access but also smoother to make update. Besides, its auto-sync features ensure the changes reflect immediately for everyone to work with the latest information.
› 2) Make your company culture brand-centric
Make everyone feel included in your brand story, values, and reputation. Encourage communication around brand guidelines and compliance. Train your teams across levels. All of it helps create a culture that feels responsible toward the brand integrity. It makes them aware of things to do and things to avoid, which, in turn, helps avert off-brand blunders.
› 3) Keep the internal communication around brand standards going
From major updates about the brand to minor changes in the guidelines, keep the conversations going internally. Let your employees ask questions. Give practical answers, possibly with examples. From lookbooks to presentations, show your teams the in-action look of your brand. If there’s been a change, communicate it to them. When there are open talks internally about the brand, the consistency and compliance become simpler to maintain.
› 4) Conduct regular audits
Whether you’re distributing brand assets or producing content, it has to pass through a review tunnel. Doing so double-checks your brand messaging and visuals comply with your standard guidelines. Furthermore, you must conduct an assessment system that reviews brand assets over a period of time, say every six months. That way, you can discard elements that are no longer part of your guidelines.
› 5) Document changes, if any
Whenever you make any addition to your brand assets or change a thing or two, it must reflect in the guidelines too. Therefore, make sure to document every addition or every change you make. It would help keep everyone updated about the same, making lives easier and brand equity positive.
› 6) Incorporate a feedback mechanism
No brand can evolve without authentic feedback. Hence, it makes sense to keep the feedback channel open internally. Let your employees share their idea of the brand assets or if it requires any modifications. However, develop a robust mechanism for providing feedback to foster healthy collaboration. It would enable you to have a fresh perspective without losing the inherent brand values.
Recommended: Benefits of Feedback Culture for Your Business
› 7) Maintain consistency in measuring and tracking
Having brand guidelines in place is not the end of the story. You need to keep tracking and measuring how itis perceived, internally and externally. Use tools to assess your brand image, recognition, and consumer sentiments. Regular monitoring can help you spot areas of improvement and scope for reinvention, taking your brand to newer levels without losing the integrity it’s earned over the years.
» The Bottom Line
Brand compliance is crucial for businesses to retain its market reputation and consumer trust. As your organization grows, brand compliance turns even more complicated. However, with right understanding, strategy, monitoring, and tools, it becomes easier to manage.
