How can you improve your brand's consistency?

People buy from brands they know and trust. Branding a business goes beyond a logo; it is about the impression a business gives customers each time they engage with the brand. A good brand strategy increases a company's value and provides an essential advantage in increasingly competitive markets, making the path to customers much more straightforward.

Nevertheless, cultivating a consistent brand identity is more challenging for retailers than other industries. This is because there are many factors to consider, such as in-store layout, product range, customer service channels, promotions, packaging, and even online persona.

For retailers, brand consistency also starts with recognizing the customer journey. So, how do your customers engage with your brand?

A customer remembers a brand and will likely buy from it again if it provides a memorable experience. Let's assume the customer has a great experience the first time and wishes to interact with it again. What would happen if, at the next interaction, the brand fails to engage with that customer, acting indifferently to the customer's needs?

In this scenario, the customer will probably not understand the brand, and trust between both parties will not be quickly built. Therefore, ensuring consistency in customer experience across all touchpoints is crucial for building loyalty. In addition, it fosters credibility and recognition, which are needed to develop long-term relationships with customers that, in return, will refer your brand and help you gain new shoppers.

Here are some ways in which brand consistency improves customer loyalty:

Recognition of your brand

Giving customers a consistent experience with your brand will make it well-known among your target market. Consistently delivering positive experiences to customers involves knowing their needs and aiming to meet their expectations. Customers greatly value product quality, excellent customer service, and the commitment to be more environmentally friendly.

Provides a way to communicate your brand's purpose

Brand consistency offers a way to communicate your brand's purpose and ensure you appear authentic. That said, the brand identity must be aligned with the changes in the market and the new needs that arise.

Flexibility is a very important asset for a brand, as sometimes a brand's identity must be altered to reflect its customers' priorities.

Builds more robust relationships with customers

Trusting a brand creates an emotional connection—customers who identify your brand as consistent form a stronger bond with your business.

How to increase your Brand's Consistency?

1. Create Brand Guidelines

What does your brand stand for? What does it look like? How does it speak and interact with people?

Creating a set of brand guidelines will allow you to answer these questions. Your brand guidelines should incorporate your core messages, such as vision, mission, and claim, as these pillars will enable you to communicate your business purpose.

2. Audit your brand

Once you have your brand guidelines, you must conduct brand audits to gather data regarding your customers' engagement with your business. This will allow you to evaluate (and improve) your brand's customer experience.

Any retail business that depends on employees selling things to consumers needs a Mystery Shopping Program. Mystery Shopping is a very effective way to get reliable and ongoing feedback from actual customers about your business performance.

Lucky for you, SmartSpotter has developed an innovative way of performing Mystery Shopping using our AI and crowdsourcing model.

Besides evaluating customer engagement, it is crucial to audit your brand's performance on all fronts. Every detail counts promotional execution, on-shelf availability, planogram compliance, POS materials, pricing, and store performance in general.