How being consistent with your brand builds trust

Brand consistency builds trust - yep… we’ve already touched on this one in last week’s post, but let’s get into the HOW today.

Our brains are hard-wired to look for consistency and patterns. It’s called context-dependent memory and it’s basically how we remember things more easily when we rely on the context of the memory. 

“Context-dependent memory means that you rely on the context of where you learned the information to boost your memory. For example, if you learn song lyrics, you rely on the context of the melody to remember them. Or if you memorize a poem on the porch, you’re more likely to correctly recall that information when you’re on that porch. Or if you lose your car keys, you’re more likely to remember where they are if you return to the spot you left them. This is no different for brands. Every brand relies on audience awareness (also known as memory equity) to take their product or service to market.” (meetmaestro.com, August 27, 2019)

 So when you’re showing up with a consistent visual brand message, you’re building awareness and strengthening that context and making yourself more memorable. 

Presenting a consistent visual brand identity helps people remember you and know what to expect from you. Putting out a clear and consistent visual message through your branding will help accelerate your audience’s ability to get to know you and trust you. They are clear on who you are and what you’re about.

BUT WHAT IF YOU’RE INCONSISTENT?

When your branding is inconsistent your audience is confused. They have expectations that you’re going to show up in a certain way and when you don’t it chips away at the trust that you’ve worked so hard to build up.

 IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO:

Let’s imagine that you’re searching for the perfect gift for your best friend’s birthday. You find this awesome website where every image is gorgeous and the products are impeccably styled. There are witty and fun descriptions of each item. You finally find the perfect item and based on the high-end experience you’ve had on the website you decide to make a purchase. 

 The checkout process is smooth and seamless, even the checkout page is designed to match the company’s visual branding. A week or so goes by and you come home from work and sitting on the porch is a crumpled brown cardboard box with a b&w label on it, no return business name, just an address. 

You’re wracking your brain trying to remember what the heck you ordered that would be sitting on the porch in this state. (Please don’t tell me I’m the only one who sometimes forgets things they order online 🙋🏼‍♀️)

Okay, so you open it up that crumpled box to find the item you ordered for your friend. It’s simply thrown into a plastic bag and set in some crumpled brown paper. 

What are your thoughts? Are you thinking…. What the heck…. That doesn’t even seem like it came from the same company with the gorgeous website and witty & fun descriptions. 

Do you think you’d become a repeat customer? Probably not. And it might not even be that the item you purchased is really bad... It’s just that you’re confused and the experiences don’t match up, which plants a seed of distrust.

This is HOW having consistent branding can help your business.

The 2nd way it helps is by increasing your brand value. You already saw that a consistent brand can increase your revenue by 33%, up from 23% in 2016. People buy from brands that they connect with and feel are genuine and authentic. IF your brand visuals are all over the place it’s hard to connect with you. The same survey also reported that brand consistency is an “integral” part of building relationships with current and future customers. - so brand consistency = customers which = money

The 3rd way it helps your business is that it saves you TIME! Time is such a valuable resource, especially if you’re a soloprenuer. You’re no longer re-inventing how your visuals will look each and every time you or your VA/team creates content.

It will also enable you or your VA/team to flex their creative muscles. It may seem like having free creative reign to create visual content might be the best way to do things, this can sometimes have a paralyzing effect. When we’re provided with the constraints of the brand visuals we must work with we are able to focus more on the content itself vs how it will look. 

Schew… that was a lot of information. I can totally geek out on this context-dependent memory stuff for a while... so if you're as interested in it as me, let me know! Who knew that our brains are hard-wired for this stuff?!? 

 So now that you know the why and the how will this change how you apply your branding?

 Next week I'll be sharing a way to be consistent with your branding on your Instagram account.

"Using context-dependent memory to develop memory equity takes time.... Brand consistency helps put you back in context so people remember your brand quickly and easily. Stay genuinely and authentically yourself, and you’ll find that loyalty returned." -maestro.com