Building a Brand Identity That Translates Across Every Marketing Channel

Want to build a brand that looks and feels identical wherever your audience runs into you?

Most brands don’t. They do an amazing job making their brand shine on one channel, only to completely forget about it on another. Customers get confused. Trust goes out the window. So does revenue.

Here’s the thing…

Creating a brand identity that looks awesome everywhere isn’t just nice to have. It’s table stakes for building a true marketing intelligence system that gets RESULTS. Not just that: research proves customers spend up to 23% more with brands that have consistent branding.

The good news?

It’s not complicated. Not at all. Today we’re sharing a step-by-step guide to help you nail down your brand identity once and for all. Once you do, you’ll have a unified brand experience that works across social media, email marketing, paid ads and any channel you can think of. Boomcycle Digital Marketing services clients have been doing this for years.

Ready to get started?

Table of Contents

Below you’ll learn:

Why your brand identity needs to be consistent across channels
The 4 fundamentals of your brand foundation
5 steps to build a strong brand identity that works everywhere
4 brand consistency mistakes you should avoid at all costs

Why Brand Consistency Matters Across Marketing Channels

Here’s a simple analogy…

You know how people have a face? And if that face changed every time you saw them, you’d freak out?

The same thing happens with brands.

Imagine you see a cute dog on Instagram. You visit that brand’s website and they look like a cartoon rabbit. You get an email from them and they’re suddenly a lizard.

It makes no sense. Your brain rejects it. Customers do the same.

That’s why brands with inconsistent identities across channels struggle to get new customers.

It’s human nature. We like brand consistency because it builds trust.

Statistics say 81% of consumers must trust a brand before buying. If your beautiful brand identity crashes and burns as soon as they click onto your website, you’ll lose that customer right there.

But here’s the issue…

Less than 10% of brands have high consistency across their channels. Meaning 9 out of 10 brands you interact with every day are making it hard for their customers to trust them.

And that hurts businesses. Big time.

When your brand looks and acts different on each channel, customers get annoyed. Then they leave.

Brands with inconsistent identity struggle to acquire customers. Simple as that.

The Fundamentals of Your Brand

You can’t build a rock solid brand identity until you nail these four elements.

Think of them as the foundation of your brand:

Visual Identity: How your brand looks. Logo, colour palette, typography and imagery.

Brand Voice: How your brand sounds. Copywriting tone and language.

Core Messaging: What your brand says about itself. Key value propositions and messaging pillars.

Brand Guidelines: The rule book that makes sure everyone delivers on the above. Documentation of your brand standards.

This is where most brands get stuck.

They create a brand guideline doc and call it a day.

Documenting your brand standards is great… but is useless if nobody follows it.

Think of your brand guidelines as the brand bible. Everyone should read it. Then apply it to everything they do.

A 5-Step Checklist to Build Your Brand Identity

Now it’s time to get into the good stuff. These are the exact steps you should take to make sure your brand delivers the same experience on every marketing channel out there.

Step 1: Audit Current Brand Touchpoints

Take stock of every channel your customers come into contact with your brand.

Website

Social media profiles

Email templates

Ad creatives

Print packaging

You name it. Find every place your customers see you and list it out.

Next, look for inconsistencies.

Are you using multiple different logos?

Are your brand colours all over the place?

Does your brand sound stuffy on your website, but slangy on social media?

Write down every place you can find your brand isn’t being consistent.

Once you’ve finished this brand audit, you’ll have a good understanding of where you stand.

Step 2: Identify Your Brand DNA

Ok. Now it’s time to figure out who you are.

What is your brand? Go beyond the surface. The logo and colours.

Dig deeper. What does your brand stand for?

What are your mission, values, brand personality and unique positioning?

Once you’ve nailed that down, write it all down. Plain and simple. If your team can’t explain your brand in one sentence, nobody can.

Step 3: Create a Brand Style Guide

Your brand style guide is a document that houses everything your team needs to deliver on your brand promise. Every piece of brand content that leaves your company needs to go through this style guide.

Here’s what it should include:

Logo rules. Where it goes. Clear space around it. When and how to use it.
Brand colours. Hex colours, RGB colours and CMYK values for printing.
Fonts. What fonts to use and hierarchy.
Imagery guidelines. Where to source images from. What style of imagery to use.
Example copy. Newsletter copy. Ad examples. Social captions. Whatever you guys create content for.

You get the idea.

Step 4: Train Your Team on the Brand Style Guide

DO NOT LET THIS STEP SLIP. Your brand guide is worthless if nobody knows it exists.

Get everyone on the team who is responsible for creating content or putting the brand out into the world to familiarise themselves with this guide.

Internal teams

Freelancers who work on your content

Any agency partners you work with

You get the idea.

Step 5: Keep it Optimised

Now that you’ve created brand consistency, you MUST keep it that way.

Schedule regular brand audits to catch drifts and inconsistencies early. And use a centralised marketing intelligence system to monitor your brand’s health on each channel. Engagement, sentiment and recognition are just a few things to look at.

4 Brand Identity Mistakes Brands Make

While we’re here, let’s make sure you don’t fall into these traps that steal away brand consistency.

Allowing silos to form between channels. Every department should know what the other channels are doing. If your social media team is running ads that don’t match your brand voice, someone needs to tell them.

Following trends that don’t fit your brand identity. Trends come and go. Sometimes they’ll fit perfectly with your brand identity. Other times they won’t. Just because a pink neon font is cool on Instagram, doesn’t mean your brand should use it.

Out of sight, out of mind. Your website may be your flagship brand channel but don’t forget about your transactional emails. Invoices. Service emails. Blog posts. Any place a customer interacts with your brand matters.

Not updating your brand guidelines. Brands evolve over time. Don’t be afraid to update your brand guidelines as your brand changes. Reviewing your brand annually is a good rule of thumb.

Wrapping Up

If you want to stand out amongst your competitors, you need to build a brand identity that reaches every single customer touchpoint.

Many brands won’t bother with a bunch of small channels like service emails or Instagram. But guess what? Your audience sure does.

If you want to build customer trust, you need to build a brand presence everywhere your audience does. And it starts with consistency.

Use this checklist to start aligning your brand on every channel today!

Audit current brand touchpoints Define your brand DNA Create a brand style guide Train your team Monitor and optimise

Boom. You’re on your way to creating a unified customer experience across every channel your audience interacts with you.