Brand consistency and why it’s important for your school
Marketing could considered an unfortunate necessity today, with the thought of having to create a ‘brand’ aligned (possibly uncomfortably) with retail giants and ‘influencers’, it is important to recognise the benefits a strong brand can offer.
Considered thoughtful investment in your brand can help to nurture trust and loyalty, increase customer growth, grow organisation pride, and solidify community cohesion.
Why does a brand need to be consistent?
A brand is the sum of expressions by which your organisation intends to be recognised.
Your Logo and/or Crest, colour palette, typography, imagery and tone all combine to create your unique brand voice.
The brand created should have an identity and personality, name, culture, vision, emotion and intelligence. Your brand has the power to reach out and connect to your audiences, allowing you to stand out from your competitors.
Your brand is your first impression. First impressions count; Is yours a good one?
Having consistency in your branding is key to marketing your organisation successfully. Every interaction you have with your audiences e.g. future and current families, staff, community and suppliers needs to be derived from the same foundational messaging. The myriad of communications being distributed weekly need to be dependably consistent to reinforce trust in your brand.
1. Brand consistency builds trust
If your audience doesn’t trust your brand, they will not remain engaged or loyal for the long term.
A strong brand elicits trust in its consumers and clients in any industry. In the education sector, where trust is paramount for any school, the stakes are high. A future family that might be considering various schools for their child will do their due diligence by evaluating your reputation through research online, asking their network for community feedback as well as referencing marketing collateral before making any important decisions.
An organisation that fosters a consistently strong brand voice and identity will inherently be trusted by their community. With trust comes comfort and a sense of stability and reliability. Without consistency your credibility is at stake – you’re at risk of coming across as unprofessional, disorganised, unfocused and possibly unreliable. Inconsistent messaging only serves to confuse and confound your audience, which may lead to a negative association with your school brand over time.
2. Brand consistency allows for intuitive connection
The emotional connection to a school’s brand is powerful, and can influence behaviours, desires, and actions.
Once you achieve brand consistency, it’ll do much of the heavy lifting for you. Your brand will be an intuitive feeling that encompasses traits, ideals, and values that your audience believes in, trusts, and wants to be aligned with.
When there is inconsistency across your brand it can be confusing and frustrating for students, families, and staff alike. As we all know too well in this digital age with access to information happening across many devices and mediums it can be overwhelming, especially for a new student or prospective family. A user’s journey might start with an ad they see on social media, leading to an online enquiry form, then a school tour which is why it’s important that your brand is consistently applied across media and mediums.
A print advert that has a QR code linking to an online enquiry form can leave a negative impression if your brand and/or messaging is different across both channels – the user may be confused and question if they are arrived at the correct website.
Cognitive strain is a roadblock to your audience achieving their end goal. They may abandon their intended objective due to uncertainty or frustration.
Brand consistency and clear user journeys pave the way to a seamless user experience with minimum cognitive strain. Removing unnecessary hurdles gives you a better chance at securing a happy, satisfied user who will continue to invest in your brand.
3. Brand consistency makes communication work for you
It’s a smart investment to implement brand consistency strategies to nurture and maintain long term trust, connection, and loyalty to your school.
Think about every interaction your school has with all your audiences, from prospective students who might see an advert on a bus, to current families actively engaging via the school parent portal or receiving app notifications and newsletters, to social media posts seen by out-of-area prospective families. It’s a comprehensive, complex, and often mind-boggling network of communications that need to be delivered to a diverse audience.
With this in mind, it makes sense to streamline and refine efficiencies where possible to minimise time and cost investment.
Consistent brand messaging facilitates your users to achieve their goals, wherever they may be on their user journey.
Whether that is in enquiring, applying, enrolling, booking a tour, or connecting on social media. A strong consistent brand ensures engagement.
Why is it difficult to maintain brand consistency?
Organisations are often decentralised. That means there are many stakeholders, departments, and locations that each have their own agendas, goals, and objectives. Often they are involved in producing external communications.
With multiple departments in the mix, it can be challenging to arrive at a unified brand, let alone ensuring it is championed throughout your community. As difficult as it is (and likely a continuing, evolving journey) getting all departments and stakeholders onboard and aligned to why it’s important will be a big win.
However, when everyone is aligned risks are minimised e.g. you won’t have to worry about departments developing divergent campaigns or messaging that is not consistent with the intended brand values or characteristics. Without orhanisation-wide commitment to a consistent brand voice you risk diluting the integrity of your messaging and eroding the goodwill, trust and connection that has been fostered with your audience.
Maintaining brand consistency across platforms
Reach different audiences through different platforms, but with consistent brand messaging.
Connecting with the right audience at the right time to communicate the right message requires a variety of tools. Your goal is to define and shape the messaging to attract the desired outcomes from the desired target audience. A strategy can incorporate communications through various channels that are all handled slightly differently.
A marketing campaign to promote social justice in a school may feature large format image galleries on the school website news section – this may include a comprehensive article with image captions and tags and have a more formal official tone.
The same news item may be promoted with a more casual, community focused tone on your social channels such as Facebook or Instagram with a single bold image, hashtag(s) and invitations to like or comment. The delivery is different, with different audiences reached, however the messaging remains consistent.
Action items to kickstart brand consistency
- Create brand guidelines for your school. If you already have guidelines, review them against the existing collateral in play. Start by choosing a specific journey that a customer would take when connecting with you. Is it consistent?
- Appoint a team to manage and maintain your content and brand identity.
- Deliver brand guidelines organisation wide. Also deliver a copy to relevant partners and suppliers who may be creating content on your behalf.
- Review your communication channels and assess what needs to be updated with your newly updated or created brand guidelines, which might include:
- Website
- Newsletter
- Parent / Student Portal
- Social Channels
- Marketing materials
- Environmental signage
- Internal communications
