Your marketing will be more consistent and effective
If you have a business, you need more than just a logo. Your business needs a brand guide. A brand guide will help you look more professional to your customers and keep your marketing consistent across all marketing channels. You can hire a professional to create one for you, but if that is not in the budget, it's possible to draft something yourself as a starting point and then hand it over to someone else who could work off of it. This blog post will cover some essential elements to include in your brand guide.
A Brand Guide creates consistency
You need brand consistency to keep your brand image strong. A brand guide will help you achieve that goal. You can hand it to any vendors or people who are going to help you with your marketing, or refer back to it yourself to make sure that the marketing materials you create are
Logo
Your logo - make sure it is the same one every time you use it whether on business cards, signage or social media graphics. Logo variations are fine as long as they are complimentary. Overall you should stick with one logo with maybe a light and dark version to accommodate different backgrounds that the logo may be placed on.
Colors
Your brand colors - color consistency is important to keep your brand image strong and recognizable by customers, so include a guide for those as well. Your brand should have no more than three different shades of each color you use in your marketing materials.
Fonts
Font choices- you should determine what fonts you will use in your marketing and include them in your guide as well. Use no more than two different fonts in your brand.
Messaging
Messaging - make sure to include a tagline or core message. You can refer to the tagline or core message each time you create marketing materials, whether it's social media posts or print materials such as flyers and brochures. It is easy to get the messaging wrong when writing for social media if this isn't included on all your brand communications.
Brand Story
Brand story- in addition to a core message, you should develop a story that matches. It should be short. Think of it as an elevator sales pitch version of what your brand represents. For more on how to write a compelling story for your brand check out Building a Brand Story, by Donald Miller.
A brand guide is never finished
Your brand guidelines should be a work in progress and not set in stone. You will need to update it as your business changes or grows. You can start with a simple guide that is one to two mages long or expand it to be hundreds of pages. For now this is a good place to start and if you are ready to build one now, you can click here to purchase a premium video lesson that will show you how to build a free brand guide on canva.com and you will also get access to a template you can use. The video lesson will show you how to just fill in the blanks in the template and also walk you through how to populate each slide with expert tips.
Brand Guide Video Tutorial
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