I’ve heard it so many times from clients and my entrepreneurial friends.

“How do I keep my branding consistent across all of these platforms?”

I hear you.

It feels challenging at times to keep track of everything. Your website, your marketing, posting on social media platforms and sending emails out to your list. 

While it may feel overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be this way!

Here are a few tips for easing your mind when it comes to maintaining the brand consistency of your wedding venue business:

1. Get clear on the heart of your brand

Branding is more than just colors, typefaces, and the look of things. It’s the heart of your brand. It’s the feeling clients get when they visit your website because they feel you are speaking directly to them. 

How do we create this feeling? We dive deeper into foundational elements (I encourage you to grab a notebook and journal on these ideas a bit!)

Your why: 

Your why is the reason you do what you do, and usually there are two “whys”. One “why” is the bigger impact you are planning to create by making your business successful. The second, is the life you are aiming to create for yourself. Understanding these things supports every other decision you will make for your brand moving forward. It also helps you build a vision that keeps you going when business gets inevitably challenging at times.

Your vision: 

What is the vision you have, not only for your own life, but also for the couples that come through your wedding venue doors. What do you want to create? Pull this vision from your biggest dreams, even if it feels a little scary.

Your mission: 

Your mission statement conveys to clients the transformation you will help them to achieve. How you will take them from point A to point B. Maybe they are struggling with finding a venue that provides them with the experience they are looking for. How can you take them from feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, to feeling like they are planning the day of their dreams with a venue they are so grateful they found?

Your values: 

What do you value as a business? Make these actionable. What does this mean? An actionable value is one that can be implemented as a way of doing business. For example, one of Studio53’s values is integrity. We don’t just say “we have integrity” and leave it at that. We think about how integrity can actually be a way of doing business. We came to the conclusion that integrity means that we will ALWAYS do what we say we are going to do in our business. This shows itself in the way we manage clients and the way we communicate within the team.

Your Ideal Client: 

This is a big one. Who are the couples that you are aiming to attract for their big day? Is it the bride on a budget? Is it a bride that loves the outdoors and dreams of getting married in nature? What about the couple that really wants to have a huge party for their reception? What does your ideal client care about? What do they want when it comes to making their venue decision? What does their bank account look like and how old are they? Ultimately, who are you going to serve with your work? Many decisions will be made for your branding based on who your ideal client is.

Your brand message and brand voice: 

This is all about what you want to say, and how you want to say it. Consistent brand messaging helps prospective clients understand what you stand for and the services that you offer. This creates authority in your topic and when people think about your services, they also think of your business. Your brand voice is the way that you communicate. Are your clients responsive to a more bubbly form of voice? Or maybe a sophisticated yet laid back tone? Revisit your ideal client notes to determine this.

2. Get your brand designed!

One of the reasons why it may feel difficult to be consistent is because there aren’t any guidelines in place. This would be challenging for anyone! Without brand guidelines, it is inevitable that we will eventually fall off track. We are only human. 

Imagine this: you have a color palette, fonts, branding elements, and esthetic guide to keep you organized on how to approach your marketing, website, and social media.

All you need to do is use those elements and you are set! 

Here’s an example:

With this, my client is able to easily stay organized and can create without hesitation because they know they will use this guideline. With everything they create.

3. Plan ahead of time

Before I understood the importance of planning content ahead of time, my business and I both struggled. Not only was it difficult to stay on track with marketing, but it was also challenging to maintain cohesion across platforms.

Consider creating monthly themes that help you create content for the month. Set up a content calendar with important things to cover based on the needs of your audience. Plan out posts 2-4 weeks in advance and then in a few months, you can repurpose and reuse the content. Doing this helps with your repetition as new clients join your audience, or in warming up cold leads over time.

4. Make sure your team is familiar with the brand and what is expected

Share your brand guidelines and brand deep dive with your team, especially the ones that write copy for you, design for you, post on social media, or send out newsletters.

When they understand what your brand represents and also the visual aspects that should be used, you can more easily maintain consistency.

5. Consistency involves repetition

Don’t be afraid to reuse and repurpose content or designs!

Reusing your content creates brand awareness and also helps ideal clients to build trust and appreciation with your business. Creating content that gives prospective clients reasons to easily know, like, and trust you is the ultimate goal of marketing. By doing this, it becomes easier when it comes time for venue tours and the decision to book. 

We hope you found these tips for maintaining brand consistency helpful!

Have questions? Reach out to us!