Brand Guidelines – What are they? and why do you need them?
Guidelines…a little like rules... Nobody likes them, but everyone needs them. And some rules matter more than others and make things easier in your business. Let’s discuss which guidelines matter and why you shouldn’t do marketing without them.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will cover the different sets of “guidelines” or “strategies” that businesses are often told they need by marketing agencies and consultants.
In this week’s blog, we’ll talk about Brand Guidelines- the standard operating procedures for your brand. And next week, we’ll cover one of my favorite topics, Messaging Guides or Messaging Strategies.
In the blogs, I’ll share real client stories- good and bad- so that you can learn from our failures and our successes.
Let’s get to it.
What are brand guidelines?
Brand Guidelines also called: a brand playbook, a brand identity guide, or a brand strategy, is often done in conjunction with the branding process. However, you’re not alone if you did your branding but did not invest in developing a formal set of brand guidelines. If you’re in that boat, don’t worry, it’s not too late, but it is something you probably should invest in when you’re ready to have anyone else, but you handle your marketing execution.
The brand guidelines outline all aspects of your visual brand and set the rules around using your logos, fonts, icons, colors, photography, and specific word choices in all your marketing assets.
Depending on whether you use an agency or an independent designer, brand guidelines can cost anywhere from $500 and $50,000.
Why we believe brand guidelines are a worthy investment:
We get it, this process can seem frivolous; however, establishing the rules around your brand matter and here’s why:
Consistency: building brand recognition requires consistency. That means your audience needs to see it the same way repeatedly for it to stick in their minds- and recognize it quickly. Without rules & guidelines, your brand can be inaccurately represented in your marketing materials leading to a lack of “stickiness” in your audiences’ brains.
Efficiency: managing others’ applications and use of your brand can be exhausting. When using employees or external contractors to produce any marketing collateral, providing a document with the brand guidelines allows them to produce material you’re more likely to like and approve, improving productivity, cutting down on approval times, and helping everyone to meet critical production deadlines.
Cost: marketing collateral can be expensive to produce. It’s even more expensive when you go beyond your allocated revisions or, worse yet, must redo it because it wasn’t done correctly the first time. Keep your production costs down by giving your team what they need to be successful from the get-go. It will create a positive working relationship and get better results every time.
What your brand assets and brand guidelines should include:
Your logo- in several variations with print and web application guidelines
Iconography - icons and the small logo marks for social profile thumbnails
Approved Color Palette - web and print
Typography
Primary
Secondary
Photography guidelines
Approved Infographics (if applicable)
Approved Videos (if applicable)
Approved Interactive elements (if applicable)
Social Media Templates (Canva)
Presentation Template (Google, Canva, or PPT)
Business Cards
Letterhead
Branded Headers for all social platforms
Branded Email Headers
To see my very simple yet straightforward brand guidelines, click here.
What happened when I didn’t force a client to develop brand guidelines? Learn from my mistake:
Learn from a mistake I made with a client: When marketing budgets are tight, doing brand guidelines is not something businesses want to spend money on. This was true for a previous client: a high-end consumer goods company launching a new product to a cold audience. This client had invested hundreds of thousands into product development, spent thousands on an ineffective e-commerce website, and needed to successfully sell products via its website to generate revenue as quickly as possible. When our agency was hired to help them design and build a new digital marketing platform, we didn’t require the client to establish brand guidelines as a means of doing business together. As a result, our project was challenging from start to finish. The new website's design was plagued with disagreements on colors, logo application, photography, and fonts. The lack of alignment cost us weeks on the design timeline and created animosity between the various parties working on the project. The social media team never hit the mark with its graphics because there was no standard to meet. The fonts, colors, and photography simply fell short every time. Needless to say, our agency was fired, and the client didn’t end up with a solution to its business problems. Both parties lost something valuable because I didn’t force a small investment in a much bigger project. Rookie mistake! (And for the record, their marketing is still suffering from lackluster and inconsistent visual branding.)
