Maybe one day there will come a time when the retail shop will die out. Maybe one day all that people will want is to shop online and not have to tangibly touch and interact with a business in real life. That’s a little far fetched for some but surely, this is a great mental exercise. One thing is for sure, we already know what brand consistency in real life looks like. Everything from the store sign, the painted color on the shelves, the signs inside the store, the employee uniforms and the overall color scheme inside is like the bread and butter of retail stores.
This kind practice is done by almost every single small or large retail business in the real world. But when it comes to the online world, things get a little murky. For one thing the online world is completely new to small business owners. They are for the first time, trying to market their business not just to the general consumers, but also to clients. So what does brand consistency actually look like online?
Carrying the flag
The one thing that has to be everywhere is your color scheme. Without a shadow of a doubt, if you have a breakage in your color scheme it will take consumers out of their experience. That’s what your website should be, an experience for browsing shoppers. It’s quite simple to enact as with great web design you can keep the same exact color and flow all throughout. The background of your website, the text, the images, videos, banners and titles should all be in one formatic shade. However you’re also carrying the flag of your business onto mobile websites too. Therefore make sure your website is designed to function properly on IOS and Android systems. Don’t forget that desktop computers and mobile devices have different coding, so your color might not look the same if you don’t design a standalone mobile-friendly website.
Images and videos
Nowadays the standard has shifted over from images to videos as the main welcoming content of business websites. Therefore you should have some kind of video content that is consistent with the brand’s morals, ethics and goals. What consumers should be watching in the video that automatically plays upon landing on the homepage, is your business practicing what you preach. Could this be unique and powerful design, could it be communicating effectively with clients, or perhaps it’s about setting world standards. Whatever the image you want to portray, it should be clearly visible in the video that introduces and explains who you are as a business. The images must also be showing this which is why being aware of the mise-en-scene is so vital. Each image should focus or broadly show the aspects of your brand that you want to be uplifted the most. Zoom in on drill work being done to capture sparks flying, zoom out to show a large audience listening to your presentation etc.
Brand consistency in business is key to maintaining the right image you want. It also means making sure that your website has one smooth flowing color scheme.
