How’s Your Online Consistency?
Posted Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 by Robert Spangler, in Online Marketing
We all know that brand consistency is necessary between your different print marketing efforts. When you get your business card redesigned, you know it’s time to revisit your letterhead and collateral as well.
Consistency online. The consistency in your branding online is often just as (or sometimes more) important than your branding anywhere else. How often have you clicked on a banner advertisement and been brought to a website that looks completely different from what you clicked on? So naturally, you hit the back button to see if you clicked the wrong link. Okay, granted, sometimes banner ad consistency doesn’t matter.
New isn’t always better. Website redesigns can get expensive, so it’s tempting to just start redesigning little pieces here and there. If you’re getting your email newsletters looking nice and Web 3.0 (sorry, I had to) but your site is still looking like it did in 1998, you may find yourself taking a few steps backwards. Don’t get me wrong, update your email newsletters. The key is to not get caught up in the glitz and glam of modern design trends if they don’t match your site, or your company branding.
The disconnect. We’re all worried about “conversion,” after all, it is the benchmark for how effective we’re being. The more inconsistency you have between clicks the more likely your bounce rate is going to increase. And more bounce = less conversion.
So this is just a friendly reminder to keep your online marketing efforts synced up with each other.
Here’s a quick list of things you may want to double-check for consistency:
- Email newsletters
- Banner advertisements
- Social media backgrounds (Twitter, YouTube, etc…)
- Social media avatars (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…)
- Your blog’s design
- Landing pages
- Your checkout
Matt Pramschufer Says:
Rob, good article here. I can not agree more. A great first step for those companies who are reluctant to do a website make over /redesign is to simply make sure their logo looks the same on all materials. If they just updated their email campaign and have a fancy way they are presenting their logo, make sure they take the steps and carry that through all of their marketing material. That way even if their website looks like web .25 and their email looks like web 3.0 at least the viewer can relate the two together based on their logo/mark.
Robert Spangler Says:
Thanks for your feedback Matt, I definitely agree. (oh, and thanks for the heads up on the tabindex, fixed)
Bill Bennett Says:
I’m a journalist, not a designer, so my visible brand is extremely minimal. In that sense it is consistent, just black and white mainly sans-serif (The Calibri font from Microsoft Windows).
However, I make a bigger deal out of consistency in my words and language. I make sure I use words the same way each time. I stick with British English rather than American English (I work in Australia and New Zealand where the mother country still holds linguistic sway). My writing style conforms to Australian/New Zealand/British newspaper style books - and so on.