Do you struggle to write clear brand guidelines? You’re not alone!
In our experience, brand guidelines are often treated as an afterthought. Keeping your policies up to date can be a frustrating and time-consuming process, but it’s super important when cementing your visual identity and brand promise to consumers.
Suggested reading: Brand asset management is the first step in optimising one especially crucial bit of your branding — your visual identity. Check out our blog, Enhance Your Visual Identity With Brand Management, to learn more.
Five benefits of brand guidelines
- Increase brand awareness
- Create brand recognition
- Build customer loyalty
- Set brand standards and rules
- Increase brand consistency – A study by Lucidpress found that brand consistency can increase revenue by 33% – pretty impressive, right?[1]
If you’re looking for advice on creating awesome brand guidelines, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve put this handy guide together to help you optimise your brand guidelines so they can be easily updated, understood, and can actually serve your team.
What is brand guidelines software?
If your marketing team doesn’t use brand guidelines software, it’s missing out!
This useful tool makes brand design a breeze and tells your employees and partners why your brand is so special.
Good brand guidelines will also show your team how important brand assets — you know, company logos, images, videos, graphs, etc. — should be used on social media and other marketing platforms.
What are the benefits?
- Save valuable time and money
- Showcase your brand in the best possible light
- Turn your employees into brand champions
- Deliver great brand consistency — there’s no excuse to go off-brand when everyone has access to the latest brand book or guidelines
Pro tip: Check out our brand consistency toolkit if you’re tired of putting off branding success.
What should I look for in brand guidelines software?
Brand guidelines software will help you design a detailed brand book and create a consistent and appealing brand to your target audience.
Let’s look at some important features that every brand guidelines software should have:
Easy-to-edit content
As a brand manager, you know that branding changes over time, and keeping up with forever-changing brand guidelines can be a serious challenge!
Having a solid and consistent brand message and tone of voice is, of course, important. After all, you don’t want to fall for every passing fad, or no one will recognise your brand! Still, having brand elements set in stone will result in outdated branding material and an extremely tedious updating process.
The solution? Look for brand guidelines software that allows you to amend your guidelines quickly and distribute your updated brand style guide to all relevant parties.
Suggested reading: Check out our recent blog post for more tips on what to look for in a brand asset management system.
👉 Improve your brand with The Brand Management Handbook. Check it out! 👈
Multilingual capabilities
The internet has revolutionised how we do business and allow companies of any size to expand globally and reach customers worldwide.
However, certain brand elements (e.g. typography) are easily lost in translation. After all, the last thing you want is to let an inaccurate translation tool take the wheel and accidentally say something offensive in another language!
This is why investing in brand guidelines software with multilingual capabilities is so important. You need your brand to be consistent wherever you are in the world; for that, you need your guidelines to be accessible. This way, everyone is confident in your brand voice — no matter the language!
How multilingual guidelines work
Good brand guidelines software will allow you to create guidelines in different languages without making multiple changes.
You can make one change in one language, and the software will update all the languages automatically and accurately. It’s as simple as that!
Why you should invest in multilingual marketing
- Multilingual guidelines = region-specific marketing material, reaching a global audience.
- A multilingual brand will engage its target audience more effectively because it resonates with their culture and interests.
- In a recent survey, 65% of consumers said that they prefer content in their native language, and 40% said they wouldn’t purchase from a site in another language.[2]
- Worried that multilingual marketing is an added cost? Multilingual marketing is, in fact, extremely cost-effective, and you should recover the costs quickly. Research shows that multilingual marketing strategies increase sales revenue by reaching a broader market and resonating with a larger target audience.
Suggested reading: Want to know even more ways to optimise your brand management? Check out our guide on what to look for in a BMS.
Integrations with your DAM
Brand guidelines that are detailed and easy to update are one thing, but implementing them is another. Simple integration is crucial to running a smooth and effective marketing department.
Minimise branding errors
Your brand style guide should link to the assets (company logo, brand colours, and any other parts of your brand) to minimise the risk of guidelines being implemented incorrectly.
The last thing you want is for your employees to accidentally reflect your brand mission statement and brand identity in a negative light.
Create brand guidelines your team will love
Your brand guidelines should integrate seamlessly with your existing DAM (digital asset management system). This will ensure that your team knows exactly what you’re referring to and can make changes to brand elements faster.
Suggested reading: Check out our step-by-step guide on how to get your employees on board with new software.
Digital brand guidelines
Printed versions of your brand guidelines might look great, but they cost much more than digital versions. As mentioned above, your brand style guide must be updated regularly to keep guidelines relevant, adding to that cost.
Why companies are going digital
More well-known companies are opting for a digital brand book. Here’s why:
- Digital brand guidelines are more cost-effective as you can distribute updates quickly and for no extra cost.
- Storing documents in digital versions is more eco-friendly than printing.
- Anyone from anywhere can access digital guidelines.
- Digital guidelines can be updated quickly and easily.
- Digital guidelines are more secure, and you can protect sensitive information with password protection.
Guidelines are made easy with Brandworkz
Following brand guidelines is the easiest way to create consistent branding materials, but only when the guidelines are easy to access and implement. We know how busy you are, and you don’t want to waste valuable time micromanaging your team.
This is where Brandworkz comes in. Our innovative tool uses sophisticated Brand Reporting Software that integrates seamlessly with your DAM and will make enforcing brand guidelines easier than ever!
Why marketers love Brandworkz
At Brandworkz, we provide brand management software that streamlines operations and enables you to create more consistent and flexible brand management strategies.
Don’t just take our word for it. Check out these incredible stats. Brands using Brandworkz can save, on average:
- 724 hours searching for assets
- 6,017 hours creating new assets
- £150,000 in marketers’ time
Book a free demo today
Book a free demo if you want to discover the benefits for yourself and join 100,000 marketers’ already increasing revenue with our advanced brand management software.
Get in touch if you have any questions – we’re always happy to help.
[1] Brand Consistency: The Average Revenue Increase is 33% | Funnel Amplified.
[2] 40% Will Not Buy In Other Languages — Why Translation Matters | Alexika
