Building a strong and recognizable brand requires you consistently show up and share your brand message with your audience. But, how do you evolve your brand and stay consistent?
I firmly believe consistency is key when it comes to building a business.
Consistency can be a challenging road to navigate–especially when you know you’re ready for a change.
This happens all the time when I start working with clients on a brand refresh. When they start working with me, they know there is a disconnect with what they have in place and what they want moving forward.
So, most clients go quiet on social media and in their marketing efforts because they don’t want to continue sharing things they’re ready to shed.
And, while I totally understand this thought process, I always recommend staying consistent while sprinkling in this new direction.
Like all things, a business needs to grow and evolve.
Every year we experience a change of seasons, and new growth, and a business is no different.
It evolves, grows, and goes through different seasons.
While it’s necessary for your business to adapt to the different channels available to connect with your audience and for your offerings or products to shift and change over time, maintaining a consistent brand can seem challenging (and even daunting).
That’s why I’m sharing three tips to help you create a consistent brand message while also evolving and growing your business.
HAVE A SOLID FOUNDATION
It is totally normal for a business’ services or products to evolve over time; In fact, this is typically a byproduct of listening to your current audience and clients and serving them better.
However, if you aren’t listening to your audience and start adding in new services or products because you see others doing it, it’s going to be hard for you to maintain consistency in your brand.
You’ll run the risk of having disjointed messaging and confusing your audience.
It’s easier to add in new services or products when you can do a gut check to make sure what you’re adding is aligned with your core values, purpose, and why.
Having a solid foundation is a great way to ensure you are staying true to your brand’s purpose and why, no matter how things evolve and change.
Let’s take a look at an example of how a business was able to change because the business owner, let’s call her Sara, was able to add in services and products that aligned with her mission.
Sara’s mission is to help women live a healthy lifestyle.
A year ago, Sara’s business model focused on one-on-one personal fitness coaching and nutrition.
Soon she found herself wanting to evolve and create a business that gave her the freedom to live anywhere and work whenever she wanted.
Sara changed up her business model and added different services and products to her business:
✓ She created a downloadable healthy cookbook available for purchase
✓ She created courses to help women unlock the best version of themselves
✓ She joined a healthy lifestyle MLM like Arbonne and Beautycounter
✓ She started selling digital downloads to help women with meal planning and fitness
✓ She’s working on creating an app with workouts and meal planning
While the application and delivery of her products have changed, Sara’s new offers align with her mission – to help women live a healthy lifestyle.
Knowing and staying true to your core values, purpose, and why will allow you to easily evolve and grow your business while staying consistent to its foundation.
And just to clarify: yes, these foundational elements may shift over time, but they but not drastically.
Your mission and vision statements may evolve, but if you’ve done the legwork to truly identify your purpose, core values, and why, you’ll find those don’t change frequently.
Related: How to Define Your Core Values
DON’T STOP SHOWING UP
The first thing most people do when they feel a disconnect in their brand messaging and their audience is immediately put a stop to showing up.
They stop posting on Instagram and they don’t continue to blog or show up in their email marketing because they no longer want to put out content that doesn’t align.
But, here’s the thing. You’re the only one who knows this transition and evolution is happening.
Your audience has been engaging and connecting with you up to this point so keep showing up!
Do the work on the back end to modify and adjust your brand, but don’t stop showing up.
If you go radio silent because you’re waiting to launch your new branding, your audience will notice and start to wonder what happened.
By doing this you are creating doubt and lowering the trust factor with your audience and potential clients.
If I go to someone’s website or social media and it’s been radio silent for a long time, I start to wonder if they’re still in business.
So, keep showing up and focus on making micro changes to your messaging if you can’t wait to roll out your new brand direction.
Related: Your Logo is Not Your Brand
AVOID CHANGING TOO FREQUENTLY
This is another biggy when it comes to maintaining consistency in your brand while also evolving. Business owners will sometimes make too many drastic visual changes to their brand in a short period of time, and this is a mistake.
It’s okay to change up your visual identity and is typically necessary for the evolution and growth of your business.
But, making too many changes in a short period of time can cause confusion, doubt, and lower that trust factor.
It’s also okay to tweak your visual identity if you don’t feel like it is working for you, but those micro changes don’t create doubt.
If you feel like you need to change up your visual identity because things aren’t resonating for you or your audience, this usually comes back to not having the foundational elements of your business solidified.
Define and know your core values, mission, vision, purpose, and why, and understand and know your ideal client; this is crucial in creating a visual identity that resonates.
Related: How to define your ideal client
Evolving your brand and business while maintaining consistency is totally feasible, but make sure you have a solid foundation for why you’re in business, maintain consistency in your marketing efforts (even if you’re in the midst of a change), and avoid changing things up too frequently.
Regardless of how your services or products evolve over time or how the landscape of digital marketing shifts and the way you connect with your audience changes, your brand can maintain a consistent presence–one that’s true to you and the values you created.
Are you struggling to evolve your brand? Let me know what obstacles you’re struggling with in the comments.
