It’s not most brand owners’ goals to confuse customers, but it happens and usually is color related. It might be the case that your blue on your website is slightly different from blue on your packaging. It might also be the case that your social media profile uses an older version of your logo, which is not the case for your website or packaging. Small differences like these, while definitely small, are not unnoticeable to the customer and can detract from the appearance of your brand.
As you might imagine, it’s easy for this to occur. If your website was done by one person, your business cards by someone else, and your social media graphics tossed together by whoever had time, no one checks to the colors as they are all over the place and mini differences occur over time.
It is worrying that customers see these differences, even if they are tiny, because they are not focused enough to appreciate the effect of each. Just because your customers do not evaluate your social media against your website to determine if your brand is consistent, does not mean that a slight difference between these is not eroding trust, especially because of new customers.
This can be an easy change. Start saving the specific colors (hex codes) designers use and reference when they need to. You can then create document where you save the hex codes so they are quick and easily accessible. When having to create anything from a social media post to a flyer, use these dedicated hex codes. No more eyeballing it.
The same can be said for your final approved logo. There needs to be one official logo that is preserved and is the only version that is to be used for marketing. It really is shocking to see how quickly companies lose control of their brand identity and logs. There can be several altered and/or resized versions floating around and people don’t even know it.
Fonts can be just as bad. Using the same fonts online vs in print. Customers may not understand the feeling of inconsistency but they can definitely feel something is wrong even if they can’t explain it.
This doesn’t have to be perfect right away. Fixing brand consistency issues doesn’t happen all at once. Most brands amass these inconsistencies over time, so the fix will happen over time too. Focus on what the customers see most, such as your website and major social media channels, and branch out from there. This is work that, while uninteresting or boring, is important and builds a trustworthy business.