Does Your Website Match Your Business Card?

Happy New Financial Year!

The beginning of the new financial year is a good excuse to reflect on the past 12 months and to plan for the next 12. It’s a time when many businesses look at reviewing their marketing plan, marketing materials and sales targets to make the coming year better then the last.

It’s also a great time to review your website. Many times I’ve talked about the importance of updating your content, but this month I’d like to talk about reviewing your website to ensure it fits within the branding style of your other marketing/business materials, i.e. Does Your Website Match Your Business Card?

Over the weeks, months and years I’ve met many other business owners and have collected quite a number of business cards. Being in the business of websites one of the first things that I do after meeting someone is go and have a look at their website, and often I find that their website doesn’t match their business card.

While I won’t name names I recently received a card from a business that really caught my eye. The colours are bold, the logo is modern and reflects their services and overall it gave me a great deal of confidence that this is a great business. As usual I returned to the office and looked at their website and found something completely different. I found a website where the colours didn’t match that of their card and the logo quality was quite low, and not used in the same way. If I had seen the website first I probably wouldn’t have had the same impression as I did when seeing the card.

So why is it important to have consistency of brand across all your marketing/communication material? Well one word - recognition. With recognition comes familiarity. With familiarity comes trust and confidence. Also, if done correctly, consistency brings clarity and purpose which consumers buy into. They can become loyal, and loyal customers are profitable customers.

If we look at some of the big brands around the world they all have consistency. Every piece of marketing material you see, every product that is branded and any advertising they do all have a consistency in terms of their look and feel. They are aiming for that brand recognition.

The result of successful branding and achieving brand recognition with your customers can be great. Just look at some of the big brands around the world. A recent article talked about some of the most successful and brands around the world. Google topped the list at AU$124.55 Billion – that’s just the value of the brand.

While Google is an extreme case it doesn’t mean that you can’t, with a little planning and work, achieve great results for your business by ensuring that you have brand consistency. Have a look at your website and compare it to your business card, your letterhead and your brochure. Do the colours match? Is the logo used in the same way? And, do they all convey the same message?