5 Steps to Creating Your Brand Guideline with Ashton Kirkeide

Ashton Kirkeide

Brand guidelines give everyone in your business an easy-to-follow “guide” to how your brand is represented to the public. This ensures your brand is cohesive across emails, print ads, websites, and articles. It can be a massive document or a quick one-page guideline. The important part is that it is written down and communicated within the business! Here are five steps for creating a short brand guideline.

1.   Research Your Competition

Wouldn’t it be terrible if you decided on a color scheme or logo for your business and found out your competition had something similar?? Your brand needs to be unique, so the first step is learning what your competition is doing. You can also use this information to inform your strategy. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? Where can you improve their strategy?

2.   Research Your Target Market

Different audiences mean different aesthetics and language. If your target market is executives at equine supplement companies, you probably won’t use terms like “chillin’” and “what’s up?”. Thoroughly research your target audience, their likes/dislikes, where they learn about products/services, how they make decisions and expendable income.

3.   Decide on Colors and Fonts

This is where the fun really starts! Colors and fonts are part of your visual brand. You want to have a specific set of colors and fonts that are used across all marketing material. This gives your brand personality and a consistent customer experience.

●      2-3 Primary Colors

●      1-2 Secondary Colors

●      Title Font

●      Subtitle Font

●      Body Font

4.   Create a Logo

Simple is best when it comes to logo design. Remember where your logo will be—t-shirts, hats, signs, vehicles, etc. A great logo is easy to identify, regardless of the size and distance. Make sure you have one-color variations ready as well! Most companies have one primary logo and a few approved color variations.

5.   Define Your Brand Voice

I alluded to this above, but create an authentic brand voice that speaks to your audience. Come up with a quick list of “never say that” and “always say that words.” This will help if you outsource any of your content creation, too!

Want more? Visit Black Horse Marketing Services!