Brand Communication, Digital brand book

Why an online brand book is key for your brand communication

How BAM directly supports work-life balance

When communicating your brand, do you ever get the feeling you’re talking to a wall? Or wonder if anyone ever reads your messages? Successful branding demands proper brand communication. And it requires an entire company pulling in the same direction. For this to happen, everyone needs to be on the same page, receiving the same information about your brand. But the fact is that 74% of employees feel they are missing out on company and news. So, what do you do?

You invest in an online brand book!

What is a brand book?

Brand book or brand guidelines are two and the same. It’s a document that describes your brand from a-z. The brand identity and its origin, the brand values, and its purpose in life. A brand book also includes branding rules – Every detail on how to apply your brand in different scenarios as well as how to communicate your brand. This all sums up to a brand book.

Your first reaction is perhaps that all companies have a brand book. Surprisingly, this is not the case. A study done among US organisations found that only 30% have well-known and used brand guidelines. The remaining 70% do not have any, or no one knows where to find them and it’s random who follows them. What does this tell us? First and foremost, having brand guidelines in place is not enough to secure your brand. Next, how a brand book is shared and distributed affects how your colleagues engage with your brand and communicate it.  

To get everyone pulling in the same direction, communicating ONE brand, everyone in your organisation needs to be informed and included in your branding efforts. You need to make sure everyone is familiar with your brand and its guidelines, and you need to secure availability and accessibility to avoid ending up in the same situation as the US companies mentioned above.

Also read: Who do you need on your team when building your brand?

An online brand book enables seamless brand communication

Aligning everyone can seem like an impossible task. You know first-hand how hard it is to get everyone to read your messages about brand updates and new assets, and they never seem to remember where to locate the brand book. At the same time, they feel left out of the communication loop. Clearly there is a mismatch somewhere.

Accessibility and user-friendliness are key if you want everyone aligned. Remember that for most of your colleagues, the brand book is perhaps needed once or twice a month and if it’s “hidden” in a marketing folder and the link was sent to them ages ago, how can you expect them to remember where to find it? And perhaps there was an update you emailed them about, but they have downloaded your brand book to their desktop for easy access, and they missed your email update. Then what?

An online brand book removes these worries and makes brand communication effective, easy, and seamless. One link, updated in real-time and everything collected in one single location. Everyone receives the same information at the same time. Communicating news, guideline updates, events, campaigns and more has never been easier.  

Also read: Build your brand with effective brand communication 

An online brand book enables consistent brand communication

Communication is part of any branding effort. How you communicate internally, how you communicate with the market, your customers, and other stakeholders. And it’s not only how you express yourself with words, visuals and choice of channels are also a form of communication.

All this needs to match and align. How your brand is presented and communicated by everyone in the company needs to match the brand strategy and the brand book. By managing all of this online from one single location, you can rest assured that your brand will look and sound the same everywhere.  

An online brand book unifies your brand communication

When everyone and everything is connected to one source of truth, getting your message distributed and your brand shared is easy.

Any update or news you have about your brand runs smoothly online. Publish updates and news, connect necessary brand assets, campaign information, marketing collateral and more and communicate your brand with ease.

Also read: How to communicate your brand

Get started with an online brand book

An online brand book is more than uploading a PDF document to your SharePoint or Google Workspace. This is about establishing an online solution where you can properly present and connect your brand securing automated workflows. This is where you connect your rules to the actual brand assets, and even self-serviced brand templates. The right brand book activates your brand online.