What is a branding system?
A branding system is the tool that puts your brand identity, brand assets, brand values and everything else related to your brand into one central location. This is where your brand come to life and boost your brand management.
When looking for such a system it is sensible looking for a branding system that provides the flexibility you need to match your company and brand needs. You also need to look for sharing capabilities that will enable simple communication and distribution of your brand. And last, but not least, you need to have a user-friendly and understandable system that that motivates colleagues to adopt and use your brand as intended.
The essentials for choosing your branding system
Version control
For a system to enable responsible brand management, it is important that it provides you with the control you need. For instance, making sure that old and outdated brand assets aren't being used is essential for your brand consistency, and it can be harmful if it gets out of control. A proper system allows you to centrally control what is available in real time and expire old assets.
Cloud solution
With a cloud solution key personnel in your company will have immediate access to everything about your brand. This provides great advantages for flexible workflows, which is both time saving and reduces the risk of employees becoming frustrated due to bottlenecks and delays.
One storage location
Your company probably has a large amount of brand assets associated with your brand. If these are stored on various hard drives and computers, it will quickly consume a lot of time searching for assets. Requests for needed assets, that are asked for because they could not be found anywhere, can easily be avoided by having a proper brand system in place. By managing your assets and connecting them to your brand guidelines in one single place, you kill two birds with one stone.
Also read: This is how you structure your brand and marketing assets.
Seamless workflows
Your branding system should be intuitive and include self-explained navigation that guides your users from start to end, making sure they find what they need, creates, educates, and use appropriate material. It should also contain advantageous search functionality that allow your users to search for content, regardless of file format or file type.
There is little help in having an online solution if all you do is dumping your files into a huge folder without structure. It is important to look for a system that provides structure, preferably a system that can locate assets with the help of metadata and categorization. The system should also accept all file types and provide preview functionality.
Easy administration
Make it impossible to thrash your brand guidelines. Look for a system that provides easy administration and access level, it needs to be easy to update your brand, assets, and marketing material. That way you can rest assured that the material in use is aligned with your brand guidelines and always updated.
Also read: This is how easy Brand Management is with BrandMaster
Present your brand online
A respectable branding system is not complete without proper brand book features. A brand needs to be dynamic. It changes with time. To ensure that your brand is keeping up, you need a solution that allows you to change on the go and has the capabilities meant for exactly – “brand guidelines”. When you look for your system, ensure you'll get the brand transparency and flexibility you need to establish a solution that reflects your brand and user needs in your company. This allows you the opportunity to communicate your brand identity and strategy efficient and seamless.
Look for a solution that includes:
- Color swatches – import your color palette from an image or create a color palette from scratch with simplicity and make sure everyone has access to correct brand colors.
- Type face – created for easy making of font rules without manual adaption.
- Code library – make sure everyone has the guidelines they need to secure your brand looking the same across all platforms, also the digital ones.
- Drag and drop – not necessarily what you absolutely need, but it makes the task of producing pages easy. Just move your content as you please.
- DAM collection and structure – make sure you have full flexibility of how you present your digital assets.
- Template technology – with an online WYSIWYG editor you enable your colleagues to easily create own material without breaking your brand identity.
- Calendar – allowing you to easily coordinate your marketing activities. Make sure everyone knows your agenda, that correct material and information is available for execution as intended. A calendar supports your need to have control, in real-time and ahead.
Also read: Empower your brand with BrandMaster
Increase brand efficiency
Continuous inefficient methods of working is a huge challenge when it comes to branding and required actions. It is important that you find a system that contributes to time savings and increases brand efficiency. A proper brand system will allow you to organize and have control of your brand management, and simultaneously allow automation for appropriate workflows.
Increased availability makes sure your material associated with your brand is used as intended, aligned with your brand guidelines. In parallel, company efficiency will also get a boost.
Also read: This is the reason why managing digital assets and your brand steals time.
Digitalization and automation
Digitalization and automation are still hot focus areas for many industries. Nevertheless, there are still many marketers who are unaware that there are actually solutions created for them as well.
Thinking this can be done with a standard CMS solution is easy, however a branding system will focus on your brand and marketing needs. Look for a solution that prioritize your needs and facilitate brand management easy and seamless. Establish self-service and rest assure that your brand is always supported by your brand guidelines. It is wise looking for a system that allow you to grow with your needs, so do not limit your options from the start.
Check out our Quick Guide for 6 tips on how to get you started on creating your online brand identity guidelines.