How Invoices Can Help with Brand Consistency

A recognizable brand identity is the key to successful marketing. Powerful branding makes consumers trust you, remember you and even see you as superior to rival companies.

Consistency in branding is key to success. If you don’t hammer home the same branding across all consumer interactions, you’ll be less convincing and memorable.

In this article, we’ll go into why brand identity matters, why it needs to be consistent, and how non-marketing communications like invoices can play an important role in creating unified branding.

The importance of brand identity

At first, a lot of branding might seem like fluff; it's hard to appreciate the importance of seemingly trivial details like color palettes, fonts and product photos.

However, the power of logos has been recognized since ancient times, and major corporations spend millions on these ‘minor’ elements of branding because they know how much it can boost their sales.

The most important benefits of having a strong brand identity are making a company recognizable, differentiating it from the competition, and forging an emotional connection with consumers.

Recognition

A strong brand identity will cause consumers to remember a company. Suppose the logo, color scheme, tagline, and other branding elements work effectively together. In that case, the company will be highly recognizable, with research showing that using a signature color can increase brand recognition by 80%.

Even if the consumer isn’t ready yet to buy the product being sold, if that changes in the future, the strong brand identity will be the one that sticks in their mind.

Differentiation

The most successful brands are usually the ones that can convince consumers that there’s something unique about them and that their products are a mark above their rivals. This allows them to stand out in competitive markets and charge a price premium.

Apple has created a powerful brand identity based on the beautiful design and ease of use that their tech offers.

The company has successfully created an image of uniqueness that allows it to charge more than its rivals for its products.

Emotional connection

Branding that chimes with the target market's values can cause consumers to identify emotionally with the company, which can be even more important than demonstrating that your product is good.

This is demonstrated by research showing that emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value compared to satisfied customers.

Brand identity should be consistent - and everywhere

A company’s marketing efforts will do a lot of the heavy lifting in building a brand identity.

However, it’s not enough for branding to only be used in direct forms of marketing, like adverts or website copy.

In order for a company’s brand identity to be as strong as possible, it should be integrated across all aspects of the business consistently.

The most successful companies have clear, detailed brand guidelines implemented everywhere, ensuring they don’t miss any opportunity to show off their brand. The power of such consistency is proven by research, with one study showing that it boosts revenue by 33% on average.

Creating this consistency involves impressing their brand identity on their employees as much as their customers through internal marketing. This ensures that employees understand the brand’s values well enough to communicate them to consumers successfully.

Ensuring that all communication with consumers has matching branding is also crucial.

Visual consistency across every touch point gives you an air of professionalism and makes it easier for the brand to become ingrained in people's minds.

Invoices are a good example of non-marketing communication that should be visually aligned with your company’s brand. An invoice that uses engaging design and is consistent with your wider brand identity will remind your customer of why they chose your product and reinforce your values in their mind.

Powerful branding with Sufio invoices

Our automated invoicing app for Shopify allows you to create professional invoices that are completely consistent with your company’s unique brand.

For those with simpler visual branding, we offer various beautifully designed invoice templates. You can add your logo and edit the colors in just a few clicks.

We understand this may not be enough for some brands, though, which is why we released Sufio’s new template editor. This feature allows users to take control and fully customize their invoice template.

Thanks to this, advanced Shopify users can customize their invoice templates by editing the code. It gives them the freedom to make the invoice look exactly the way they want.

If you’re looking to create invoices that are consistent with your company’s brand identity, head to the Shopify app store and sign up for our 14-day free trial today.