Why Brands Prefer Digital Brand Guidelines (And You Should, Too!)
Brands develop their brand identity to communicate their personality and deliver a consistent message across all touchpoints. But how can brands ensure that their stories will be shared similarly on different channels?
It’s simple: with the use of brand guidelines. A brand guidelines document, also called a style guide, brand book, or brand manual is a set of rules anyone in your company should use to apply your brand identity to all your digital assets consistently.
Traditionally, brand guidelines come in the form of PDF documents or printed brand books. However, in the digital age, more brands are switching to digital branding guidelines.
So, in this article, we’ll show you why traditional brand guidelines are giving way to digital brand guidelines. And in case you’re wondering how you can make the switch as well, we’ll discuss how to build your digital brand guidelines (spoiler: you can do it with Desygner).
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6 Reasons Brands Choose Digital Brand Guidelines
Digital branding guidelines are taking over the branding space. If you’re wondering why, here are six reasons brands choose digital brand guidelines over traditional ones.
1. All Branding Elements Are In One Place
When most of us think about brand guidelines, we think about logos, colors, and other visual elements. However, a thorough brand book should also include other components, such as the brand’s mission statement, personality, and promise. Plus, in the age of digital content, your brand assets can also include videos, GIFs, or other dynamic elements.
With a brand hub, you can keep all of these elements under one roof and keep everything clearly laid out for everyone to see. This means that everyone on your team can access all the necessary branding elements, such as logos, color palettes, fonts, your brand’s mission statement, and the do’s and don’ts.
Related Article: Your Ultimate Guide to Digital Asset Management
2. Easy To Access
The main benefit of digital brand guidelines is that they can be accessed by anyone, from any device, and at any time. Keeping all your brand assets in a brand hub can also help with distribution issues. This way, you’ll ensure that everyone on your team has instant access to the brand guidelines.
In addition, digital brand guidelines allow for better collaboration among teams. They make it easy for your team members to work together without having to rely on emailing files back and forth or spending time locating them on local hard drives.
3. All Branding Elements Can Be Downloaded Instantly
A traditional brand guidelines document is just that: a document. It’s usually a PDF or a glossy, printed paper. While these formats are easy to make and look good, they have a significant drawback: you can’t download anything.
And in today’s digital age, being able to download the necessary branding elements at any time and from any device can be a lifesaver.
Imagine it’s 2 am, and you urgently need the company logo to finish a PowerPoint presentation due by 8 am. Unfortunately, you don’t have it at hand, so you’ll need to wait until the office opens and someone can send it to you. But if you could download it from a brand hub, you wouldn’t have to wait, and you’d be able to finish your presentation in time.
4. Digital Brand Guidelines Are Cost-Effective
Digital brand guidelines might be an investment in the short term, but they are relatively inexpensive to develop and maintain long-term. While there’s usually a fee you need to pay to build your digital brand guidelines or brand hub; the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. The real benefit is the efficiency they bring to your team.
Digital guidelines reduce the time spent on rework and distribution. They also cut down on unnecessary emails and meetings between departments, reducing the time spent on communication between teams. In the long term, this can help you avoid costly mistakes.
5. Easy To Update
Another reason why digital brand guidelines are becoming more and more popular amongst brands is that they’re easy to update. Changes are hard to make with traditional brand guidelines, such as PDF documents and printed brand books.
That’s mainly because implementing a change means you must redo the whole process: change the document, print it, and distribute it all over again. The main issue with that is that you have no way of knowing if everyone on your team has got the latest issue of your style guide, nor if they bothered to read it.
But with digital brand guidelines, this problem goes away. Once you update an asset in the brand hub, the system will notify everyone instantly.
What’s more, having digital brand guidelines allows you to keep track of any changes made, so there are no inconsistencies within your visual identity or messaging. You can also ensure that every piece of content published by each department follows your company’s style guide and tone of voice rules.
Related Article: 3 Key Strategies to Ensure Brand Compliance
6. Add More Guidelines As You Grow
Digital branding guidelines allow you to build on them as your company grows. They allow you to add more policies as needed without having to redo the entire document from scratch.
In addition, by adding new guidelines, you can keep your branding consistent while keeping up with recent changes or trends that may emerge over time.
How to Build Your Digital Brand Guidelines
While there are many ways to create digital brand guidelines, the most efficient and cost-effective solution is hosting your brand guidelines in a brand hub.
That’s why you need a solution like Desygner’s Corporate Marketing Hub – an all-in-one Marketing Hub where you can keep all your marketing, brand, and content assets in one place. It can be accessed on any device, mobile or web, by anyone, at all times.
Sometimes, the issue with having a centralized platform that everyone can access is losing control over who edits what. With Desygner’s Corporate Marketing Hub, you can distribute your brand and marketing assets across multiple teams and departments while controlling permissions. You can define user roles, such as Administrator, Member, or Guest, and decide who can access, edit, or update which asset.
In addition, you may need different branding assets for various purposes if you work with many departments, external agencies, and partners. Desygner’s Corporate Marketing Hub allows you to set up multiple asset libraries so that each department, account, or partner can access the correct library with specific assets.
In short, if you’re looking to build your digital brand guidelines, Desygner is your best solution. It provides unparallel control and customization that will help you maintain efficiency and cohesiveness when applying your brand guidelines.
Final Thoughts
Digital brand guidelines help you create digital experiences that feel cohesive and professional. Whether you are a small startup (with a smaller budget) or a large corporation with extensive branding and communication needs, digital brand guidelines are indispensable for maintaining a consistent brand image across all touchpoints.
Sure, it may seem like a lot of work, especially if you’re a small company to create a digital brand style guide, but trust us: the benefits you will reap from having one will be well worth the initial effort. And if you feel that Desygner is the right solution to help you go digital with your brand guidelines, contact our sales team now.
