Take a Brand Walk-Through Before Holiday Customers Find You

Here's an exercise I love doing with business owners this time of year. Before December gets busy, take a slow walk through every place a customer meets your brand, and look at it like a stranger would.

People usually see you several times before they ever call. Maybe it's your sign on Rivers Avenue, then your Google listing, then your Instagram, then the invoice you email after the job. When those pieces don't match, customers notice. They may not say it out loud, but it can make them wonder if you're the same business they found a minute ago.

A lot of owners in North Charleston search for a "branding agency in North Charleston" assuming they need a brand-new logo. Often the logo is fine. What's missing is consistency.

Walk the path your customer takes

Grab a notepad or open a note on your phone. Then go through each spot below in the order a new customer would likely find you:

• Search your business name on Google and look at your Business Profile logo, cover photo and description
• Open your website on your phone and check the header, footer and contact page
• Visit your Facebook, Instagram and any other social profiles
• Step outside and look at your storefront sign, door decals and any vehicle wraps
• Pull out a business card, a receipt, an invoice and your email signature
• Check bags, packaging, menus, uniforms or anything you hand to customers

If you work out of a shop near Park Circle or run service trucks up and down Ashley Phosphate, don't skip the physical stuff. Your truck is a moving billboard.

Check four things at every stop

At each touchpoint, ask the same four questions:

• Name: Is it written exactly the same? Watch for "&" versus "and," an "LLC" that shows up in some places, or an old name you've since changed.
• Logo: Is it the current version? Is it stretched, blurry or cropped oddly in a profile circle?
• Colors and fonts: Do they look like they belong to the same business, or did each one get made on a different day by a different person?
• Promise: Does the one-line description of what you do say roughly the same thing everywhere?

Mark anything that doesn't match. Don't fix it yet. Just get the full list.

Fix what customers see most, first

Now sort your list. Start with the places the most people see: usually your Google Business Profile, your website and your main social profile. Those can often be updated in an afternoon by uploading a clean logo file and copying one consistent description into each.

Physical items come next. You don't need to reprint everything tomorrow. When business cards or bags run low, reorder them with the corrected version. Keep the list somewhere handy so updates happen naturally instead of all at once.

One tip: save your final logo files, color codes and one-line description in a single shared folder. That way the next time someone makes a flyer for a holiday sale or an event near Tanger Outlets, they start from the right version.

If your list ends up long, our branding and social media team can help you tighten things up without starting from scratch. And if your website is the piece that feels most out of step, take a look at how we approach web design for North Charleston businesses.

Want a second set of eyes on how your brand shows up right now? Book the free presentation and I'll walk through it with you, piece by piece, so you head into the holidays looking like one business everywhere.