In marketing, you’re likely to employ several mediums and messages over a period of days, weeks, months, and years to communicate everything necessary to attract and retain enough customers. Keeping the design elements and personality of your messages similar or identical over time, branding reinforces each of your messages and makes each successive message more memorable to your audience.

Consumers are more likely to respond positively to your e-mail messages when they can identify your brand and when the content of each message feels familiar to them. Plan all your marketing messages as if they were one unit to ensure that each message contains design elements that become familiar to your audience when multiple messages are delivered.

Here are some branding ideas to help you give all your marketing messages a familiar look and feel:

Make your logo identifiable and readable in all types of print and digital formats, with color schemes that look good online and in print.In general, your logo and colors should look consistent on:

• Signs
• Order forms
• E-mail sign-up forms
• Your Web site
• Receipts
• Business cards
• E-mails

Include your company name in all your marketing. Incorporate you name in:

• E-mail From lines
• E-mail addresses
• Your e-mail signature
• Online directories
• Your blog

Format your messages consistently across mediums. When repeating messages in multiple mediums, make sure the following elements are formatted consistently in your e-mails:

• Fonts
• Layouts
• Images
• Headlines
• Contact information
• Calls to action

Make sure that you can also communicate your brand effectively by using words if you want to take advantage of words-only messaging opportunities, such as radio, podcasting, and text-only e-mail delivery.