Branding is the process of developing a strong, positive perception of a product or company, and creating a professional image.
It helps establish a brand identity, and this forms the core of everything you do as a trust. Elements encompassed within your trust brand identity will include core values, visual elements such as logos, colours and fonts, as well as the tone of voice used across marketing channels for both the trust and the associated academies.
Branding is especially important for schools and trusts, particularly for people who don’t know your brand. Establishing a strong first impression is achieved through developing a bold brand identity and this is crucial because it can help to:
- Attract new staff to come and work with you
- Entice parents to enrol their children and recruit new students
- Establish yourself within the local community
- Engage with businesses and the community
School Branding is particularly important for trusts because it:
- Underpins your visual identity
- Communicates and supports your core values across all academies
- Maintains professional image
- Create cohesive and recognisable guidelines for your academies
Why is it so important to keep Multi-Academy Trust branding consistent?
So we know that branding is important, but why should it be kept consistent? Keeping your multi-academy trust branding consistent ensures a seamless and professional brand identity is formed. It makes it easier for your trust to be recognised and for schools to develop a strong relationship with the brand. Being recognised as the respected trust that you are is fundamental and consistent branding ensures that you will be.
So…how do we do that?
3 ways to keep school branding consistent
1. Establish clear brand guidelines
Establishing your trust’s visual identity should happen at the very start and be tied into your core values. Of course as your trust grows and develops over time, so will its core values. In turn, your trust brand guidelines will begin to establish a clearer visual identity. However, it is important to have a basic understanding of what your trust stands for and not to lose sight of what makes your trust unique. This will allow schools to develop a relationship with your trust.
Brand guidelines include elements such as:
- Logos
- Image style
- Brand typography
- School videography style
Having a clear idea of these elements from the start will ensure consistency across all branding, and will also make producing visual content much easier. Have a look at how we led the development of a consistent brand identity for Multi-Academy Trust GLF
If developing brand guidelines is something your trust needs help with, the expert team at Cleverbox might just be the people for the job. Get in touch to see how we might be able to help you.
2. Distinct online presence
Any thriving business feeds on generating engagement. Especially in the last few years, consumers have become accustomed to finding what they are looking for online. According to a survey conducted by Salesforce, 85% of consumers conduct research prior to purchasing something online, and the two most popular information sources are websites and social media.
An online presence gives your trust an ideal platform to communicate with schools and sets the narrative of who your brand is, setting yourself apart from the competition. Keeping your online presence consistent with brand guidelines will also ensure that it lines up with your trust’s values and maintains a constant professional image throughout all marketing channels.
Elements to consider when maintaining a clear online presence for your trust includes:
- Building a professional, user-friendly website – your trust’s website is a critical asset that allows schools to find you and inspire them to engage with you. Whilst your website should exemplify a clean, modern design that makes it easy to visually connect with, it should also provide valuable, current, accurate content related to your trust.
- An active, consistent social media presence – this allows your trust to engage with schools on a more personal level. Not all social media platforms may be relevant for your trust, so establish a social media strategy to ensure it will benefit your trust. This will also be a beneficial PR tool as you will be able to monitor the conversation happening around your trust.
Ensuring a clear and effective online presence can allow your trust to engage with a much wider audience and provide you with the foundation to continue to grow your business. See how we worked with Harris Federation to lead the creation of their ‘Train to Teach’ online platform.
3. Consistent offline marketing
In the modern world we live in, it is easy to think everything happens online and any offline marketing efforts will be a waste of time. Whilst it is true that online marketing is a highly effective tool that should not be overlooked, the power of offline marketing should not be underestimated.
In fact, direct mail has the third most significant ROI, after only email and social media. It is estimated that direct mail is opened by 80-90% of recipients, whereas advertising emails are opened by 20-30%.
Offline marketing efforts for schools might consist of elements such as:
- Signage (e.g. on the outside of the school gates, billboards, on the backs of buses)
- Printed Prospectuses
- Flyers
These elements are all still very visual, and so ensuring they are in line with the trust brand guidelines will ensure seamless and consistent branding for trusts that is easily noticeable. If you would like help developing your offline school marketing offering, that is something that the team at Cleverbox can help you with.
At Cleverbox we have a lot of experience leading the branding process for trusts having previously worked with the likes of The Harris Federation, The Kemnal Academies Trust, and the Community Schools Trust . Venturers Trust are another example who were seeking a flexible website design and prospectus solution. They use our ‘clone’ model where first we create the Trust website design and prospectus, and then replicate the design for partner academies tailoring it to their branding.
This brings the cost down which we know is a key factor for trusts, but ensures cohesion and consistency across all Trust academies. It also meant that with the Trust’s recent expansion we were able to produce new marketing materials quickly and efficiently.
If you would like to speak to the team at Cleverbox to see how we might be able to work together to achieve consistent branding for your trust, then please get in touch by filling out our contact form below, or give us a call on 0208 466 7222.
Interested in finding out more?
See how Cleverbox can help you with your next project