Glossary

We’ve assembled some of the most commonly-used industry terms across the document automation landscape with descriptions, useful information and links to useful resources.

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A

An asset library is an online repository containing all critical digital files of a brand such as documents, photos, videos, color palettes, logos, style guides or reusable templates.

It allows organizations to create, store, retrieve and share these digital assets within departments or teams, whether working on day-to-day tasks, individual projects or important marketing campaigns.

Managing digital intellectual property within an asset library should be part of an effective overall brand management strategy. This helps to implement brand standards, reach brand consistency, and ultimately enable growth. It also leads to easier collaboration by automating workflows within and across different teams and helps everyone comply with implemented security standards.

An asset library is a crucial component for successful asset management and is especially significant for smooth asset migration.

Asset management describes the process of developing, maintaining, upgrading and disposing all assets of an entity, a company or brand. It is a systemic approach that gives full control over assets enterprise-wide.

This could refer to tangible assets or intangible assets, such as valuable digital content, brand materials or other files. Why is asset management important? It allows organizations to realize and maximize the value of these assets by reducing the time needed to share or find them and making sure all organizational and legal standards are applied.

Asset management encompasses the entirety of an entity’s assets, whereas digital asset management (DAM) focuses on all digital files of a company and brand asset management (BAM) refers to all assets of an individual brand.

An important component of successful asset management is a well-developed asset library.

Asset migration is the process of moving enterprise assets from one place to another, for example an account, application, or a company. The migration always includes two components: the assets themselves and the metadata associated with them.

Relevant assets can be any digital files such as important documents, images, graphics, logos or templates. The metadata of assets provides additional information, describing their creation, usage, protection and categorization.

A smooth migration of these assets including their metadata is needed to ensure continuous security, maintain effective workflows and support brand consistency and growth.

Asset migration is closely linked to asset management, particularly digital asset management (DAM) and brand asset management (BAM).

Read more about the importance of document metadata in this blog.

B

Brand activation is any campaign, event or other brand experience which generates brand awareness and engagement through some form of interaction between a brand and its target audience.

By allowing potential customers to engage with a brand and its product directly, it aims to promote positive brand associations, build a stronger brand connection and create lasting brand loyalty.

The goal of a brand activation is to use well-defined tactics that hold the attention of an audience while simultaneously promoting the brand's message. The brand experience should be unique and memorable, including interactive elements aimed at a specific target audience.

Brand activations often result in higher levels of brand awareness, increased customer engagement and ultimately, growth in market share. While brand activation is always important to create a strong brand identity, it will become especially critical in case of a rebranding.

If you’re planning a rebrand, read our tips on how to make it as painless as possible.

A brand ambassador is a person that endorses or promotes a company’s brand or products. Their role is to represent the brand in a positive light by being “the face of the brand”.

This aims to evoke positive brand associations, a strengthened brand personality and enhanced brand awareness. Brand ambassadors may be part of specific marketing campaigns, the social media marketing strategy or take part in events.

They can also create and distribute content, leverage word-of-mouth marketing and provide feedback and insights to the target audience about new insights or products. Good brand ambassadors have become increasingly reliable information sources for customers, increasing trust in the brand and strengthening the connection to the brand.  

As the daily communicators of your brand, current employees can function as excellent brand ambassadors as well. Learn how to inspire, prepare, and give your employees the right tools to deliver on your external brand promise in this blog.

A brand archetype is representation of a brand through a character type that is universally recognizable.

The idea is to build a narrative that create an emotional connection with a target audience that is deep and meaningful. It can help to steer a brand’s perception, build authenticity, loyalty and trust.

The concept is based on human psychology which looks at 12 key human desires and values such as safety, power, or freedom to develop a persona that fits a brand narrative.  

To create an effective brand archetype, it is important to look at the values and mission behind your brand, define and analyze your target audience and try to build on the emotional connection.

While closely linked to the concept of brand identity, a brand archetype tells the story of your brand through a personification, whereas your brand identity looks at your brand from a holistic perspective, encompassing everything from logos to messaging that tells your audience who you are.

Read our blog on brand archetype examples from leading brands and how to find yours.

Brand architecture refers to the structure of a brand portfolio and the interrelation of the elements within in, such as brands, sub-brands and products.

It provides clarity on the different roles and interactions of brands within a company and how they differentiate from each other.

A distinct and meaningful brand architecture increases brand equity, shapes brand culture and enables better customer perceptions of a brand. It can also protect from possible damage to your brand image through unwanted entanglements or mix-ups of brands in a portfolio.

To create an effective brand architecture, an effective system of names, symbols, colors and vocabulary is necessary to establish a clear guideline and inform the thought process of target audiences.

Brand asset management (BAM) includes the creation, storage, sharing and protection of all your brand assets. These are materials such as brand guidelines, logos, color schemes, images and videos.

The aim of brand asset management is to make brand assets accessible, externally and internally, to coordinate distribution and to understand how they are being used.

Brand asset management platforms are there to provide a central repository which ensures consistency across all content and branding assets throughout the whole company. In this way they help to streamline workflows, optimize performance, and make sure that the correct files are used at all times.

Brand asset management is an integrated part of Digital Asset Management (DAM), which encompasses the handling of all digital assets in a company.

The term brand awareness refers to the ability of your target customers to recall or recognize your brand under different circumstances.

Thus, the purpose of brand awareness is to make your brand familiar to the public, so that your products and their differentiators are well-known. Establishing brand awareness is highly valuable for a business, especially in the early stages. Why? Brand awareness has the potential to embed itself into the lifestyle and purchase habits of a potential customer, which will make them automatically reach for your products again and again. It is not a surprise that companies with high brand awareness usually generate more revenue: consumers are more likely to buy products with brand names that they are familiar with.

In addition, brand awareness is the foundation of brand equity – a brand’s value which allows for higher prices due to higher perceived value. Other benefits include enhanced trust and credibility in the brand.

From Frontify to Aprimo, explore how Templafy’s integrations provide a seamless connection to your company assets.

A brand champion is someone who is passionate about a company, product, or service and advocates on their behalf. This support can come in different forms - whether it is an active promotion, the championing of customer service initiatives, or a simple encouragement of others to engage with the brand.

Brand champions can be anything from passionate customers to paid influencers to employees of the brand itself. Being a brand champion is not necessarily a formal role, but rather includes all those people cheering your brand on from the sidelines. They are helping spread the word and generate awareness, as well as to build relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

Ready to build a stronger brand? Dive deeper into the foundations of brand strength with our comprehensive guide.

Branding design is the practice of visually representing an organization or product through logo design, colors, typography, and other visual elements. If done right, all these components create a clear image of a company’s brand identity, proudly representing its values and personality.

Having an effective branding design strategy is crucial for any organization. Without a recognizable brand, how can a company or a product stand out from its competitors? It’s important that branding design matches the overall image of an organization. If its visual representation doesn’t align with its values, mission and actual business practices, it could be perceived as inauthentic.

Branding design influences how consumers perceive a brand in the marketplace, providing a powerful way to build brand recognition and instill trust in the eyes of the customer. But for a branding design to be successful, consistency is key. Once, a brand identity has been created, brand asset management software (BAM) can help organizations to stay in control of their different brand elements.

Brand equity encapsulates the essence of a brand within the consumer consciousness. It encompasses a company's visibility, recognition, reputation, and consequently, the perceived value of a product or service, transcending mere functionality and financial valuation. It is created by a combination of positive customer experiences, strong marketing, strategic business decisions and how successful the product or service is in the marketplace.

Brand equity can often be quantified by the company's ability to generate more revenue due to added familiarity and trust from its customers. However, negative brand equity can have the opposite effect – when a brand disappoints and the brand develops a negative reputation, the company might experience a loss of business.

Read our recent blog article to learn more about the power and purpose of brand equity and the steps you can take to maximize yours.

Brand guidelines, also known as brand style guides, are comprehensive documents that provide rules and standards for maintaining consistent usage of a brand’s visual and verbal identity elements. These guidelines serve as a reference for employees, partners, and stakeholders, providing clear instructions on representing the brand accurately across all channels.

When creating marketing materials, it’s crucial to consult brand guidelines to ensure that logo, colors, messaging, and tone all adhere to the established brand identity.

For more information on creating and implementing effective brand guidelines, read how Templafy helps companies with their corporate branding and brand management.

Building brand inspiration is essential for developing a connection with customers and potential leads; it allows a company to communicate its purpose and mission in a way that resonates with its customers.

Authentic customer stories and shared values create powerful narratives that inspire loyalty, helping businesses stand out from the crowd and establish credibility.

Guiding the marketing and development of a brand with inspiration helps to create an emotional bond between brand and customer, allowing the company to reap the rewards of customer loyalty.

Explore how three leading brands cemented their brand identity.

A brand identity is what sets a brand apart from other brands in the market. It encompasses the distinctive visual, verbal, and emotional elements that define a brand. It includes visual elements such as the company’s logo, color palette, typography, and design elements, but also the tone-of-voice and messaging hierarchy of the brand.

A strong brand identity can help a business establish itself as a unique and memorable presence that evokes specific emotions in the target audience and builds trust. Consumers are more likely to engage with and choose a brand with a well-defined brand identity.

For deeper dive into navigating a brand rollout, download our comprehensive guide.

Brand management refers to the strategic activities involved in creating, developing, and managing a brand to ensure it aligns with a company’s goals and reaches the right audience.

First of all, brand management involves establishing clear brand guidelines that act as a guiding star in all brand efforts. Brand management is also about maintaining brand consistency across all touchpoints and monitoring how said brand is perceived.

When it works well, brand management sets the brand apart from other brands in the market and fosters customer loyalty as a result.

Brand managers are the custodians responsible for implementing brand strategies and ensuring that everyone adheres to the brand guidelines. They continuously evaluate how the brand is evolving and perceived and how to optimize branding efforts.

Explore our brand asset management solutions or read our blog on digital brand management.

Brand marketing refers to the strategic activities and campaigns made to promote and communicate a brand’s identity and services to its target audience. It revolves around answering fundamental questions about the brand: What does it stand for? How does it want to be seen by its audience? What distinguishes it from competitors?

Brand marketing encompasses a wide array of strategies, including advertising, promotional campaigns, storytelling, and community engagement. Brand marketers, marketing teams, and creative agencies are entrusted with developing and executing brand marketing strategies. They use a variety of channels, such as digital, print, social media, and events, to convey the brand's message effectively.

Explore how Templafy supports brand marketing efforts on our brand and communications departments page.

How would your target audiences describe your brand if it were a person? This is your brand personality – the combination of all the characteristics, patterns and emotions associated with your brand.

Building a strong brand identity is essential for any company’s success: for a brand to resonate with the appropriate audiences it needs to be able to build an emotional connection with them through consistent messaging.

Having a distinct personality based on carefully selected traits can help customers identify and stay connected with a brand. How could this look like in practice? This blog post on insurance firm branding discusses how Oscar Health built a brand personality that is friendly, human and approachable.

To create a brand personality, companies need to think through the attributes or values they want to communicate. They must determine how the brand behaves, speaks, and ultimately connects with its audience.

Creating a strong brand personality can be a challenge, requiring and ongoing focus on consistent messages, visuals, and content that will effectively communicate the desired personality. Brand asset management platforms can help by providing a central repository and ensuring consistency across all content throughout the whole company.

C

What do your employees believe in? What does your company value? How do you interact at work and with external stakeholders?

While some parts of a company’s culture might be written down in the form of its core values or workplace policies, it will mostly be only implied. It is reflected not only in obvious operational aspects, such as business hours, client interactions and employee benefits, but also in the way that colleagues talk to each other and their managers, how they dress at work and what values make them feel connected.

Company culture is a complex phenomenon, continuously shaped by the characteristics and interactions of the people within. Changing corporate culture can be more difficult than it seems at first – only through the alignment with employees and management teams can a company’s culture can change.

What inspires a corporate culture is a significant factor in building it and can impact its influence of business outcomes. Aligning your organization’s culture with your brand can be an excellent strategy. Brand culture can have a major impact on a brand’s perception and the day-to-day brand behaviors of employees in a company.

Read our latest blog about the 3 key ways to build strong brand culture in your company to learn more.

Collateral refers to a collection of marketing materials and assets that a company can use to promote its offerings and brand. The materials are designed to support various stages of the sales cycle and marketing process, and it can take many different forms such as printed materials, digital assets, visual elements, sales presentations, branding guidelines, etc.

What all these items should have in common, is that they need to be designed in a way that creates a strong messaging that speaks to the target audience. A solid strategy to consistently create meaningful collateral can increase conversion rates, build a strong relationship with your audiences, and strengthen customer loyalty.

For more insights on optimizing collateral and its role in enhancing business performance, explore our solutions for marketing and sales departments.

Content enablement is the practice of managing, optimizing, and distributing digital content within an organization to improve business operations and drive business.

It includes creating, storing, organizing, retrieving, and sharing documents, information, and data. By providing easy, secure access to this content, users can quickly access the information they need, when they need it, in the right format. This helps to improve productivity, facilitate collaboration, and make better decisions.

Want to know more about how content enablement can reduce inefficiency and frustration in your content creation and management processes? Learn everything you need to know in our content enablement blog post.

Customer Acquisition Cost, often abbreviated CAC, is an important metric that signifies the total expenditure a business incurs to gain a new customer. It covers all of the marketing, advertising, and sales efforts needed to convert a prospect into a paying customer. It’s a crucial metric to understand the efficiency of customer acquisition strategies.

Customer Acquisition Cost is calculated by dividing the total acquisition costs by the number of new customers acquired within a specific period. If a company seeks to lower its CAC value, it can look at optimizing marketing and trimming sales efforts.

Document automation is a surefire way to optimize for success. Explore how we do it here.

Customer experience refers to the overall perception that customers have of a brand. It’s based on customers’ interaction throughout the customer journey, from first awareness to beyond making a purchase.

To gain loyal customers, companies need to understand their customers’ needs and expectations and provide excellent customer service that answers the questions their customers might have. Companies that prioritize customer experience often see increased customer retention and advocacy.

The customer journey is the process that any customer goes through when they interact with a brand or business. From initial awareness of a product or service to post-purchase engagement, the customer journey encompasses all touchpoints.

To build a positive customer experience, it’s essential that a brand understands the customer journey. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to engage with the customer and provide value. By mapping out the various stages of the customer journey, companies can create tailored customer service strategies that address the needs of their customers at each stage.

Customer retention is a critical metric to understand as it refers to a company’s ability to retain or keep its existing customers over a specific period. It reflects everything from customer satisfaction and loyalty to the effectiveness of a company’s efforts in delivering value.

Higher customer retention rates mean that customers are generally satisfied with a brand’s products or services whereas low customer retention rates signal dissatisfaction.

Consistently delivering excellent customer service and high-quality products can help improve customer retention, which can lead to a more stable and loyal customer base.

D

Digital asset management (DAM) is the systematic organization, storage, and distribution of digital assets such as images, videos, documents, and creative files. It’s crucial for streamlining the management and retrieval of digital assets, making it easier for an organization to access and share across various platforms.

An effective digital asset management solution helps ensure brand consistency, but also enhances collaboration among teams as teams don’t have to waste time looking for templates and other assets that comply with brand guidelines.

Want to know the difference between a Digital Asset Management solution and a Document Management System? Then check out this blog.

Digital transformation is a term used to describe the process of integrating digital technology into all business practices to improve efficiency and drive greater customer and employee engagement. It doesn’t stop at the technical level – it extends to organizational and cultural changes, engaging in an openness to digital experimentation and productive responses to failure.

Digital transformation is a key component of modern workspaces. In today’s work environment, the ability to access, share and collaborate in a digital manner is not a luxury, but a clear expectation for most employees.

But digital transformation can pose a huge challenge for companies: transitioning a business digitally can be overwhelming – from evaluating and redesigning work processes to finding the right tools to make them more effective. The goal to keep up with the speed of digital change and continuously encourage innovation can be undermined by the busywork of adapting to a new digital setup and streamlining processes across the organization.

Certain software and services can save organizations valuable time and simplify the transition. Document generation platforms, for example, can provide companies with solutions to document-related challenges in the new digital environment by automating document creation, streamlining branding and compliance standards, and increasing efficiency for value-adding tasks.

A digital workplace is more than just a physical office setting equipped with tech tools. It’s an ecosystem that harnesses the power of technology to transform the way people conduct their business in the workplace. In a digital workplace, employees have access to a range of digital tools, applications, and platforms that make it easier for them to collaborate seamlessly and carry out their tasks effectively – regardless of their physical location.

It not only encompasses traditional office-based work but also facilitates remote and flexible work arrangements due to the software solutions, communication tools, as well as document and asset management tools.

For a deeper understanding of the digital workplace and its role in shaping the future of work, we invite you to read Templafy’s article on the digital workplace.

E

Email signature management is a powerful software solution that can help businesses ensure that their outgoing emails are professionally presented, with accurate legal requirements and company branding. By employing this type of technology, companies can be sure of a consistent look and feel for their emails, as well as uniformity in terms of contact information, logos, disclaimers and social media links. Successful email signature management helps maintain brand integrity by tracking usage and permissions, while also promoting visibility and driving traffic to the company website or another campaign channel.

As emails remain a key tool for building relationships and trust with customers, they provide an essential foundation for successful marketing strategies. Effectively managing email signatures is critical in order to adhere to professional standards across all communications and ensure that the company's message is presented in the best possible light for current and potential contacts alike.

To make the most of an email signature management software, businesses should think carefully about design, layout, and content, while making sure all elements comply with legal requirements. Taking the time to create templates and guidelines that are accessible to all staff will help ensure emails are professional and reflect the company's brand image, utilizing the marketing opportunity of emails throughout the whole organization.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a term used to describe the set of technologies and processes used by companies to collect, store, and manage the content produced and distributed within their organization.

ECM is especially important for large enterprises: if they want to tap into the power of the large amounts of content that their employees are producing every day, they need to find efficient ways of managing and activating it. While traditional Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions can be helpful here, to fully maximize the content’s potential, a shift from static management to active content enablement is necessary.

Learn more about how to successfully manage enterprise content in the modern workplace.

F

The term font management describes the process of choosing fonts to represent a company’s brand, distributing them across the organization and ensuring their effective use throughout.

Fonts can be a very powerful visual brand asset, shaping the way in which target audiences interpret an organization’s communication. With fonts occurring across every touchpoint with a brand, they create lasting brand impressions and make up a major part of a brand’s visual identity.

Learn how fonts can empower your brand communication in this guide.

L

Localization describes the process of adapting a product or service to a specific location, language, culture, and local market factors. For marketing content this could for example include translating content, matching the tone of voice, modifying style and layout and using locally popular channels.

A simple translation is the most obvious component of localization, but it shouldn't stop there. Organizations should accurately communicate their product and unique value to its customers or target audiences. As audiences in different places around the world have different preferences, behaviors and needs, strategic and consistent localization is essential to ensure successful product or services adaptation.

While localization can mean a lot of work, there’s help at hand. Automation tools can simplify and streamline the process, allowing the creation of localized content faster and to make it centrally available across the organization to ensure consistent and correct use.

M

Market share describes the percentage of total sales or revenue that a company holds in a particular market or industry. It is a key indicator of a company’s strength within in a market relative to its competitors.

Companies often use market share indicators to track progress and set goals to increase it over time. Some of the strategies to increase it include expanding product offerings, improving marketing and advertising efforts, lowering prices, and improving customer service.

For B2B companies, building a strong brand is key to increasing market share. A well-established brand can help build trust and loyalty among clients, making them more likely to choose that brand over others. This, in turn, can lead to increased sales and a larger market share.

Creating and maintaining a strong brand relies on every employee being on board and arming them with the latest materials and assets. Tools like automation are great for ensuring everyone has the right information in the places they already work.

Marketing automation refers to a type of technology that is used to automate repetitive marketing activities and processes for organizations. It is an increasingly important tool for companies to optimize their marketing efforts, save time and increase efficiency.

Using marketing automation, businesses can address the challenges of today's market more effectively. They are better able to segment and target their desired audience and initiate automated campaigns with ease. Moreover, it enables companies to collect customer data more efficiently, with which they can further personalize and refine their marketing strategies.

When implementing marketing automation technology, it is important to keep a few points in mind. First, it is necessary to identify the desired outcomes for the automation process and ensure there is the appropriate infrastructure, systems, and resources available to support this. Following this, a detailed plan should be created for how the automation will be used, including the specific software and targeted strategies to be employed. Lastly, it is crucial to track and measure the success of the automation initiatives to enable any necessary adjustments and ensure that the desired results are achieved.

Learn more about how automation can boost productivity in your company in our creative automation explainer.

Martech, short for “marketing technology”, refers to the intersection between marketing and technology, meaning all of the digital tools that marketers use to plan, execute, and measure their marketing campaigns.

In a martech tool stack, you’ll typically find things like customer relationship management (CRM) systems, data analytics software, social media management tools, and email marketing platforms. With martech tools, marketers can better optimize their campaigns to deliver personalized and data-driven experiences to their target audience.

Martech is an essential component of modern marketing departments. Learn more about Templafy’s offerings for marketing departments here.

Often described as “data about data”, metadata refers to the information that describes and provides context for other data. This information can include details such as the date and time the data was created, who it was created by and its format and structure.

For large enterprises, metadata is crucial in helping to organize and managing large amounts of data, improve the accuracy and reliability of data and making in simpler to search for and retrieve specific pieces of data.

When it comes to document management, metadata plays a critical role. Document metadata helps enterprises store, find and manage business documents more effectively. It ensures the right content is available to the right people, quickly and securely.

Metadata plays a crucial role in an organization’s overall document governance strategy – where it looks to minimize risk by ensuring content across the board undergoes a validation process and is compliant with company protocols.

A mission statement is a succinct and powerful articulation of an organization's purpose, values, and objectives. It serves as a beacon and guide in uniting all stakeholders — such as employees, customers, and investors around a shared vision.

It is also an essential tool for decision-making, allowing organizations to evaluate whether their potential actions are in line with their values.

Crafting an effective mission statement allows organizations to stand out from competitors and attract like-minded individuals who share their values and objectives. In essence, a mission statement is pivotal to an organization's success.

R

Rebranding is the complete overhaul of a company’s existing branding, including its brand story and visual brand elements. It involves reinventing the company's brand identity to create a new and unique look. This process can happen for a variety of reasons - from a new strategic direction or business mission, to reflect a new target audience, or to rebuild a damaged or disliked public perception.

The goal of rebranding is to reposition a company in the minds of their customers and stakeholders. It requires a thorough understanding of the brand and audience, and a creative vision, to craft something that current customers recognize, while introducing something fresh to appeal to new customers. Rebranding includes changing all aspects of the brand identity, from the logo and messaging, to the color palette and imagery. This includes website and digital channels, as well as physical elements like packaging, signage, and advertising.

With effective rebranding, companies can create a renewed energy that resonates with its target audience, creating a powerful and effective corporate identity. Want to learn more? Read about the three things Brand leaders wish they knew before rebranding.

S

Sales enablement is a process used to equip sales teams with the right resources, materials and tools they need to effectively engage with prospects and generate better sales outcomes. It involves arming the sales team with the knowledge, technical tools, templates and assets that help them to present, explain, support and convert customers in their purchasing decisions. Moreover, providing sales reps with the skills and capabilities they need to be successful in their roles is an essential component of sales enablement.

Sales enablement in the current business landscape is a challenging yet imperative task. With the rising customer expectation for tailor-made services, it is increasingly important for big enterprises to equip their sales teams with the right knowledge and tools to effectively engage customers. This means understanding customer needs in depth, being able to communicate tailored solutions, and providing the right resources to close more deals. A digital solution that provides secure, automated access to approved, up-to-date corporate documents and branding can aid the sales enablement process and ultimately increase productivity, better customer retention and improve sales performance.

Shared drives, also known as network drives, are an essential tool for team collaboration and file management, allowing users to securely store and organize files in a centralized location.

Team members can create, upload, download, view, edit and delete files and folders, depending on their individual access and permission settings. This enables teams to work more effectively and efficiently, sharing knowledge and resources without the need for email attachments or physical file transfers.

Shared drives can be set up and managed by IT administrators or team leaders, who regulate access conditions and file sharing settings, as well as back up and restore data to protect it from loss, or to ensure data security and compliance.

Shared drives are an invaluable resource for any organization or team, allowing for unified collaboration and communication across a single, secure platform.

From SharePoint to Google Workspace, see how Templafy’s integrations can help unify your content ecosystem.

A style guide is an essential tool for creating a unified and memorable brand image. It is a collection of visual elements, such as logos, typeface, colors, and imagery, as well as guidance for their implementation to define and standardize the use of a company’s visual identity. It also streamlines the process for all teams, providing quick access to up-to-date information to ensure that design and visual elements are accurately aligned. This comprehensive set of assets and instructions allows all people, regardless of their team or department, to correctly and consistently represent the brand in any kind of communication.

At its core, the purpose of a brand style guide is to clearly and faithfully showcase a brand’s message. The mix of a company’s visual brand assets and their correct usage are critical for supporting the same message and driving consistency to enable a company to become memorable. Learn more by reading our blog article on the importance of a style guide with lessons from leading brands.

T

A tagline, also known as a slogan, is a concise, catchy phrase or statement used to communicate the essence of a brand, product, or service.

Effective taglines are short, memorable, and unique and can be used to differentiate a brand from its competitors, evoke emotion, and create brand recognition. They often incorporate wordplay, humor, or other creative elements to make them more powerful and engaging.

Taglines can be used across a variety of marketing and branding materials, such as advertisements, websites, social media posts, and promotional materials. Ultimately, the tagline is a key part of any branding strategy, propelling a brand’s identity, message, and loyalty towards its target audience.

Taxonomy, in a business-to-business (B2B) context, is the process of logically and consistently organizing products, services and other items, making it easier for buyers to find what they need.

By creating a standardized classification system which is simple to navigate, the user experience on B2B e-commerce websites is improved, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as boosting sales.

Furthermore, it provides businesses with valuable insights into customer behavior, as trends are identified, and product offerings and marketing strategies are adjusted accordingly. Taxonomy is an invaluable tool for any business offering products and services to customers through an online platform.

Trademarks play an important role in B2B businesses, helping them to build brand recognition, stand out from the competition, and establish a positive reputation with customers.

By registering a trademark, businesses have the legal right to use the mark exclusively to identify their products or services, thus preventing competitors from using a similar or confusing trademark.

In addition, by managing trademarks effectively, companies can protect their brand identity and ensure they maintain a competitive advantage. This involves continually monitoring for potential infringement and taking swift action when necessary to enforce their trademark rights.

Read our blog to explore how three leading brands have cemented their corporate identity.

W

A wordmark is a fundamental element of a company’s visual identity and consists of the company’s brand name or logotype in a stylized manner that uses custom typography. It’s used to convey the brand’s character and values – the essence of the brand.

It’s important to incorporate a well-designed wordmark into a brand’s identity in order to establish brand recognition. It serves as a visual anchor, making the brand easily identifiable to customers and stakeholders alike, while helping maintain consistency across marketing materials.

Why is a comprehensive brand style guide so important to create? Check out this informative blog post to learn more. For a better understanding of corporate identity, including the critical role of the wordmark, check out this article.