When you’re running your business on your own, keeping things straight can be relatively simple. You know what your goals are, you know what principles drive the way you do business and most of all, you know how you want to be perceived by your customers, vendors and peers.

However, as you begin to scale, these elements can be diluted—unless you have a formal set of doctrines for people to follow. This is where understanding brand guidelines and how to implement them can help keep you on your intended path.

What Brand Guidelines Do

The rules establishing how your brand works in terms of its appearance and ideology are known as your brand guidelines. Developed based upon your history, vision, personality and values, these can be used to set the tone for your site design, email campaigns, social media presences and organic content.

If your product requires packaging, your brand guidelines will set the parameters for the development of that as well. Their purpose is to keep your look and messaging consistent, which serves to keep everyone on track and makes your company immediately recognizable.

How to Get There

The first thing you need to do is develop a clear understanding of who you are, what you do, how you do it and most importantly—why you do it. With these motivations clearly defined, you can craft your mission and vision statements.

Equally important is gaining an understanding of your ideal customer and why they need you. People buy into brands reflective of their self-images. Getting to know your ideal customer and what makes them tick will situate you to craft your brand in a manner that will be appealing to them.

Now before you think we’re saying you should sell out your values to appeal to a specific audience, we’re actually saying the opposite. Look for people who match what you’re about. If you aren’t coming from a place of truth, your endeavor will fail.

Branding Elements

Once you’re clear on how you want to be perceived, you can begin developing the elements of your brand. These include your color palette, the typeface with which you want to be associated and your logo design.

Graphic elements, photography, wordmarks and any other symbols you’ll employ will be developed within the strictures established by your guidelines as well.

You’ll also need to decide upon the tone your content and all of your messaging will take. Will you present yourself as warm and fuzzy, authoritative, playful, adventuresome, or etc.?

All of this will be driven by your values, principles and vision.

Let’s say you’re determining how to sell an eBook online with the goal of building a company around marketing them. In addition to all of the above, you’ll need to consider the look and “feel” of your digital media assets.

These include your site’s layout and the tone of your social media pages. Your ads, promotional media and the organic content you produce should also fall within the framework established by your brand guidelines.

Creation of Your “Bible”

Once you’ve decided upon the elements, document them in one place. This will serve as the “Bible” you’ll issue to people who work on anything related to your brand. Organize the document by the areas outlined above and include a table of contents to enable people to get to what they’ll need quickly.

By the way, don’t worry about your guidelines handcuffing creatives into producing the same old thing over and over again. Truly talented people, those capable of understanding brand guidelines are just that—guidelines—will find ways to be creative within them.