The 5 Fundamentals of a Successful Style Guide
There are many things to consider when starting an online business or any of the more traditional types of enterprise. You need to work on a variety of strategies to make your brand known. However, nothing works as well as having a consistent style across different platforms, and here is where a style guide comes in handy.
What is a style guide?
A style guide is a documentation stating all the visual and experiential elements that are unique to your brand. It’s best to refer to this guide when you or anyone outside your team is starting a campaign. This will ensure that all of the output can provide a consistent experience for your clients or audience.
What are the fundamentals for creating an effective style guide?
Creating your own style guide is definitely an iterative process, and it may take a while before you can come up with something final. Here are five things to keep in mind in order to help you develop a successful style guide.
-
Mind your tone.
Make your style guide sound approachable. Sometimes there is a tendency to sound a bit too corrective, listing down a bunch of don’ts. This gives the impression that the style guide is unbreakable and that it’s not open to changes or improvements. This shouldn’t be the case, so your style guide need to sound like it is encouraging to improve and create more.
-
Share your knowledge.
Ensure that your style guide will be helpful to all your team members. Be generous in sharing knowledge so that everyone could have the tools and information to work on tasks or projects independently.
-
Delegate topics to your team.
You don’t have to do everything on the style guide. Ask your team to help you draft certain sections on the style guide and match each person to his/her expertise. This will definitely make the work a lot lighter for you. This could also work if you’re handling a team of virtual assistants. Tap a virtual assistant to cover a specific topic and don’t forget to give your VA a deadline.
-
Get inspired by other style guides.
Check out style guides by other companies. This will give you an idea about other important things that you can include in your own style guide. Have your virtual secretary compile style guides that other brands have shared publicly and go over them to find inspiration.
-
Keep on improving.
Your style guide will never stay the same for all time even if you prefer otherwise. It will evolve into something else, and you’ll have to deal with the inevitable changes. Do not remain stagnant; make sure to continuously improve.
Your style guide will provide the framework for all your projects, and it will cut the time spent on countless consultations. If everyone in your team knows your brand’s style guide, it will make decision-making and other processes smoother and faster.
Share with us in the comments section below how your style guide helped your business. We’d love to hear from you!
Next: Tips On Recording Podcasts To Ensure Accurate Transcriptions
20Four7VA recognizes the challenge of effectively managing an online business – and we are very eager to help. Our company specializes in eCommerce VIRTUAL STAFFING SOLUTIONS, providing customizable and scalable solutions to small, medium, and large enterprise business owners so they can focus on growing their business.
Ready to have access to incredible people with incredible skills in the most cost-effective way? Give us a call at our toll free number 1 (443) 856-4882 today!
