Why is consistent messaging important?

Current marketing wisdom will tell you the average person needs to see a marketing message seven times before it makes an impression. Every interaction a customer has with your brand should embody the promises, values, and unique differences that makes your brand special.

Even with the best of intentions, chopping and changing messages will leave your customers, at best, unaware of who you are and what you can do for them and at worst, will turn customers away.

Need more proof? Here are 3 reasons why consistency is key.

1. Consistency Makes Your Brand Feel More Dependable

Have you ever watched an advertisement on TV, and without being told who the brand is or seeing any logos - you know who it is for?  Good, consistent messaging will help link your brand with certain values or promises in the customer’s mind. By creating these links, customers are more likely to consider your brand to be dependable or trustworthy. This is integral to your brand identity and building loyalty.

Think of a messaging strategy as a conversation with your customers. The way your business is represented will affect how your current and potential customers view you in their minds. Would you trust someone who acts differently every time you see them?

Commit to your key message and connect to your target audience through that message.

For example, would you buy a pen from someone who tells you it’s sleek and easy to write with? If you needed a new pen, you probably would. 

However, would you buy a pen if someone tells you that it’s a really fun pen, also suitable for professionals, and it writes really well, but it’s also really cheap? You would probably back away slowly - and so will your customers if you try to include too many selling points.

Image 1: Adapted from [2] Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L., & Pervan, S. (2018). Strategic Brand Management (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

2. A consistent messaging strategy can build equity.

To start, what is brand equity? One definition is:

“a marketing term that describes a brand’s value, determined by consumer perception of and experiences with the brand” [4].

Positive brand equity acquired by creating resonance with consumers (Image 1) may help your company to maintain superiority over your competitors and build market share. Likewise, a failure to develop brand equity, through a consistent marketing strategy, will see the opposite.

Source: [5]

For example, in the mid-1980s, the Coca-Cola Company decided to introduce a new, sweeter flavour dubbed ‘New coke’ [3]. With 200,000 blind product taste tests conducted and over 50% of subjects preferring the new taste over both the original formula and Pepsi, it should have been a success, right?

Wrong. The company received hundreds of thousands of complaints. The product was a massive flop and removed from the market within three months. This begged the question; if it tasted better, why did people hate it? The answer has to do with Coca Cola’s value proposition – coke doesn’t just sell a drink, it sells happiness, connection. The researchers failed to realise the symbolic value and emotional involvement people had with the original Coke, which was ultimately a much bigger indicator of purchase intentions then the taste alone.

The moral of the story? Having a consistent brand presence matters.

3. You can leverage multiple channels

The fantastic part about content marketing is the variety of avenues available. From blogs, video content, platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, leveraging user-generated content, websites, to above and below the line advertising. This results in an ever-changing plethora of ways to reach your target market. The options seem endless and exciting.

However, it can also be daunting.

It’s not always easy to establish and maintain a digital presence for your business. In fact, it can be challenging to find the hours or the know-how to make it happen. You may be left thinking, ‘Ok, consistency is important- but just how do I go about doing it?’

One tool we use to help us maintain a consistent message across all social platforms for our clients is Sprout Social. You can manage all platforms on one interface. To save time and prevent us from being stuck on our devices to publish posts at the best times, Sprout Social can schedule our posts to appear at the optimised times for your customers and online community.

Research suggests that investment in targeted marketing across a couple key platforms will see the best ROI. Depending on your business, the focus may be on your website and SEO, for another, Facebook and Instagram are a great way to achieve awareness and develop positive brand connections and purchase intentions.  Outsourcing these skills is an effective way to build your marketing capabilities, without reducing your own precious man-hours.

So, there you have it, our guide to the importance of a consistent messaging strategy.

What can ContentSmith do to help with your messaging?

• Strategy session – we’ll get to know you and help build a marketing strategy to meet realistic goals.

• Content creation

• Ads and competitions

• Community engagement

• Account and website management

• Insights and Analytics

If you would like to chat about how we can help improve your digital marketing, get in touch!

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References:

[1] Campaign Monitor. (2018). The New Rules of Email Marketing. Retrieved August 27, 2018, from https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-new-rules/#seven

[2] Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L., & Pervan, S. (2018). Strategic Brand Management (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

[3] Smith, S. (2018). Coca-Cola Lost Millions Because of This Market Research Mistake | Qualtrics. [online] Qualtrics. Available at: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/coca-cola-market-research/ [Accessed 28 Aug. 2018].

[4] What is Brand Equity. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.shopify.com.au/encyclopedia/brand-equity

[5] Rachid, H. (2015).  30 years ago today, Coca-Cola made its worst mistake. [online] Cbsnews.com. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/30-years-ago-today-coca-cola-new-coke-failure/ [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].