What does it mean to be consistent? The dictionary defines consistency as doing something the same way over and over again. While this may seem boring, it is essential in grounding your marketing. If you want your audience to recognize your brand, you have to deliver a consistent message that becomes familiar to them. If you change your look and your message every time they see you, your customers can’t make a connection between you and the service that you offer.
Quite honestly, once you dig into the branding process, building consistency isn’t boring at all. It can actually be a bit fun. You can still be creative in how you deliver your messaging, but it should always reflect your core brand message. Let’s explore an example. Chick-fil-a is one of America’s most beloved brands. Can you think of their most recent brand message that they use in all their advertising? You got it! “Eat more chicken.” Sounds really simple, right? But, where they get really creative in the delivery of their messaging is with the use of their mascot, the Chick-fil-a cow, that delivers the message, “eat more chicken.” It’s an amusing way to deliver their message, but gets their brand across nonetheless.
Consistency is not boring, it’s effective. The more your audience hears your message, the more they connect with you and that is certainly a good thing. As you build consistency in your brand messaging, make sure that consistency is measured across all of your marketing platforms. That would include any advertising, collateral and digital marketing like social media. Different segments of your audience engage on each of these levels, so you want consistent results from all your marketing. Your ultimate goal is to engage and drive business. To do this, your audience needs to relate to your message and what you’re offering.
As you’re developing your messaging for each of your marketing platforms, ask yourself, “does this message reinforce my brand?” If not, how can you change it to reflect your brand more effectively? You want to engage your creativity but you also want to stay in your lane. The last thing you want to do is confuse your audience with inconsistent messaging that doesn’t clearly reflect your product or services.
If you’re struggling to build consistent brand messaging that connects with your audience, do a quick check to make sure your brand messaging hasn’t become too convoluted. The best brands are simple and relatable. We mentioned Nike’s brand, “Just Do It” in an earlier post. You can’t get more simple that that. Burger King’s brand is “Have it your way”. Each of these examples are simple and easy to remember. They also make it easy to build marketing around them. When you try to do too much, you make it more difficult to build consistent messaging and risk confusing and losing your audience. First, keep your brand message simple. Then, follow up on all of your marketing and branding efforts, reinforcing that brand message on a consistent basis.
Consistent brand messaging will lead to consistent business which is what we all want.
