In today’s economic climate, your brand is more important than ever and consistency is essential. It’s how you stand out, make a name for yourself, and keep your company growing. It’s how you build lasting relationships with your customers and it’s what keeps you ahead of your competition.
So how can you make sure your brand and ready to carry you through the remainder of 2022?
Let’s start with the biggest representative of your brand: your content. According to Shutterstock, 60% of marketers create a minimum of one piece of content each day. Maintaining brand consistency in all that content would be manageable for one contributor, but brands have a variety of content creators. Each writer has their own unique personality and style.
Brand consistency means making sure your words, design, perspective, and offerings all relate to the way you want to express your brand. It’s the secret to customer satisfaction, it’s a key part of good content marketing.
When your content story is inconsistent, your brand seems disingenuous. If people connect to your story on one page, then jump to a different page and see a completely different story, they feel the whiplash. It’s a bit of, “Wait, what? I thought you understood me… but now you’re talking about things that have nothing to do with me.”
Make your customers happy and produce consistent content. When you focus on improving the customer’s experience with your brand, you also improve your company’s value.
Inconsistent content is unpredictable, and unpredictability dissuades people from trusting your brand. To meet their needs, you need to build an identifiable brand that sets you apart from competitors. Here are three benefits of consistency in business that you may experience.
Consistency makes you memorable
Some of the most well-known brands are iconic because of how they talk. Groupon and M&M’s are known for their sense of humor. Disney focuses on making us feel like we can create magic. Dollar Shave Club and Poo-Pourri are intentionally over the top. These brands don’t deviate, and we love them for it.
Inconsistent branding confuses people. You force them to do the hard work of keeping track of what you’re talking about. Is it the same as or different from what you were talking about before? If you’re consistent in how you talk about your company, brand, products, and features, your users will get it quicker.
Branding fosters relationships with consumers
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 67% of customers say they’ll only continue buying products from a brand if they trust the company behind them. In all relationships, trust is built through consistency. Communicating the same values in the same voice at every customer touchpoint develops a reliable brand personality. When people can count on your brand, they’ll be more loyal.
A PwC study found that one in three customers say they’ll walk away from a brand they love after a single bad experience. People pick up on mistakes immediately; inconsistencies in writing style stick out and grab people’s attention — in a bad way. You want consumers thinking about your message, not irregular commas and numbering systems. Accurate content and clear branding lets people focus on the heart of your messages.
Consistent brands are more desirable
Brand consistency drive revenue growth, according to a recent report by Lucidpress. As people get to know and trust a brand, they’re more likely to buy that brand’s products or take advantage of its services.
Today’s consumers have a variety of platforms available for sharing reviews and promoting products they like to friends, family, and even strangers. A review on Yelp or a post on social media can boost your SEO, increase traffic on your website and social media platforms, and ultimately generate leads and revenue.
Consistent brand delivery makes sure that each new consumer who is interested in your company meets with the same great messaging their friends raved about.
How to create consistent content
A brand consistency checklist can help reflect on your content’s purpose and message. Here are the elements you should examine for variability:
- Message: Your readers should be able to easily follow along.
- Target audience: It should be clear who you’re addressing.
- Voice: This is the formality, liveliness, and cadence of your content. See SmartBrief’s guide to brand voice.
- Terminology: Decide whether any words are a good or bad fit for your brand, and keep track of them.
- Punctuation writing style: You may have a casual writing style, but make sure your writing is grammatically accurate.
If you’re not sure how to create consistent content, start by developing or revisiting your brand’s style guide. According to Shutterstock, 95% of brands have some form of content guidelines, yet only 25% regularly enforce them.
A style guide lays out all the rules your content must follow. It should define your unique voice, preferred terminology, punctuation, spelling choices, and imagery. Brand consistency means telling the same story over and over again, at every point of contact with consumers. Your style guide should make sure everyone in the company gets your messaging and story.
If you’re looking for tools to help you out, try using a web browser plug-in or artificial intelligence content software. These helpful hands can point out small details like punctuation or flag large concerns like off-voice language.
Maintaining brand consistency may be challenging, but the benefits are worth it. Don’t miss out on growth opportunities by underestimating this powerful element in a marketing strategy.
May Habib is CEO and co-founder of Writer, an AI writing assistant for teams. She is an expert in natural language processing, AI-driven language generation, and the evolving ways we use language online.
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