You already know how important brand reputation is but did you know that it can take 5 to 7 impressions for a consumer to remember your brand? That means you need to be consistent in your messaging if you are going to leave a favorable impression and build a solid reputation. How do you ensure consistency so that you can establish a good reputation that will impress consumers?
What Is Brand Consistency?
You may have different demographic groups and segments as your target audience. But even with different groups, you want to deliver content and messaging in a consistent way to that audience. With brand consistency, consumers are more likely to be able to identify with your organization and they can see a balance between your product offerings, values, customer experience and service, and your overall brand identity.
Brand consistency checklist
When you consider your total addressable market, you will also look at where you are going to connect and engage with prospective customers. You will identify the platforms and channels your target demographics prefer and plan content creation accordingly. However, even with different platforms and channels, you need to be aiming for consistent messaging if you want a solid reputation.
Define your brand’s purpose
What does your brand stand for and believe in? This is the foundation of your messaging and will have a direct impact on your reputation. It doesn’t matter what products you offer; you could be the leading supplier of a VoIP phone system for small business solutions but can still have values such as inclusivity and sustainability. Why do people work for you or buy from you? Focus on values and what attracts people to you.
Know thine enemy
Enemy may be a little strong but researching your competitors can help you highlight what makes you stand out from them so it can be included in your messaging as something that will matter to consumers. And it’s not just about what you sell or how you sell it but how you message across platforms and how to do it better.
Who’s your audience?
Who your audience is will impact much of your messaging but you should still strive for consistency. Selling teleconferencing solutions to a B2B audience will have distinct differences from selling shoes to a B2C audience. Drill down into the different demographic traits of your audience and segment them into groups. Even with different groups, you should look to only have subtle differences in messages so that consumers can recognize consistency.
Develop your brand strategy
As far as consistency and reputation go, you should be looking at the longer term, sometimes as long as five years. You can set goals to be achieved over different time periods and develop a strategy that will align your goals with the expectations of your audience. This strategy can be tweaked and further developed over time.
Establish an identity
You want a brand identity that both communicates who you are and that is recognizable. That will include a logo and also any distinct colors you may use in messaging. Gather anonymous feedback to check that your messages are landing: can customers easily remember your identity and recognize it if they see it? Develop a set of brand guidelines for your marketers and content creators to follow.
Have visual conformity
Once you have established an identity, you want to ensure that the visual aspects of your brand are consistent on every channel and platform you use. That can include the colors of your logo and any messaging, and it should also continue offline, with conformity maintained in your packaging and any external advertising.
Create great content
If you’re creating forgettable content, then your brand will be forgettable too. You may not be able to please all of the consumers all of the time, but you can ensure that all of your content is high-quality. It also has to be relevant, in terms of the content itself, your SEO tactics, and how it’s delivered. Create content templates based on your best posts and have your marketing team use them. Also, in terms of social media posts, track and analyze engagement metrics to see what works.
Check consistency
While you don’t want all your messaging to be completely identical, you equally don’t want it to be too different. Being humorous one week and too serious the next will just confuse consumers. Establish a benchmark in terms of tone and voice and use this in your content templates.
Create a calendar
It can help to know not only what you’re going to post but when you’re going to post it. Your calendar should include your regular weekly posts (including days and times) but also any special posts that are planned for the year ahead such as holiday promotions or special events. For example, you may be planning to launch a new platform as a service product but not for six months. You could add to the calendar any teasers and pre-launch offers you have planned.
Choose the right partners and tools
Building a brand reputation may seem like hard work but you don’t need to do it alone. Look for influencers who align with your goals and whose followers will be interested in your products/services. You can also look for other organizations that offer products that complement your own. You can also look for tools that can help you with post-scheduling or for collaborating with other teams and/or businesses.
Omnichannel approach
We live in a digital era and many consumers may prefer more than one channel. Use analytics to see what channels, including social networking sites, get the most use and ensure you are using them too. It’s also essential that you actively engage with customers on those channels. It’s not enough to simply post; you have to be promptly responding to comments and questions so that you can build trust and emphasize that you are approachable.
The takeaway
Building a brand reputation can be hard work but is essential to continued success. Your primary focus should be for consumers to see you as authentic so that a relationship built on trust can be established. You also have to ensure that you work on other areas of your business – such as customer service and support – so that any good reputation built by messaging isn’t underdone by shortcomings elsewhere.
