Survey after survey shows that customers are more likely to buy from a company they know and trust. That trust is built slowly with consistent and clear brand content and marketing efforts. Building trust through brand content and content marketing is more challenging than ever and salespeople, marketing departments and support teams can struggle with maintaining brand communications consistency in quality, frequency, and relevance.
In fact, roughly a third of USA business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales professionals said that they struggle to implement brand identity consistently. The top reasons for this struggle were listed as 1- they cannot ensure standards, 2- there are no uniform guidelines, and 3- brand importance is undervalued, according to a February 2021 study from market research firm Provoke Insights.
Revenue Increases With Brand Consistency
Brand Consistency: The Average Revenue Increase Is 33%, according to a comprehensive study by Lucidpress. If any figure supports the return-on-investment (ROI) for keeping brand communications consistent, then this is it.
Ensuring that you are consistently publishing and sharing brand content with regular frequency, appropriate quality, and standards that your entire team understands and can easily execute do make an impact on sales and revenue. Increasing revenue by one-third is no small achievement and goes a long way to present clear ROI on your content marketing efforts.
The Importance of Keeping Brand Communications Consistent
Consistent brand messaging, branding and other elements are what drives revenue and growth. And anything less confuses the marketplace.
The Importance of Keeping Brand Communications Consistent:
- Keep customers informed and onboard
- Enhance customer trust
- Increase marketing ROI
- Drive more inbound leads
- Current customers will buy more
- Brand identity management becomes easier
- Potential customers will see your brand as well established and trustworthy
Brand Consistency: The Average Revenue Increase is 33%
The Lucidpress survey found customers perceive consistent brand messaging and images as indicative of high quality. From the survey of 200 brand management experts, they also concluded that there was a whopping 33% increase in revenue from brand consistency.
The Customers Journey
Every stage in your customer journey should be aligned with your brand to maintain consistency. The typical journey that your customer has might be:
- Found your site on social media
- Visited your website
- Subscribed to your email list
- Purchased from you
Maintaining and Utilizing your Brand Assets
Your brand assets, particularly your official logo and your tagline, need to be maintained and utilized by all your employees. Keeping brand assets up to date is vital. Occasionally, social media platforms or websites might change their optimal image size requirements, and your logo and brand assets must keep up-to-date.
According to Beth Popnikolov, people buy from brands they trust, and “Brand consistency is part of building trust.”
Consistent brand messaging and communications are more critical than ever on social media with its constant reach and direct access to consumers and it plays a pivotal role in building trust. Your marketing must stay consistent with your brand’s core values and all communications must maintain consistent quality, frequency, and relevancy.
Tweets, LinkedIn Posts and Social Media Posts Show up in Search
Do not forget that Tweets, LinkedIn profiles, and other social media posts show up in Google search too. Social media allows brands to deepen their (positive) visibility while increasing the likelihood of generating more links and link clicks. According to Neil Patel, Google views content on Facebook and Twitter just the same as they view content on a website.
Social media can also help you improve your SEO ranking by providing social interaction data, posting on social and getting indexed with the search sites, most importantly Google, quicker and by creating demand for content in ways traditional marketing does not allow.
Bottom Line: Strategies around social should be an integral part of any digital strategy as it greatly impacts a brand’s visibility while improving search rankings and driving traffic at little cost (compared to paid advertising).
Brand Consistency: Identity, Values and Strategy
The average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 33%; just imagine what percentage increase would it be if all three of these elements are fulfilled by sales and marketing departments!
Brand consistency means your target audience is being exposed to consistent core messages, consistent visual branding, and other consistent brand elements. With consistency, your audience will begin to recognize your brand’s content more easily and they’ll be more likely to take action on that content.
According to Fergal Gylnn, as shared in a Salesforce article, it takes 6-8 marketing “touches” to generate a sales lead. This number can sometimes be much higher. The more consistent your brand is, the more success you will have in reaching your audience those 6-8 times, which will drive quicker results from your marketing campaigns.
Key Questions to Consider When Planning Social Sharing Strategy
Personal brand to build relationships and drive sales
The first topic to think about is what should be done to equip employees to use their unique personal brands to build the corporate brand and the sales funnel?
How are you going to assist your employees to build their personal brands alongside the corporate brand?
Reflect businesses brand values, maintain customer service
What kind of content can they share on social media channels for the company’s benefit? What types of responses are appropriate when customers have a question or issue with customer service through different platforms? These are questions that need answers before encouraging employee social media advocacy in order not only to protect your brand but also build it.
Reviewing your social media policy or creating a new one
A great way to start building consistency and relevance is by creating or reviewing marketing policies for each platform used– which includes email campaigns, SEO keywords, advertising and branding material like logos, color schemes, and more. This will help maintain consistent messaging across every channel, so customers don’t feel as if there is conflicting information being offered from employees and corporate marketing departments.
Clearly outlining what employees should and shouldn’t be doing and giving them the support they need to build in their social media activities into their daily schedules in the easiest possible way and will pay dividends!
To conclude: While there are many ways to increase your company’s sales, being consistent with your branding can prove to be the biggest factor. Take an honest inventory of your branding and messaging? Is it consistent? Are all your assets up-to-date? Are you posting new content regularly and encouraging employees to share that messaging and advocate for your brand? If the answer is not yes to all of these questions, find a way to make it yes and turn consistent branding into one of the biggest drivers of your marketing and sales success!
Comment Question: What is one way in which your company is consistent with your branding? What is one area in which your business can improve its branding consistency? Comment below.
