Pay attention to your content and messaging because your brand consistency matters
As we were building our content marketing agency, I realized one thing—how important an entrepreneur’s story is to the branding of their business.
Every business owner has a unique story, whether it’s a “mom and pop” coffee shop in the town of Lake Wylie, SC, or Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, sending astronauts to the International Space Station. Each of these stories contributes, in one way or another, to the branding of that business.
I remember a conversation our team was having with our resident “Strategy Addict,” Shane Snively. We were talking about the importance of branding, and he said something that really stood out to the team. He said that when an entrepreneur creates a business, that business has a story. The story can then be used to enhance the brand. The brand creates a reaction, and that reaction creates customers and clients.
It also creates a possible buzz. That buzz could even trigger an individual to desire an internship or a job with the company. Makes sense as we’ve seen multiple people join our company where content is what drew them to us in the first place (the SportsEpreneur brand specifically). And what really got individuals they said was the consistency in the brands at KazSource. Whether it was a blog post or podcast or conversation with someone on the team or an email message—it all meshed together.
And that is the one key element. That one element that is imperative to enhancing your brand—consistency in your messaging.
A Consistent Brand
Whatever message you are trying to send out should be the same across all your different distribution channels. Your values, beliefs, and opinions should easily be recognizable no matter which platform you decide to distribute them on.
I think we should address what possible platforms exist for you to distribute your messages. Some of these may surprise you. Here’s a quick list: website, blog, podcast, social media pages, social media posts, phone conversations, in-person meetings, Zoom video calls, emails, text messages, LinkedIn messages, internal conversations…to name a few.
Consumers, understandably, are now researching more and more before they decide to make a purchase. They are not just researching product or service reviews either. They are looking for credibility and the alignment of values with their own. Before they spend potentially thousands of dollars on services like marketing, financial advisors, lawyers, or business consulting, they want to know that you really are who you say you are.
Think about it. Say you are on a social media platform, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. You see a financial advisor saying how much they value quality—yet, when you go to their website, you see misspelled words, wonky images, and the site hasn’t been updated since 2015. Would you even entertain the thought of doing business with that person?
Most likely not.
For customers, it can be scary to spend that type of cash on a product or service, even if it’s meant to help their business grow. They will hesitate to pull the trigger and look for any small reason to not go through with it. That is why your message needs to be clear and concise. The values you talk about on your podcast should match up with the other content on your website. It should match up with the conversation someone on your team will eventually have with the customer.
Hiring a great content marketing company can help create that consistency by refreshing that outdated website, managing an email campaign that your audience would want to read on a weekly basis, or even help you get started on that podcast you’ve been thinking about doing for a while.
It might sound cliché, but consistency is key, and your brand depends on it.