Creating marketing consistency

When it comes to marketing and content, it’s all about consistency – from the tone you use to the look you create and when you show up to engage with your audience.

So let’s look at consistency and how it shapes marketing.

Consistency – a definition

As the Cambridge Dictionary explains, consistency is ‘the quality of always behaving or performing in a similar way, or of something always happening in a similar way’.

In marketing, this consistency is critical to creating a brand, building an audience and then engaging them.

It allows your brand to be known and recognised, helps you create a content framework and most importantly, ensures you remain engaged with the people who ‘show up’ as your followers to learn more about what you do.

So let’s examine eight marketing areas where consistency helps create a recognisable message and brand.

Visual consistency

Visual consistency is the look of your brand and all the content that you create. And the aim of the game is to have people instantly identify that content and recognise it as coming from you.

When we talk about visual consistency, we are talking about style – from the type of fonts you use, to the look of the images you select and the colours that are associated with your content.

A great way to ensure consistency is to create a style guide for your brand which defines colours, the look and feel of images, font types and sizes.

This visual consistency is then applied across all your marketing assets – from your website to social media, printed marketing materials and stationery.

Tone consistency

Tone is the voice of your brand, or the way you speak with your audience and this too needs to be consistent to be recognisable.

Tone takes into account the type of words you use and the way you address your audience, whether that’s conversational, formal, humorous or educational.

In many ways, setting your tone involves considering how will people feel when they interact with your brand and content – like a friend? Educated? Informed by an expert? Etc.

Like visual consistency, ensuring tone consistency is about establishing the tone you wish to use from the outset.

This too can be mapped out in your style guide, with words that you want your brand to be associated with and a list of words you are likely to favour in your messaging.

Planning consistency

Marketing takes planning, and that’s particularly the case when it comes to creating content that builds your profile and your ‘know, like and trust’ factor.

When you consistently plan your content, you maximise the opportunities for engagement with your audience.

This planning involves setting aside time to think ahead and create great content that ranges from addressing frequently asked questions, to polls, memes, behind the scenes videos and more.

As you plan, consider the type of content you are looking to create. It should be a mix of evergreen content (that is relevant all year round) and responsive content drawn from current topics of interest, things happening in your business now, or questions that are regularly asked of you.

Timing consistency

When it comes to creating a profile and brand that makes the best use of search engine optimisation and the social media algorithms, timing consistency is key.

This isn’t just about catering to data points, however. It’s also about showing up regularly when your audience expects you to.

When you show up at similar times with great content, your audience begins to tune in and follow the information you provide.

A key tip is to be there when your audience is, whether that’s first thing on a set morning or every day around the same time.

Consistently engaging

When creating content, consistently ask yourself, does this article, image, post or comment offer something to my audience?

Is it shareable, saveable and engaging because it provides value? Creating consistently engaging content inspires your audience to keep coming back. It also increases your reach and profile as your followers share it with others.

Engagement consistency

Consistency also involves regular engagement with the people who take the time to make time for you.

And this engagement is key. When you consistently engage with your audience or other experts in your industry and realm, you build meaningful connections.

This means time should regularly be set aside to comment on the content of others and respond to your audience’s comments.

This is not about hitting the like button and moving on, it’s about meaningful commenting that creates a two-way conversation.

Consistently give new things time

Marketing and content styles shift and change over time, which means you will need to occasionally break out of your comfort zone and try new things.

When experimenting with new ideas or formats, give them time to take effect by being consistent in your approach.

This consistency allows you to build an audience for that type of content or the message you are providing.

All marketing takes time to bear fruit and it’s worth remembering that when you try something new.

Consistency is key to marketing

In many ways marketing is a bit like exercise. To be truly effective it takes consistent actions, practise, routine and commitment.

When you apply this consistent approach the results start to build and compound, creating a brand and profile that is recognisable, engaging and attracts the retains an audience.