Copywriter to the glazing industry, Helen Savage, talks about why consistency matters in marketing, especially in a more challenging market.
Companies that want to get noticed in the press and online, understand that consistency matters, especially when times are tough. This looks different for everyone. Perhaps if budgets are tight, it’s a regular blog that also generates content for various social media channels, or it could be a recurring column in a trade magazine. Whatever tool or tools are used, it’s a machine that needs to be fed with good content, consistently.
Sometimes companies set these marketing tactics in motion with a medley of things they want to talk about at the forefront of their minds, but after the initial big topics have been covered and other priorities creep in, it can be hard to create fresh copy that does your brand justice.
Shifting priorities
Before you know it, a few months have passed (where does the time go?!) and your business blog is out of date, or you have missed a deadline with a magazine or had to run with copy that was less than ideal. It’s understandable, writing new marketing copy can be a time-consuming task and there are other priorities that take precedence. But if you want results, consistency is key. Earmark a resource either within the business or through outsourcing, to make sure these things get ticked off regularly and deadlines are met.
Consistency without repetition
A common concern among companies looking to fill the marketing pipeline consistently is that they don’t want to cover a topic more than once. But it’s useful to remember that while you might recall what you were talking about 6 months or a year before, your readers probably won’t. They will have read numerous other pieces before and since, so I would actually recommend covering the same topics more than once, to cement your brand’s positioning. Just don’t simply re-use a blog post or article. Each time you talk about a topic, give the reader something new – you could comment on some fresh research or up-to-date news coverage on the subject.
Plan and pace yourself
When deciding what to talk about and when, it’s useful to plan. This can help order your thoughts if you have a lot of ideas and plug the gaps where inspiration is lacking. Especially when it comes to blogging, it can sometimes be tempting to download everything on your mind and upload as many posts as you can, as quickly as you can. It is far better though, to spread these articles out so you are publishing one or two a month, rather than one a week for a few months and nothing for the rest of the year.
Spending a small amount of time planning up front to create consistency, can save you a lot of time in the long run. But most importantly, it can ensure your marketing activity achieves what you want it to achieve.
