In the old days, you would market your business through adverts, direct mail or word of mouth.
A recommendation would be enough for someone to seek you out to do business with you.
Today, marketing is far more complex.
Customers are more demanding and expect you to show them why they should spend their hard-earned cash with you.
You have to be more proactive: a master at social media marketing, a hotshot content writer, an aspirational web writer and everything else in between.
Your brand has to be consistent across all channels, which means using the same voice, same tone and same vocabulary range.
Why?
Because your customers want the comfort that type of continuity provides. Every communication with you will surround them in a warm, snuggly blanket of familiarity that will continuously nurture their relationship with you.
Speaking with one voice
Creating that illusion isn’t just about following brand guidelines; it’s also about refining all your content to ensure the common voice comes through.
This is a particular issue with larger corporations.
A corporate blog is a fantastic tool not only to drive traffic to your website but also showcase your knowledge and deepen relationships with your customers.
The problem is that, to maintain a regular flow of content, you have to use multiple contributors. The result can be a mishmash of styles, voices and standards.
To maintain the continuity I keep talking about, you need a ‘gatekeeper’ to maintain standards, voice and approach.
Even if some of the posts are written in the first person, it is still possible to edit them to make them fit the brand image without losing the personality of the writer.
How does that work in practice?
Did you use a copywriter for your marketing materials?
If the answer is yes, they would be my first suggestion for your ‘gatekeeper’. After all, they already know your brand, understand the approach you use and therefore are best placed to edit your contributor articles.
If on the other hand, you wrote your content in-house it’s going to be slightly trickier. You need someone who is available to work on the content immediately and who isn’t going to be busy with other tasks. That’s why it is worth considering outsourcing.
You might be thinking this is all a load of poppycock and your audience couldn’t care less whether all your content used the same approach or not.
But the thing is a customer likes familiarity.
Take Apple as an example, the instant you see one of their ads (print or TV) you know it’s talking about something innovative and high quality. In fact, you probably don’t even need to see the logo to identify it as an Apple communication. And that’s where you want to be.
Each time a customer comes into contact with you – online, social media, advert, brochure etc., – they should get the same experience. Focus on your continuity to envelop your customers in that warm, snuggly blanket I mentioned earlier, and start to enjoy loyal and prosperous consumer relationships.
Sally Ormond is an international copywriter. Working across all industries, she creates on-brand content for on and offline marketing as well as internal communications