Jon Simpson
Feb 11, 2019, 07:00am EST
Source: Forbes
Photo Source: Unsplash, Tobias Roder
Why Content Consistency Is Key To Your Marketing Strategy For any company, your brand is your most important asset because it is your business personified. The way your organization looks, sounds and acts directly impacts how current and prospective customers perceive your business. Many factors contribute to a brand’s success, but perhaps one of the most valuable is content consistency. From social media and blogging to responding to customer reviews and replying to emails, your content needs to maintain a consistent voice, tone and style.
However, maintaining a uniform voice and tone isn’t the only important aspect of content consistency. The amount of content and when you publish it is also integral to any savvy marketing strategy. Why Content Consistency Is King Whether you publish blogs every day or once per week, it’s crucial for your organization to choose and adhere to a schedule. When your content quality, quantity or schedule isn’t consistent, it can confuse your customers. Keeping with a regular strategy not only helps create a better customer experience but it also helps build credibility, reputation and brand trust.
Consistency can also impact your bottom line. According to Techipedia, consistent brands are worth 20% more than those with inconsistencies in their messaging.
To determine a publishing schedule for our clients, we utilize Google Analytics and HubSpot to monitor and track when engagement is at its highest. We start the process by publishing content at a certain time each week while alternating days, then publish on the same day each week while alternating times. By tracking several metrics including unique page views, time spent on the page and bounce rate, we are able to narrow down when the client's content performs best.
For example, for one of our clients, we found that their blogs performed best when posted once a week on Thursdays around midday. We utilized these same tactics for social media and tracked analytics via HubSpot and through the social media platform directly. As a result of this approach, over a six-month period since the consistent strategy was first enacted, our client's new visitor blog traffic increased by 90%. In addition, social media followers on Facebook increased by 30%, Twitter by 9% and Linkedin by 8%, all in the same time period.
Learning From Your Customers While posting on social media or your blog sporadically might capture the attention of some customers, it will not help you develop meaningful relationships with your audience. To fully connect with your audience and hit all of the necessary touch points, you need to be a consistent content creator.
Publishing on a regular basis also gives you the opportunity to learn from your customers. When you are a part of the conversation, content creation becomes an easier feat as you listen to and learn what your customers want.
We recommend engaging with your customers on social media daily. Read their comments, take note of the posts they “like” the most, and keep track of the number of retweets. With this knowledge in tow, you can more easily understand which content is driving engagement and which posts are dropping followers.
For your blogs, utilize platforms like Google Analytics to monitor important key performance indicators. For example, you will want to track the bounce rate to determine if users are leaving your website without taking action or if they’re visiting another page. You will also want to track page views for each blog to identify the topics that are resonating with your audience the most.
Making Content Creation A Habit, Not A One-Off Strategy In the commercial real estate industry, it is often difficult to keep up with daily tasks, let alone larger content marketing projects. Creating consistent, high-quality content becomes even more complicated when you add in a team of multiple writers, each with different writing styles and editorial preferences. However, it’s essential for your organization to develop and stick to a plan that will eventually create a habitual process that all team members follow.
Creating content doesn’t have to be a difficult or complicated process, but it does need to be consistent and valuable to your audience. Start by creating a shared document that holds all of your content ideas and a specific publishing schedule. Assign due dates and important tasks to each team member, and elect one member to oversee the project.
Remember: Even if maintaining a consistent brand and content strategy is a challenge for your business, it is certainly a challenge worth taking.
The biggest mistakes we see small business make is working with multiple (graphic) designers or begin with one designer and then working with another. Select one marketer and / or designer. One for consistency as mentioned above. Two ethical designers will not use other designer work. Also, they often do not properly budget nor plan for the long-term when working with a designer or marketer. Often small business expect to make no contribution to their marketing efforts or designs. Often small business owners are not ready to let go of creative control of their projects and expect results too soon, which leads to the use of multiple designers or marketers. If a small business owner feels that he or she can do the work themselves, they should do it. Otherwise they should be prepared not to be the designer or marketer. If the designer is willing to use other designers or marketers work typically they will not be ethical with you either.
How does your business operate ethically? How does your company operate consistently?
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