Things have changed a lot in the marketing industry in the past couple of decades. For a start, marketing became digital. New trends started to catch on faster than it did before the internet.
Language, tone, and approach changed to stay relevant with the ongoing trends and to stay politically correct for a new audience. But there are some things that still haven't changed, and will never change for a long time to come.
Things like techniques, tactics, and good practices. One such practice is consistency.
Let’s find out how consistency can positively impact your outreach efforts and how you can stay ‘consistent’ with it.
Understanding the Essence of Consistent Outreach
So, basically, consistent outreach refers to usual, familiar, and cohesive conversation you have with your selective audience across platforms.
This isn’t just limited to sending emails regularly or posting on social media continuously. It’s about creating a secure profile that reinforces your company’s brand consistency for a lasting period of time.
Think of it like a relationship with a friend, if you reach out to them only occasionally, and even if only for your benefit, the relationship will soon become one-sided and fade out.
But if you check-in regularly, with heartfelt and meaningful messages, they start to rely on you and respond back with equally meaningful and authentic connection. This is how trust builds and long-term connections are formed. This is the case with marketing as well.
This happens due to the fact that people are more likely to trust brands that they are familiar with. And the way to become familiar to your audiences is by increasing the brand’s visibility in places that they regularly visit, without making it look like you’re stalking them.
Consistency makes your business multiply. One fine example of such is Coca-Cola. They kept consistency by sticking to a few common things over the period of time. The red-white and black.
Not just that, they keep their brand on top of public discussion with side hustles like music shows and albums where they feature famous celebrity artists as well as amateur ones that deserve to be heard.
The music doesn’t bring them money directly, but it sure creates a solid media presence ensuring brand success for decades to come. This purposeful repetition known as consistent outreach, is the main topic of our discussion today.
Why Consistency Matters?
The impact of consistency is rooted back in the very fundamentals of human psychology. Our brains naturally search for patterns and symbols that they are familiar with.
Famous psychologist Robert Cialdini wrote in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion how the principle of commitment and consistency works. It’s a two-way thing, but you have to make the first move.
According to the book, people are more likely to stay loyal to a brand they have subscribed to, but only if the brand keeps delivering their expected value consistently.
Now, let’s delve deeper into the ‘why’ factor. See, people easily get exhausted and lose their patience in things that require a lot of brainwork.
Consistent outreach efforts ensure that there is lesser cognitive dissonance for your target audience. Once people get familiarized with a brand, they are more likely to continuously buy products and services from it rather than seek for a new one every time they shop.
If you’re looking for more direct and solid rewards, then consistency will get you that as well. Because in this algorithm-driven era of digital marketing, social platforms will keep boosting your brand’s visibility and ensure organic reach.
But only if you remain consistent on your marketing activity on their platforms. And it doesn’t happen suddenly or magically. It’s a result of you showing up repeatedly, displaying your efforts to be seen and heard on the platform.
But hold on. Consistency does not equal frequency. It’s a combination of both; frequency and alignment. Your outreach must reflect what your brand represents and how it functions, always.
Now, we’re into the tricky bit of the process. Even the slightest of mismatch; a change in tone, a misplaced word, a wrong graphic element, can break the comfort of the audience’s psyche and cause them to lose their faith in your brand, even without them noticing it.
How Consistent Outreach Impacts Marketing Success
Let’s get a general overview of how the two things are connected. Customers get to see, or often are forced to see, thousands of ads on a daily basis. Before long, it’ll start nagging them.
The only way you can stand out despite being one of the thousands of annoying ads is by showing creativity and persistence.
Consistent outreach efforts reinforce recognition from your audiences. If your messages contain a certain tone, approach, timing, and value, the audiences get the comfort of familiarity.
But this might also bore them. So, the key is to maintain a friendly, warm, witty, yet professional tone on a regular basis. The audiences will never get bored if you approach them in a personalized manner.
Another perk of producing consistent outreach is SEO visibility. In guest posts and blogging, if you are regular and consistent, Google will take it as a sign of your site being active and authoritative.
Consistency also pushes the use of related keywords, even without you trying. This drives organic traffic to your site because then your post shows up on the top of Google’s ranking.
Why Inconsistency Brings Your Business Down?
Even big brands often struggle to maintain a consistent outreach. This mostly happens due to the loss of strategy, resources, or choosing the wrong priorities to start with.
First of all, it totally dilutes the identity of your brand that you worked so hard to build. If the message or the visual presentation keeps changing frequently, customers will lose their dedication because they will feel lost and confused about the brand’s objectives.
Also, being regular is a must. People have busy lives. They will forget you or your brand. You should give them a reminder through your efforts.
Every outreach effort is directly or indirectly a follow-up of the previous one. Gaps on the communication means that the brand is starting over again and again. This does not leave a good impression on the reader’s mind.
Breaking communication again and again brings disorganization. Where customers expect persistence and professionalism, erratic messages cause nothing but annoyance.
What Causes Inconsistency And How To Fight Them?
Just like everything good or bad out there, consistency also begins at home. And here the home is your brand’s office. If you fail to properly understand your team dynamics.
This might end in miscommunication and fragmented messaging. Keep an active, well-versed PR and communication team.
Another big takedown is the lack of platform diversity. The same type of content might not work for all the platforms. What works on TikTok might not work on Instagram. The key is to keep these platforms balanced while maintaining consistency.
External factors such as market shifts or world crises like global pandemics and wars can also disrupt consistency. This is something that cannot be prevented but only made up for. But if you maintain core values to run your business, you’ll come round.
Another major risk factor is scalability. With the development of your business, you are likely to outsource and hire people from agencies and freelancers.
But the problem with this is that it can totally dilute your brand’s voice and what it stands for. Exhaustion from constantly being creative might burn you or people in the office. The key again is to make good communication with team members and staff.
But don’t back off hearing all this. Approaches that are strategically planned and require constant attendance can overcome all these challenges.
How to Be Consistent in Outreach Strategies?
Be Specific About Your Core Messaging
Craft a bunch of brand messages that speak of your brand’s mission, vision, values, and benefits.
Build A Content Calendar
Plan your outreach efforts on a calendar. This will regulate frequency and align your outreach with your business goals.
Develop Brand Guidelines
Go a bit formal with the language, tone, and content when you’re in the office. This will eventually turn your brand’s language into a more professional one, ensuring frequency and responsibility.
Automate Where Possible
Go digital wherever you can. Use email marketing tools, schedule social media posts, use CRM platforms. This will ensure that you’re always regularly on time and know about all the latest trends in the market.
Balance Frequency with Value
Consistency does not mean spamming. Know the difference. Only make outreaches when they add some value.
Monitor And Adjust
Track engagement metrics and collect feedback. This will help you adapt to the audiences’ needs.
Our Last Two Cents!
Remember what Mad-Eye Moody said in Harry Potter, “Constant vigilance!.”
That is basically the theme behind consistent marketing outreach. Regardless of how big or small your business is, and no matter which part of the world you operate it from, keeping things consistent will help you to keep your brand constant.