One of the most important aspects of your marketing is determining what your brands stands for and what your marketing message should be. Take a look at any successful franchise to see the benefit of consistency of message.
KFC and Nando’s are both successful even though their brands stand for vastly different things, however, both of them remain steadfast in what they stand for and everything they do, every marketing message they communicate is consistent and aligned to their respective brand personalities.
Do you do this in your business?
It is one of the downfalls of many small businesses. Consumers are trained to expect consistency and if you don’t provide a consistent service or message they’ll see you as unreliable and unprofessional. For example: if you sell sports cars you don’t want customers arriving to find your sales staff in shorts, t-shirt and takkies and equally if you sell farming equipment you don’t want your staff arriving in a pin-stripe suit and tie.
It seems logical enough however I can almost guarantee that if you pull out all your stationery that has a logo printed on it, look at your business signage and look at the logo on the side of your company vehicles you’ll find they aren’t uniformed.
Either the logo is different in format, has different colours or is not uniformed on where it is positioned on the page etc. This inconsistency sends a message to your customers and it’s not a message you want them to hear!
Commit funds as soon as you can to getting a professional logo done and ensure it is consistent in all the various places your customers will see it. You’ll be amazed what a difference it makes to how people perceive you.
If you’d like more information on how to get marketing working for you why not register for our Small Business Marketing Toolbox programme and make 2010 your year to shine!
Tags: brands, consistency, consistent service, marketing, marketing message, personalities, uniformed
