You have a goal as a brand, and your brand narrative must guide your digital marketing and communications program. Everything you say, the marketing material you create, and every piece of content that you develop and share should reflect your narrative.
This will help create a cohesive experience for those interested in your thoughts and actions. Without this core message, strategy, and discipline, your marketing efforts will flounder.
What’s the Value of Messaging Consistency?
There are technical reasons why consistency is essential, i.e., SEO, SEM, and keywords. But it really boils down to something relatively simple – trust.
If a prospect comes to one understanding about you after reading a newsletter, another after visiting your website, and yet another after looking at your social media, they will get confused about what you actually do. Prospects and clients need to trust your words in every form and not feel like you’re just saying what they want to hear at any given time.
How people communicate and consume information has changed drastically in a relatively short time.
How your prospective customers and clients learn about who you are and what you do spans more mediums and channels than at any other point in history. The dots must all connect to an overarching, cohesive digital marketing and messaging strategy.
Digital Marketing and Maximizing Your Social Media
With the advent of social media, word-of-mouth no longer means directly sharing information between two people. Instead, we often see paid influencers and user-generated content (UGC) inspiring trust and buying in addition to branded content.
These two types of digital marketing tactics have enormous potential to sway prospects. Recent data suggests that “82% of people have purchased or considered buying a product or service after seeing friends, family, or influencers post about it.”
Moreover, the same data revealed that UGC content is even more persuasive, with buyers and prospects believing that UGC is 9.8X more impactful than influencer content.
Strong social media tactics built from a cohesive messaging strategy can be a key sales channel for many brands or, at the very least, an excellent touchpoint for prospects.
Have you considered using UGC or influencers to help you spread your message? Or if these tactics aren’t right for you, do you feel like you’re maximizing your social channels? Improving consistency and strengthening digital marketing efforts can have a significant impact on your credibility.
Speaking of Credibility…
Back in the day (which wasn’t that long ago), public relations was a main, if not the main, pillar in any strategic communications effort. Today, public relations and marketing are no longer separate disciplines. They are one and the same.
Especially in the digital marketing era, each discipline can survive independently, but they are better together.
At Longview, we think of public relations as a great tool in the marketing tool belt. But, for better or worse, Americans’ trust in media continues to dip lower.
While seeing your firm’s name in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times absolutely has merit, that visibility needs to be tied to a larger marketing and communications strategy to truly maximize its value.
Google It
Regardless of how or where a prospect learns about your business, it’s a safe bet that the first thing they will do is Google it. You own your website and social media properties, and you control the message. These are some of the few places where you have complete control over what is being communicated.
Ensure that these messages are consistent with everything else in the public discourse – in other words, “social proof” it.
This will not only help create a cohesive digital marketing experience for your audience, but it can also introduce you to new ones by improving your SEO and reach via social media. This, in turn, grows your influence and potential to reach more prospects.
It’s All Connected
At Longview Strategies, we always suggest starting with a messaging strategy. We work with our clients to understand their goals and implement the best digital marketing and communications techniques to achieve them.
Marketing is an intricate machine that requires multiple cogs working in unison to produce the desired result. The tools work together: strategy and messaging, content development, public relations, creative services, and digital marketing. A solid strategic marketing and communications program will draw on a few, if not all, of these services to deliver the best results.
*Updated November 2023 to reflect new data
