A lot has been written about consistency in marketing, and for good reason. When a consumer hears the same message in the same way at each point of contact, it builds brand awareness. This awareness makes your brand recognizable, differentiating you from your competitors. It also ensures that anyone talking about your brand talks about it in the way you want it to be talked about. Not spending enough effort marketing is one of the biggest mistakes many people make in business.
Let’s, for the sake of example, take the start-up of a new venture. During the first few months of hanging out your shingle, most of your time is spent building a solid client base. There’s little else to do, right? You put together some marketing materials, a website, send out emails and network yourself until you’re blue in the face. As your business grows, however, a shift can take place. The effort you spent in marketing yourself is now mostly devoted to servicing clients. And before you know it, your marketing materials are now outdated or used up. Without ramping up and refreshing your marketing efforts, you’re losing the opportunity to take advantage of what those marketing products were designed to do. Of course, no one’s saying to neglect clients. Good customer service can do wonders for maintaining your business, and even growing it, for that matter. But you need to market yourself. Otherwise, things can eventually slow down and stall. So, how often do you really need to market yourself? Some marketers suggest reaching out to your primary marketplace twice a month and then touching the remaining base less frequently. Your secondary marketplace may only need a reminder once a month, whereas those on the periphery are touched, so to speak, every quarter. What's best? Only you know your audience and business. But no matter how consistent you choose to market, you’re still marketing. Even when you have more business than you can handle, it’s a good practice to get into. Not doing so can leave you languishing when you could be growing.
Ask yourself when was the last time you sent out marketing materials? Why not make an effort to bolster your marketing right away. You simply could be missing opportunities to grow your business.
At Solutions in Print, we’re a big believer of consistency-especially when that means consistently delivering a quality print product on-time and done-right for you. In fact, we’re pretty fanatical about consistent quality assurance too, which is why more and more clients are working with us over and over.