Although you may not consciously realize it on a daily basis, your business – and just about every business, from the smallest stores to the largest corporations – both depends and relies on consistency. Businesses simply aren’t chaotic or turbulent entities, even if certain factors may give that impression to you or your customers. A business that isn’t consistent is a business in turmoil, a business in recovery or a business in trouble, because your ultimate goal is to attract new customers and retain your existing ones. Customers ultimately want to feel secure in their choice when they choose your business. While “breaking the rules” or being “disruptive” may be popular buzzwords in certain industries your best opportunity to grow your business in a sustained and ultimately successful manner is to conduct it in a stable and consistent way. That works even if the product or service you’re offering is disruptive within your industry.
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know!
If you’re an experienced professional in your current capacity as an entrepreneur, freelancer or business manager, all of this is already known to you. You don’t come to work in the morning and act or conduct business in a radically different manner than you did the morning before. You most likely strive to offer the same high level of service to all of your customers on a consistent basis. This consistency represents a consistency in your brand identity, as you and your employees are ultimately the most important ambassadors of your brand to your customers and the public at large.
However, another component of your brand identity is your brand voice, which is represented by the content marketing you post to your blog, social media accounts and on other online forums. Although it may sometimes seem more inconsequential than, say, a direct interaction with a customer, maintaining a consistent brand voice online can be hugely important to your business, especially a small business with limited means to establish your brand through advertising or large-scale marketing campaigns.
Mistaking A Personal Voice For A Brand Voice
For many entrepreneurs, especially new entrepreneurs or freelancers, you are the sole representative of your brand. That can on occasion lead to an unfortunately blurring of the line between a personal voice and your brand voice. While you are used to maintaining a consistent brand voice with your customers through one-on-one interactions, the very nature of producing content marketing meant for a larger audience through online channels that consistently and accurately utilizes your brand voice can be overwhelming for those who are not professional writers and marketers.
Even if you are the sole representative of your brand and business, one of the biggest mistakes you can make when representing your brand is treating the official online channels for your brand in the same manner as your personal accounts, or substituting your brand channels for personal accounts.If you are determined to produce and post your own content marketing, it is imperative that you take the time to produce content that accurately represents your brand voice, with none of the changes in temperament or personal content that may come with the ease of taking a casual attitude towards your content marketing and the ease of posting content online.
In our next post, we will discuss a method by which any entrepreneur, freelancer or professional, even one that isn’t a trained writer or marketer, can maintain a consistent brand voice and produce quality content marketing!