Consistency is the most powerful tool in branding. There, I gave it away. The end. Not convinced?

Here are three things that many people think are powerful tools, but these aren’t it.

Not style.
Not medium.
Not even pop culture relevance.

There is something that could give it a run for its money, but that’s for another time.

In order to better understand the feeling behind this, I want to tell you how the same idea applies to a different field: Music.

What Marketing can learn from Music

The man Adam Neely (music YouTuber) has often said, “Repetition legitimizes”. Take it from someone who has dedicated his life to understanding and teaching others to appreciate a style of music that had its day in the sun a century ago.

If you hear an off-sounding string of notes, your instinct might be to think, “that sounds terrible”.

But if you repeat that riff in a rhythm, it begins to take on another property: meaning. It becomes a sonic identity that represents a feeling, idea, or character that won’t be sufficiently understood without more context. This repetition cements it in your mind, and it becomes a core part of the identity of the song.

Repeating an idea works the same. We are wired to accept what we often experience as normal. I will leave it to the psychologists to sufficient explain why that is, but this is the core theory to why consistency is the most powerful tool in branding.

Telling someone the same story repeatedly means your story becomes an integral part of their world.

What story are you telling? How consistently are you telling it?

Need help figuring out what story your brand should tell? We can help.

The rising tide lifts all boats.
–Henry B. F. McFarland

Have you enjoyed the rise of a niche market as it grows into maturity? Have you also noticed that some businesses seem to enjoy enhanced buoyancy compared to others? What about in search results?

Do All Boats Rise?

If you are a legitimate player in your niche industry, it is expected that your business will experience growth when your industry’s market gains in popularity. This is the “rising tide.” A rising tide raises the market equally, however it often appears that some “boats” enjoy greater “buoyancy” than others in this period of growth.

Some Rise Less

There is something to be said for the lean startup. When it comes to managing cashflow, business is just like your personal life. It pays to keep costs down, and to be careful with investments. People who have not learned this lesson in their personal lives often find themselves drowning in debt. So, too, with businesses.

Lesson 1: If you want your boat to rise with the tide, cutting unhelpful costs is like throwing extra weight overboard, and eliminating debt is like plugging holes. A tight ship floats well.

Some Rise More

You may be the best, but how many people in your market know you? Of that number, how many know that you are the best? Have you told them? This is where brand identity and public relations play their part. Customers and clients are aware only of their perception of quality. What have you done to encourage the right perception?

Marketing has the power to transform your merely floating vessel into one that has the ability to rise higher. The message you send out to potential customers is a key part of this. If you are a restaurant, have you talked up the quality of your ingredients? Have you bragged of the flavor combinations in tantalizing detail? Has your staff provided the service that delivers on guests’ expectations of quality? If you have not, now you know what to do.

What Not To Do

What you don’t do can be just as important as what you do. Take note.

Don’t Talk About Your Competition

Think about whose business you want to be promoting. When you talk about your competitors, you take the focus off of your business. When you speak negatively of them, you portray yourself as judgmental, or lacking confidence. If someone else mentions another business to you, briefly say something kind, and tastefully divert the attention back to your own business. Portraying your competitors positively only makes you look better, and referring to your own business in the same context shows that you are confident in your venture. Both are good for cultivating a positive perception of your business.

Don’t Stray Off Course

Many businesses are founded with a specific mission. Anything worth doing for long is bound to become tedious, boring, aggravating, frustrating, any combination of these, and more at some point in the journey. In the beginning, what brought you to the path of entrepreneurship? What sparked the passion and confidence to strike out on your own; to show the world what you’re made of? Remind yourself of why you chose this path often, and grasp tightly to it as though it were your life line — in many ways, it is.

Don’t Lose Confidence

Entrepreneurship is often the surest, and rockiest path to wealth in the United States today. It also carries the risk, some might say the promise, of failure. This is where we recognize one trait that all successful entrepreneurs have in common: persistence.

Bad times are just part of the game, and the secret to success is to never lose confidence in yourself, your product (or service), or the future. Remembering why you initially had the courage and faith in your idea can be a huge help for staying the course.

Mistakes will be made, and the rate of future success is determined by how much you have determined to learn from your failures, and how much you have determined to never give up.

Marketing and Visibility “Salts the Sea”

Successfully establishing and developing your brand identity is of great importance. Can you think of any brands that everyone seems to know? Of those you thought of, which bring to mind a certain feel? When you see certain colors, fonts, ideas, or situations, do certain brands or products come to mind? These automatic triggers give those brands an undeniable advantage. Remembering our floating vessel analogy, marketing is like adding salt to the sea in which you are floating: it increases your buoyancy, making it easier to rise more.

The Power of Marketing.

Marketing is making your ideas, your products, your solutions, and your availability publicly known. To market effectively, you should have a distinct voice for your brand. Your ideas should be clear, and communicated so that they resonate with your target audience. Your visual identity, your logo, colors, and designs, should work towards inspiring others to adopt your the ideas. If the ideas are already common in your market, your brand should inspire confidence and agreement. You want your customers to take up the mantle of your mission, and to wave your banner proudly.

If you do not already have a distinct voice, work on developing one. If you need a stronger logo, get one. If you need a more cohesive message, work on clarifying your mission. If nobody knows about you or what you’re offering, speak up.

Tag: marketing

The #1 Tool for Marketing. Warning: It’s Boring