Be Consistent When Marketing Your Brand

We're going to try something different this week. I'd like to welcome our guest blogger Russell Fair--our new Sales Manager. Russell has quite a bit of web development and sales experience and he will be contributing once in a while to the Bella Blog as a guest blogger. I hope you enjoy his first blog post!

Although it seems obvious, I am still surprised when I see inconsistent branding between a company's web site and their non-web marketing efforts such as printed materials and TV commercials. This happens for different reasons I am sure, but primarily, I have observed, it is just because people do not think that it was important to match the online and offline marketing "look and feel." When these inconsistencies are minor, they can slide, but when they are obviously different, the company loses a lot of validity and might even lose potential customers. Companies don't always realize how much it can hurt their business when their customers have an inconsistent experience with the company's branding.

One of my long time friends and business associates had this problem. The majority of his website had a light blue and white theme, the sign outside his company was navy with silver letters, and his printed materials were black ink on ivory parchment. I knew that his customers were getting an inconsistent experience and thus he was most certainly losing business or at least not impressing some folks because of it. His branding message was weak. Once he decided to ensure all materials matched, his business started to pick up. He also gained more confidence in his company's brand which spilled over to his presentations.

I myself have picked up a business card (often without a web address) and go in search of that company. I enter the company name into my favorite search engine and hit the first link. When I get to the website, it is the right company name, but it just does not look like the right place; the colors are different, the logo is different, the fonts, phone number, even the slogan is different. It can be a little disconcerting. So I try a couple other sites. I can't find the one that looks right so I buy my widget from the third or fourth site I visit. Oh, not to mention I threw away the business card, because the information on it was not relevant to me anymore.

When people see different styles and themes they get confused and often are deterred from sending their business your way. When getting a new website, I strongly advise my customers to phase out their old marketing materials and replace them with newer, fresher content which match the new look and feel of the website so their customers get a clear and consistent experience. If these efforts are arranged correctly, they add a lot of validity to your company. That almost always translates to more customers. If you would like more information about how to align your marketing materials to give a consistent experience to your customers please feel free to contact us at 770 509 8797. We can review your current materials, make suggestions and help implement the changes. We look forward to hearing from you!

 

Comments

[Business Cards New York]

I have seen many businesses use different web designs than are displayed on their business card and even different letter head that does not follow consistently with the their business cards. Consistency = Trust in a company!