Is Your Content Strategy Helping or Hurting Your Brand?

The Internet has turned traditional marketing on its head.

It used to be that consumers relied heavily on TV, radio or print advertising to learn about a company’s products and services. Now that this information is only a Google search away, a growing number of consumers are choosing to research their options on their own time and in their own way.

This has fundamentally changed how companies communicate with customers and prospective customers.

It’s no longer about pushing advertising out to the masses, but rather drawing people in with a compelling brand story.

As marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary V) has stated, “When you build a brand, you don’t have to sell. It comes to you.”

This drawing in of customers is known as inbound marketing, and content is at the heart of it.

The Role of Content in Brand Building

Often when people think of branding, the first thing that comes to mind is a company’s logo, color scheme, and perhaps slogan. But while these visual elements are important to branding, they are only part of the equation.

Other important elements of branding include the following:

• Voice and tone – This is akin to your brand’s “personality”. It’s how you wish to come across to your audience, whether that be professional, casual, informative, friendly, authoritative, serious, funny and so on.

• Values and ethics – Values and ethics are the core principles, beliefs and moral standards that guide your business decisions and actions.

• Unique value proposition (UVP) – Your UVP outlines what sets you apart from everyone else in a meaningful way, including all the benefits you bring to the table that make you uniquely qualified to serve your target audience better than anyone else offering a similar solution.

• Brand promise – Your brand promise sets the expectations for the quality of your products, services and the overall experience customers can expect when working with you.

These non-visual elements of branding are critically important because they go beyond the visual to connect with your audience on an emotional and psychological level. And since people tend to buy on emotion, having a strong brand that builds credibility and trust in an increasingly cynical marketplace is key to acquiring and retaining customers.

In today’s online economy, the non-visual aspects of your brand are developed through your collective content - one blog, social post, tweet, video or podcast at a time.

That’s why it’s important to have a content strategy that aligns with your unique value proposition and brand promise while being consistent with your values and ethics. Your content should consistently drive this messaging home to your audience so they understand who you are and why they should do business with you.

The higher the price of your product or service, the more important this consistent messaging becomes. The more money your prospects need to fork out, the more confident they need to feel that they’re making a good investment.

Why Content Should Be Targeted

One of the biggest mistakes a business can make, particularly when selling higher priced products or services, is to publish content that is intended to appeal to as many people as possible.

Although it may be tempting to attract a large following, the danger with trying to be all things to all people is that you end up appealing to no one. In other words, you end up with a watered-down brand that stands for good things in general, but nothing in particular that gives your target audience a compelling reason to buy.

That’s because general messaging tends to be, well… general. When you focus on appealing to a broad audience, there is a tendency to avoid taking a stand on potentially controversial issues so that no one is offended by your content.

However, people who are in the market for higher priced products or services are often looking for expertise and guidance on how to take a different approach to solving a common problem. So they want to understand what makes your solution different, including how your philosophy and approach might contradict the sameness of the generally accepted solutions and methods that everyone else is selling. Otherwise, what reason do they have to buy from you?

Not everyone is going to agree with your opinions. But you need to share them as part of your UVP and brand promise in order to create a brand that stands for something specific, so those who are in the market for your solution will connect with you on an emotional level.

That’s why you need to choose your target audience wisely and speak directly to them.

Consistency Is Key

Not every piece of content you post needs to speak to all aspects of branding. However, all content should be consistent with your overall brand messaging strategy.

For example, if your desired voice and tone is casual and friendly, are you avoiding excessive use of technical jargon and using simple, straightforward language that everyone can understand? If you’re after a more professional tone, are you methodically checking for spelling, grammar or punctuation errors and avoiding excessive slang?

If one of your core principles is honesty, are you taking care not to make exaggerated claims or omit key information that could affect someone’s buying decision?

If your UVP includes cutting edge technology and innovations, are you posting too much about older legacy products? Or if personalization is a key point of differentiation, are you emphasizing customizable options over standard features?

If your brand promise includes respecting customer privacy, are you ensuring you have explicit permission from customers to post their personal experiences as success stories? Or if your brand promise includes quality first, are you taking care to ensure your posts focus on quality rather than price?

Content that contradicts what someone believes your brand is about has the potential to create confusion and uncertainty. And as I’m fond of saying, confused people seldom buy.

So before posting content, ask yourself the following questions.

1. Is my content consistent with my brand tone and voice?

2. Is my content consistent with my stated values and ethics?

3. Does my content reflect my unique value proposition?

4. Does my content reflect my brand promise?

If you can’t answer “yes” to all four questions, you need to rethink your content before posting it.

The Bottom Line…

Your brand is more than a logo or a slogan. In the simplest of terms, it’s what people think of when they think of you.

The non-visual elements of branding are critically important because they are what your audience connects with on an emotional and psychological level. People tend to buy on emotion, so having a strong brand that builds credibility and trust in an increasingly cynical marketplace is key to acquiring and retaining customers.

Content is the vehicle for building non-visual elements of your brand. That’s why the content you’re posting needs to reflect the brand identity you wish to create for your business. Consistency is important, so every piece of content matters.