The Value of Year-Round Marketing
Consistent Branding Provides Long-Term Success
You’ve planned out your marketing year, ready to hit all the high points for the season, ready to push hard during your biggest time of year. And don’t get us wrong, that’s a great idea. Seasonal ads can reach a broader and more diverse audience than they can throughout the rest of the year. However, you may want to consider a more consistent presence. Reconfiguring your annual budget for year-round advertising, or brand consistency can provide a long-term payoff.
Brand consistency builds long-term success. So, before we go reconfiguring your whole marketing plan, it’s important to realize the value of brand consistency. Branding is a marketing practice that aims to build awareness and develop trust amongst your customers. Brand consistency plays a crucial role in maintaining that trust. Moreover, the more consistent your approach is to promoting your brand, the more you stay top-of-mind for your target audience. Your customers will trust you, and think of you first when it comes time to buy.
We haven’t changed your mind yet? Consider these points:
- Your customers don’t hear from you at all when you aren’t marketing…and their memories are short.
You want to make a big impression during key sales periods in your business, but for continued brand awareness, you don’t want your offer to be the first your customers hear from you. Repeated and consistent messaging helps your prospective clients become familiar with who you are and what you can do for them. You can also remind past customers of your value propositions and encourage them to return. Consider re-enforcing your message during peak seasons, with year-long reminders about how your business is better than its competitors.
- You can capture and build a relationship when your competitors are not.
If your business is a swim school, advertising lessons during the spring and summer makes sense, when kids are diving, kicking, and doing butterfly strokes in full swing. But that also means your competition is doing the same thing. Although in-season advertising has its virtues, it also means heavy competition. Advertising your swim school in the winter months allows your voice to be heard more prominently and becomes more memorable to prospective clients. Plus, it drives your in-season success with brand consistency and frequency.
- You can become the frontrunner for changing trends.
Year-round advertising allows you to shift into emerging trends in both your industry and the marketing industry in a more strategic format, rather than scrambling to send the right message, in the right medium, at the right time. Marketing 365 days a year provides you with more marketing data, gives you a better sense of your evolving target personas, and gives you more insight into what is coming next.
Consistent Branding Requires Attention to Detail
Now that you are ready to commit to presenting your brand to the world consistently, it doesn’t mean you are going to be delivering the same message 365 days a year. Here are a few things to remember when you commit to year-round branding:
- Ensure message refreshment.
You won’t need a whole new look and feel. Don’t forget that you’ll want to be consistent with your brand, but be sure that your audience doesn’t become fatigued with the same message day after day.
- Allow for seasonal boosts and competition.
Just like seasonal advertising, you’ll want to make sure that you give yourself an extra boost during that all-important peak season. Plan for spikes in spending, add additional mediums and maintain competitive positioning during important periods.
- Be strategic during your off-season.
- Offer sales or specials during slower periods, such as free trials, BOGOs, and discount options. This is a time to introduce new customers to your brand through incentives. You may also introduce current customers to new opportunities and products.
- Grow your market by targeting outlying demographics. Since you’ve been garnering all that data through your consistent marketing strategy, consider reaching out to new customers that you didn’t see as your core demographic, but that have shown promise in analytics.
- Maintain brand consistency. We’ll say it again and again. Consistency is the key to long-term success. Don’t allow your business to lose traction or be overshadowed by the competition. Make sure your target knows who you are right away, trusts your messaging, and is willing to engage with you.
Long-term success is powered by consistency, particularly brand consistency. Reaching out to your customers regularly with strategic messaging will drive sales, loyalty, and growth.
