Esther
Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast I'm Esther.
Melanie
And my name is Melanie.
Esther
And today, we're talking about the importance of having a consistent message.
Melanie
This only came about because somebody sent us a message to our web site to suggest that we do it this week purely because it was something that was brought up in a conversation with some of their colleagues over the week.
Esther
Yes, so what do we mean when we talk about a consistent message? Well, there are lots of different angles to it, so your message comes across through your logo, your branding, your website, your social media, your blog posts, your pop up banners, your printed media, lots and lots of different places, so if you were to change your logo, for example, where else would you have to change it, if you change on your web site? Do you really need to change it anywhere else?
Melanie
Well, yes and no. We're all small enough or sole trader businesses here, and we do appreciate that it can get quite costly, especially when you're doing a rebrand, but there are different ways of doing a consistent message without changing absolutely everything immediately, but it is something that you do have to budget for and allow time for it to do the complete changeover.
Esther
Yeah, definitely, and one place we would recommend starting after you change your logo obviously is putting up the new one on your website and then changing it on your social media platforms, that's where most people are going to find you if they go looking on Google, you will pop up with your website, with your LinkedIn, with your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, wherever you are online. And after that, you might not be going to events for three months, six months, a year, so that can be held off for a bit longer, and that gives you time to change your pop up on your business cards, your whatever else, and have it on the package.
Melanie
Yeah. I mean, it's not just that I mean, we recently did a podcast about your graphics and your branding, which is effectively your graphics, and very soon we can be doing another one about graphic design, but this time not so much just about branding. But your message isn't just pictures, although pictures do help is also what you say about yourself, and a lot of people put a huge amount of time and effort into their website and then neglect to mention exactly what they do or what powers them essentially on their social media platforms, on their flies, on their business cards, on their printouts or downloadable from their websites, and if you don't do that, you're still not generating a consistent message, which is what today's talk is about.
Esther
Yes, absolutely. We've recently had a client come with a rebrand, got a new logo done, changed the name slightly of the company, and we noticed that the videos that he'd done for YouTube still had the old logo on them, so he had to go back and redo all the editing of the videos to get the new logo on them, simple things like that you might overlook at the start, but that can make an absolute difference. Otherwise, people might think it's not the same company, it's not the same person, it's not the same brand at all that, that's talking to them.
Melanie
You know, some speaking to us earlier on and there was a company a couple of years ago that I'm aware of who did actually do a slight rebrand and they didn't change everything straight away, hence why this particular client came up in my head when this was brought to us, and unfortunately, when they went to their next show because they had a product, somebody came up and thought they were being an imposter to the previous brand, it was exactly the same company, but they hadn't updated any of the stands, any of the flyers, anything actually, the only thing that had been updated with the images on their website.
Esther
Yeah, and it's important that when you go out into the public, you are your brand, you are your message, that you take the information that ytalkou have on your website and you run with it, ok, so we are also talking about how companies with more than just one person, so not just sole traders, not just solo partners, if they have two, three, four people in their company posting on social media on their behalf, are they saying the same thing? Are they giving out the same message? Are they all promoting the same aspects of what the business does? I mean, there's no point in one person on your company going on Facebook and saying, we absolutely hate LinkedIn and we are only here on Facebook, and somebody else from your same company going onto LinkedIn and saying the exact opposite and say, you know, we hit Facebook and we're only here on LinkedIn, things like that, that, you know, it's a simple example, but it shows that there needs to be the consistency across all platforms, and we were talking also about updating your bio that it's important to have, you know, if you change from being a graphic designer to a content marketer, then, you know, you might still be doing graphic design in that, but you need to include on your bios that you're doing content marketing. Otherwise, people will still look for you for just graphic design, if you add or take away services, make sure it's seen on your social media, on your web site, on wherever it is that you're advertising that you do X, Y and Z services.
Melanie
Yeah, I mean, you made a very good point earlier on just now when you were talking about essentiall personas and how to maintain a consistent message across a platform with several people is essential, so you create a persona so that people understand what you stand for and other people can step in and post you and still maintain the same message or persona. So, yeah, that would be one podcast about that as well, would you? That's quite a big beast of a thing to talk about.
Esther
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Especially if you outsource any of your social media or any of your website or any of your content marketing and your, you know, blog posts.
Melanie
And that means even insource as well, even if you're doing it within your own team, you don't have to go out of the company to do it, but if you're relying on somebody else to step in and do it for you within your team, then they need to know how you've previously posted what matters to you as as a brand and that sort of stuff as well.
Esther
Yeah, absolutely, and that's important to get the rest of your team on board with what the message is and what your goal is for the year and what it is that you're wanting to get across to your audience when it comes to your web content, for example, if you add products, if you sell baby clothes and now you're also going to be selling baby blankets, it's important that you know, that is also portrayed on your website, on your social media, it's just getting that across that something has changed in your business, but it has changed across all areas, all platforms.
Melanie
Its like repurposing business, you've got the same piece of content, but you're repurposing for each area, so when I had to rebrand a few years back, 12 years back now to make sure slowly but surely that everything in my business cards, my elevator pitch, that had to change as well, you know, because my message had changed and, you know, is trying to think of doing all of it in one go, you can be a bit overwhelming, but if you've got a small team or even a large team of people who can help that change, it can be much faster, but if you're on your own, just think your budget and your time goes and put the time into what you can afford to do immediately, but make sure that you don't get to do the rest.
Esther
Yes, absolutely. Make sure before you even go in for a rebrand or a change of message, go and write down every word that you use that message. OK, so you write it all down and contemplate how long it's going to take you, then when you think you've done most of it or all of it, get someone else with a fresh set of eyes to take a look over it, because it could end up being that you've missed the fitter at the bottom of your website or you've missed the header on your letter in your letterheads or in your email marketing that it's going out from a different email address. All these things you don't like. We've helped lots of people with this, but it's one of those things that you just have to get a fresh set of eyes on it and take your time, it doesn't have to be all done overnight either, you could do a rollout of, oh, look, now I've got my you know, my homepage is now redone and I've read on my blogs and redone my images on my social videos.
Melanie
I got the idea with the videos as well, you know, that would never have occurred to me, but yes, you do need to go back and reload the the the visuals on your videos so that they still look like they're yours.
Esther
Absolutely.
Melanie
You know, I really want to thank for the suggestion for this today, and we know we're always open to suggestion, if there's a topic that you think we could discuss that might be useful, do send us a message to our website.
Esther
Absolutely. Thank you very much for joining us today. That's it for us. If you have anything you want to let us know about, whether you liked your podcasts, there's anything else you've missed to get in touch, and we'll be back with you next week.