Crystal Clear Communications Blog

When you deliver your brand message consistently, it breaks through and gets remembered by people in your audience.

That’s because consistent messages land in your audience’s hearts and minds.

It’s especially true when your message maximizes reward and minimizes effort for the audience.

Consistency creates a path to credibility 

To get audiences to trust your brand requires that you build credibility over time. And consistency is the path to credibility, notes cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Carmen Simon.

When your message remains consistent, it can earn a spot in the brain’s place cells, which never run out of capacity. Since inconsistent messages get stored in short-term memory, they’re much more likely to be forgotten, quickly.

Delivering your brand message consistently over time means that audiences get comfortable with your message at their own pace.

“People prefer their sources of information to be highly correlated. Then all the messages you get are consistent with each other and you’re comfortable,” wrote Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow.

Marketers struggle to attain message consistency

“The entire act of marketing boils down to just two things: what you say and how you say it,” writes Guttmann in his book Simply Put.

A consistent message governs what brands say, but not all brands have addressed this need. That’s why delivering a consistent message is a significant challenge, say marketers who create content for consumer and business audiences.

Recent surveys from the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs show that 1 out of 3 marketers is struggling to keep their brand’s message consistent.

Chances are, if you’re a marketer struggling with message consistency, so are other people in your company – in marketing, sales, human resources, and customer service.

What did B2C and B2B marketers say about the challenge of message consistency in surveys? Some 34% of consumer marketers and 33% of business marketers say they find message consistency challenging to achieve.

B2B marketers also find message consistency challenging to achieve:

To deliver a great customer experience, consistency is crucial 

People want to have experiences with your brand that live up to your consistent, credibility-building message. In fact, McKinsey calls consistency “the secret ingredient” of a great customer experience.

For new customers, hearing your brand’s message may propel them to begin a buyers’ journey. That’s why we help our clients co-create their messages with a Message Map.

With a co-created Message Map, you have a message in hand that works with your audiences.

A Message Map fits on one screen or one piece of paper, so that you and everyone who delivers your brand’s message can:

• See what to say.
• Say what you mean.
• Keep your message clear, consistent, and compelling.

Once your create your consistent message, the next step is to get it ingrained in your brand and throughout your company.

Consistent messages make your job easier

Consistent messaging makes your job easier and improves your results too. With a Message Map, it becomes easier and quicker to:

• Create marketing and communications materials that tell your story across all media – digital, physical, live, and hybrid.
• Save time on content reviews, since your team buys into the Message Map you created together.
• Build or revise a website, presentation, or selling materials.
• Position and launch new products successfully.
• Frame clear strategies for growth that investors, customers, and employees understand.
• Introduce new leaders to your team.
• Recruit, engage, and retain employees with your on-target message.
• Increase investors’ confidence in your company.
• Build your reputation in your local communities.
• Secure approvals for mergers and acquisitions.

If you find yourself longing for one consistent message, here’s how to get started. See our blog, What Is a Message Map?