- Marketing is a game of consistency and persistence, you have to get going and keep going.
Consistency is defined as ‘the quality of achieving a level of performance which does not vary greatly in quality over time’. Think about it. You could probably see an advert for Stella Artois, or BMW, or Tesco, and know what it’s for without actually seeing the name of the product. Why? Because a brand has used the same advertising idea consistently, over a long period of time. Yes, they may tweak it here and there, and you might like some of the adverts more than others, but fundamentally the same message, or ‘look and feel’, is used for so long that it becomes utterly familiar to the consumer – it develops its own identity and represents the brand – without even having to show its name.
Likewise, persistence is defined as ‘the continuing or prolonged existence of something’. It’s no coincidence that you will see the same advert on TV for a product over and over again during the break. Basically, we’re swamped by repetition of the advert because fundamentally, we’re not really interested – watch it once and we immediately forget. So, advertisers repeat it to get it into our heads whether we like it or not.
Companies bombard us with the same look and feel for their brand persistently and consistently until, they hope, when we do finally want that product or service, we think of them.
And as a small company you can do exactly the same with your brand ‘look and feel’, your PPC, or your press advert – much better to have 12 smaller adverts in the local paper every month for a year, than one big one once. The trick is, decide what you want to be, stick to it in general, and do it over and over and over again.