If I stress one thing across all of my client relationships it is this, consistency is integral to marketing success. We can go over tactics, techniques, and approaches all day long but at the end of the day, you have to show up and do it consistently and frequently.
Consistency Builds Trust
Humans love familiarity. Think about your favorite restaurants that you default to when you want a date night or that you have a closet full of outfits yet you find yourself pulling out the same 3-4 to wear, that in a way is trust. You trust those outfits and restaurants. You know what you are going to get when you engage with them. Marketing your business should be creating a similar effect with your followers.
Marketing Frequency & Trust Building
Creating a frequent and consistent presence in your follower’s lives is integral to a successful marketing strategy. Inconsistent marketing is like that friend you only hear from when you want something. Let me know if this sounds familiar, you don’t post anything all year on Facebook and 2 weeks before your album release your followers can’t escape your posts or for 3 weeks during your Kickstarter your followers feeds are flooded with requests to donate now.
As a fan, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t make me want to participate. What would make me want to participate is seeing you recording your new record through photos and videos. Hearing a single from the upcoming release or getting a behind the scenes look at your latest video coming out. Fans want to feel they are part of the process. Even big names, like John Mayer and Taylor Swift, invest a significant amount of time on social media interacting with their fans because they understand how integral it is to their success.
Brand & Trust Building
Creating a consistent brand will attract the right audience and repel the wrong audience. Views and likes are all well and fine but those are just vanity metrics. You can’t just buy an audience that wants to buy your art, you must cultivate them and that comes from letting them get to know you which can’t happen in spurts, just like friendship, audience building is about showing up consistently and frequently.
You can attract the right audience by showing up in a consistent way with your brand voice. Are you funny and lighthearted? Are you dark and brooding? What is your brand and how would you interact as that brand online? Here is a great tip: if you find yourself hesitating to post something sleep on it. If you still want to post it, it’s likely the right move or you’ve weighed the consequences and found them appropriate for deviating.
Consistency is also integral to the work you are producing, whether its music, illustrations, photography etc. For example, say you are photographer who’s portfolio is light and airy but you deliver a gallery that is dark and moody. Your client is going to be disappointed. Be consistent in what you show, show what you want to make and deliver what you are promising through your brands presence.
Consistency Is All You Can Actually Control In Marketing
I always start my coaching programs by setting goals and working backward from those goals to create a customized marketing plan. I coach my clients on setting realistic goals we can measure and track. I also coach my clients on setting not just results-driven goals but consistency goals because at the end of the day the only thing we can truly control is how we show up each day in our marketing.
“In the end you have greater control over your actions than you do your results. Your results are created by your actions.”– Brian Moran, The 12 Week Year
We can’t fully predict how a campaign will go, especially if you don’t have a lot of legacy data to start with. Sometimes we are making marketing decisions based on best practices and our gut feelings and sometimes the only success is that we learned what didn’t work. What we can measure in those instances is how we showed up in that campaign.
Make Consistent Marketing A Priority
If you want off the feast and famine rollercoaster most artists are on you have to market even when you don’t need to. You have to dedicate time, even just 30 minutes a day, to marketing activities. Sustainability comes from consistency.
Even if you miss a short-term goal most marketing, if done consistently, will have a longer-term effect. At the end of the day, it all feeds into your brand. Even if you think a video launch was a flop or that Facebook giveaway didn’t collect many emails it all says something about you that creates a richer experience for your fans and followers. It also keeps you top of mind when your audience is ready to make a purchase.