"Drilling Down" - Continuity in Your Presentations

by Skip Cohen

It's Marketing Monday, and a perfect time for another component in the "Drilling Down" series. Time to take a look at the continuity of your complete presentation: your website, social media presence, and printed material.

Over the years, writing for Shutter Magazine, I wrote a piece about the importance of continuity. It's a challenge shared by so many of you. Here's the issue - if you were to put all of your published material side by side, absolutely nothing matches! Your website, blog, brochures, business cards, stationery, and ads, along with everything in social media, have all been built at different times and often with a different vision. The result is a nightmare of design elements that probably don't fit.

With each Shutter Magazine article, authors needed to supply a short video highlighting the key elements. To make the point, I went into my closet and pulled out a combo that demonstrated the problem...including a flannel shirt in 90-degree heat in Florida. It reminds me of little kids when they finally get the opportunity to dress themselves.

I'm betting that for many of you, your support material doesn't look much better. While it wasn't intentional, it happened nonetheless, and maintaining brand continuity is so important. So, let's hit some easy fixes.

• Unless you've got a graphic design background/education, get yourself some professional help. Most of you have a great eye for this stuff, but you're not really a trained professional. It's worth the investment to have someone who knows what they're doing assess all your material.
• Look at everything you publish, from the pages of your website to your blog, Facebook page, Instagram, etc., to your brochures, stationery, and even business cards.
• Remember your target audience. I've written this many times before...98% of the decisions to hire a professional photographer in the portrait/social categories are made by women. Your site doesn't have to be totally feminine, and for you guys out there, you don't have to give up your masculinity, but you need to at least have a little "curb appeal" for female visitors to Internet properties and printed material.
• Pay attention to the way you describe things from component to component. Your content needs to be upbeat and maintain the same kind of continuity. Your website is about what you sell, while your blog is about what's in your heart. Your printed material is also about what you sell, your services. Be consistent in professionalism, detail, and vocabulary.

We all recognize Tiffany's logos and materials, for example. Every woman knows what to expect if she's handed a gift in their signature turquoise bag. Your recognition time on the Mercedes logo, BMW, and Audi is the same as well. And everyone recognizes the golden arches! Your brand needs consistency, but remember, just as important as the look of all your material is the service and performance behind it. Your skill set has to be just as consistent.

Make sure you can walk the talk, then give your talk the consistency to build strong brand recognition!

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