A guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “I keep having two dreams. One night I dream I’m a teepee. The next night I dream I’m a wigwam.” The psychiatrist says, “I know what your problem is. You’re two tents.”
Okay, it’s a corny joke. But now you’ll remember this point.
Thinking about branding can be stressful. But before you get “too tense” over branding, let me give you a little relief and tell you about the “Two Tents” of Branding, because they can help to minimize your mistakes and increase your chances for success. The “Two Tents” of Branding are:
Be Consis-tent
Be Persis-tent
When you’re building a brand, just being consistent and persistent will go a long, long way toward ensuring success.
I was talking with one of the owners of Heritage Plumbing, Heating and Cooling. He said he wanted to double the size of his company in five years, to about $18 million. So, as he was putting his plan together, he contacted other (non-competing) plumbing & heating companies that were already in the $18 to $20 million range, to ask them how they did it.
He said, “The one piece of advice that came back again and again was, ‘Be consistent.’ Whatever your brand message is, stay with it. If you’re going to advertise in newspapers, pick one newspaper and be in it a lot, all year long. If you’re going to advertise on radio, pick one station and one time slot, and be there consistently. Do it when business is good and do it when business is bad, and keep doing what you do no matter what the weather or economy does.”
Be consistent and be persistent.
Being consistent and persistent will help you win the day, even if you make some mistakes along the way (which everyone does). Staying out there, month after month, year after year, with a consistent message, gives people a chance to get to know and trust and remember your brand.
And familiarity often translates to quality and trust in consumers’ minds. After a while people feel, “I see this guy everywhere, so he must be doing something right. I’ll try him.”
Of course you want to have the best possible brand message. Of course you want target your best prospects and customers. Of course you want to use the best media or mail to the best lists. Of course you want to make the best offers you can make. Of course you want to make the best use of every marketing dollar. But being consistent and persistent, in the long run, may actually be more important to your success than getting the message or the strategy absolutely perfect.
Be consistent and be persistent.
In his book Guerilla Marketing, Jay Levinson tells about a store owner who was having trouble driving traffic to his store. He had tried this, tried that, tried special events and sales, tried advertising in various media, but nothing seemed to be working very well. Finally, he got the idea of advertising in one of those local weekly free publications that feature classified ads. He noticed that people really read these papers, and they often keep them around for days. He also found that advertising in these papers was relatively inexpensive. So he created an ad and negotiated a deal with the publication: he would run his ad every week for fifty-two weeks if they would place his ad at the top of page three. His ad would be the first thing people saw when they opened up the paper. They agreed to do this, and he started running his ad.
He didn’t see any difference in traffic or business the first month. Or the second month. Or the third month. He thought about pulling the ad, but Levinson encouraged him to hang in there. By the sixth month, he was beginning to see an increase in traffic and business. And by the end of the year, his traffic and sales had doubled! He stayed with it, and he says that this plan has made a huge difference in his business.
Be consistent and be persistent.
Being consistent means you must beware of the flash-in-the-pan approach to marketing. With this approach, someone gets an idea, everyone gets excited, the program gets launched with a lot of enthusiasm…and then three months later everyone gets busy and the marketing effort—which you paid a lot of money to develop—is sitting on the shelf. It may have been a good idea, but without follow-through a good idea is no better than a terrible idea!
When you’re planning a marketing campaign, you have to be honest and ask yourself and your co-workers: “Will we really be able to follow through on this?” If the honest answer is no, then you need to come up with another approach that you can follow through on.
Be consistent and be persistent.
Consistency also means that you make sure that everything you do makes a positive impression on customers—from the way you answer the phone to the way your store looks to the way your brochures are designed to the way your website looks to the way your product is packaged to the way you present yourself, to the way your ad looks, and so forth. Are you making impressions that are consistent with building your brand and your reputation in people’s minds?
In my work with a plumbing and heating company, we found that when their plumbing technicians came into a home, they created a very positive impression—an impression of someone who is professional, who can be relied on to solve the problem. They were already building the reputation and brand.
But when we studied the brochures these technicians were leaving behind, we found that most customers were not even reading them! So the company was missing a key opportunity to make another positive impression that would help to strengthen the reputation and the brand image.
Then, when customers looked at the company’s invoices, which were complicated and confusing, they got still another impression. Customers were thinking, “I don’t understand this. Are there hidden charges here? Are they overcharging me?” Again, this was not an impression that was consistent with the brand image of reliable problem-solving that the company was seeking to build.
So we began looking at all of these points of contact and asking, how can we change all of these communications to make sure they build the impression that the company most wants to build? And how can we make sure that everything we do communicates the same brand image and idea?
Bottom line: never waste an opportunity to make a good impression.
Be consistent and be persistent.
By pitching your tent with these “Two Tents” of branding, you’ll have a much better chance, over time, of building a brand, building a positive reputation, and leading more and more customers to your business.
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