4 min
When you think of all those big, influential brands that every young entrepreneur looks up to, they all have at least one thing in common: a strong brand identity.
Unfortunately, a strong brand identity is not something that you can build instantly, there is a lot of strategy and work involved.
In the ever-changing world of marketing, it’s important to grow your brand identity with a purpose based on your goals. A big part of that purpose comes from the consistent repetition of brand messaging and identity.
Big brands like Nike, Apple, Tesla, etc. have all managed to evolve their brand identity while still maintaining their core essence throughout the years. How did they do this? They utilized repetition. They’ve stuck to their strengths, and have continued, perpetually, to put their messaging out into the marketplace.
However, repetition is not just sticking with what works. Reputation helps shape what works in the first place. It’s the required discipline that gives your marketing tactics the opportunities they need to shine.
Not every marketing tactic succeeds on the first go-around; it’s important that your business invests in repetition to make sure your tactics have had enough time to go through an appropriate consideration cycle, so they can be accurately measured and then repeated, refined, or retired.
Repetition is a simple concept, but it can create some obstacles when it comes to your business.
Here’s 4 quick tips to help you understand how to incorporate repetition into your marketing process!
Understand Your Brand
To get started, you have to know what and who your brand is. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs confuse their personal brand with the brand of their company, and that can lead to inaccurate brand identity and an inability to create a cohesive brand strategy.
It’s important that you get an objective look into what and who your brand is.
Just like you take personality tests to understand your style of work, relationships, triggers, etc. you should test your brand’s distinct personality.
Understanding who your brand really is and how people perceive your brand is key to creating a powerful brand strategy. It will offer you insights into how your company should behave, how you should talk, and how you should execute your marketing.
All these things allow you to not only understand who your brand truly is, but also how to deal with potential changes and adversities with purpose.
It may seem strange, but it’s proven to work.
In the most comprehensive study of branding and financial performance, Carol Pearson and a team from Y&R discovered that across 35 countries, 18,000 brands, and more than 20 years of quarterly customer surveys, those brands whose customer perceptions corresponded to a clear archetype outperformed brands that didn’t in a combined financial metric by 12x on average.
If you want to learn more into detail about Carl Jung’s archetypes and how they are applied to big brands check out Brand Archetypes blog and see if you can figure out your own archetype!
Incorporate Identity Into All Marketing Tactics
Now that you have more of an idea of who your brand is, you’ll be able to develop a strategy that capitalizes on its personality traits.
You’ll need to take your brand’s archetype, and think about how all your tactics will be influenced by it. Your messaging, tone, word choice, colors, and overall feel of your brand should reflect the personality of your brand.
A great example of a company who puts this into practice is Dove, who relates to the Innocent Archetype. The Innocent is known for being optimistic, and has a desire to spread happiness. As the Innocent, it is Dove’s job to spread this happiness to their customers, which is why their recent brand campaign “Real Beauty” has been so successful.
They were able to see how the world and culture was changing, and reacted according to their archetype, creating a relevant campaign to spread positivity and inspire women to see the real beauty in themselves.
Just like in Dove’s case, your brand needs to practice repetition and consistency in its messaging, due to its archetype.
When people know who your brand is, they’ll know what to expect from it, and will feel a deeper connection to your marketing tactics.
Give Your Marketing Tactics Enough Time to Work
Often, businesses may “throw in the towel” too early when launching marketing tactics and campaigns.
Marketing tactics don’t always succeed with a single use. They don’t reach everyone you wish to connect with at once.
It’s important that you wait long enough to make sure your audience has actually seen your messaging and had the chance to interact with it.
For example, businesses that offer products or services with long consideration cycles (such as real estate or business insurance) may require more time for their audience to see their messaging, think about it, and decide whether or not to engage.
On the other end of the spectrum, businesses that have short consideration cycle products (like consumer goods) will require less time for their audiences to make a decision after seeing their messaging.
What’s the big take away? You need to let your messaging run enough times, in enough places, for an appropriate duration, according to your brand’s consideration cycle.
In other words, don’t be afraid to repeat yourself.
Rinse, Repeat
Incorporating repetition into your marketing process means, well, repeating that whole process again.
Long-standing brands with great brand identity evolve to keep up with cultural trends, like in Dove’s case, but they stay true to their core identity and archetype.
Again, don’t be afraid to repeat yourself, but don’t forget to keep up with your surroundings.
Constantly be reacting with your marketing tactics as if your brand is a living, breathing being. Stay true to its archetype, incorporate that into your messaging, and make sure you give your tactics enough time and opportunities for your audience to engage with them.
How DEKSIA Can Get Involved
Just like we recommend for our brands looking to elevate their marketing, we have our own archetype, and follow our own cycle of purposeful repetition for our brand strategy.
We engineer marketing strategies for ourselves and for our clients that incorporate distinct brand personalities, with messaging and tactics that reflect them.
Plus, we use powerful data to make sure our tactics are running how they’re supposed to. We believe in the power of repetition, and know that the long-term strategy can include patience.
In fact, our 12-month marketing strategies are designed to be repeatable. The foundation of them stays consistent, but we constantly look for ways to improve them.
Contact us to learn more about our process and how we can make your brand’s marketing strategy work more effectively!
