In the first installment of our Brand Credibility series, we laid out a key brand strategy for staffing and recruiting firms by:
- Developing and investing in a strong brand
- Supporting the brand by living into your company’s values
- Taking advantage of seasonal slowdowns to accelerate your marketing campaigns
Employment agencies who can keep up this balance of investing in and supporting their brand will be best positioned to reap the many advantages of a strong and credible brand.
Another critical element of building strong brand credibility is messaging. More specifically, we want to examine how the consistency of your company’s messaging can resonate or repel your current and potential clients and candidates.
In Calendars and Content: Consistency is Key
Staffing and recruiting agencies with inconsistent messaging could be defeating the purpose of their brand. What’s more, inconsistent messaging could be undercutting the substantial investments they’ve committed to creating a powerful and memorable brand in the staffing and recruiting industry.
Consistency is one of the most effective ways to develop trust with your audience. There are many ways you could define a “consistent message,” but the two most important definitions of consistency are in the frequency in the messaging and in the content of the message itself.
Why Frequency Matters
Like a friend you can always depend on to either drive you to the airport or pick up the phone late at night – a brand that publishes content consistently works selflessly to contribute to their audience’s lives.
There’s an important distinction there.
Great brands don’t publish content simply because there’s a due date and a deadline. They publish content because they have something great to share – something that contributes to the lives and well-being of their audience.
That is not to say companies shouldn’t have a content calendar. Working from a content calendar doesn’t make your messaging disingenuous and can be very helpful for various reasons.
Content calendars help to ensure you’re not under- or over-publishing. Mapping out your content can also help to ensure you’re sharing a good balance of subjects – from how-to’s to culture pieces to industry news.
It’s worth noting: a content calendar is called a “content calendar” for a reason rather than a “calendar of content.” (It’s not just semantics to put content first.)
In creating a consistent schedule of valuable content, a company will earn the trust and loyalty of its audience.
Why is On-Brand Messaging Such a Big Deal?
We’ve heard the term “on-brand” for so long because it’s a great catch-all for everything consistent in your content. Everything about your content can either be on- or off-brand, to name a few, your:
- Company’s color palette
- Selection of fonts
- Tone and voice
- Visual assets
- Design elements
If you’re not careful with your brand, you could be creating inconsistent messaging that is at odds with your overall brand strategy. This can happen in a number of ways. Companies might simply lose focus of their brand elements. They might insufficiently train content team members, or fail to impress the importance of sticking to the company brand.
There are several reasons why a company might publish inconsistent content. But why is it such a big deal?
When an inconsistent message lands with the audience, unfortunate things happen – like confusion, distrust, or frustration to name a few.
Those of us who’ve had a favorite band can probably still remember when they released their unfortunate “experimental album.” Similarly, those of us who’ve faithfully watched a beloved tv series can probably pinpoint what season the series went “off the rails.” (We’re looking at you, Season 8 of The Office.)
Inconsistent messaging is serious stuff and has the potential of severing an emotional connection. This is why brand consistency should not be taken lightly.
Create Consistent Staffing & Recruiting Marketing that Resonates with Clients and Candidates
The world of staffing and recruiting runs on trust and dependability. But real “trust” can be elusive and hard to come by. Only those staffing and recruiting agencies who publish great content on a dependable schedule stand to earn the trust of their audience.
Whether you want your marketing to resonate with business partners or potential candidates, we can help!
At Parqa Marketing, we believe in the power of brand credibility. We are passionate about helping your company develop messaging that builds and supports your business. Contact us today to learn more.
Stay tuned to our blog for more in our series on brand credibility.
