Content will Always be King, but Consistency is Queen

Content is king. This SEO mantra has shaped how brands prioritize content across marketing channels. And while it’s true –– content is king –– consistency is the key piece to winning the sales game. 

If content is king, consistency is queen; it’s a powerful and necessary component of your content strategy. Without it, you can quickly lose control of your position on the digital shelf and the sales and revenue that come with high-performing content. 

As the queen piece on a chessboard is the most powerful player, so is consistency within your branding and marketing strategies. Content will always be central to your online strategy, but consistency is vital to capturing leads, traffic, and conversions in your market. Read on to learn more.  

What is Content Consistency, and Why Does It Matter? 

The digital shelf provides a means for consumers to extensively research the brands and products they shop. Pricing, reviews, features, social stances and moral values: all these and more can be discovered through consumer research. 

And shoppers are researching before they buy. 

1WorldSync found that 89% of shoppers visit multiple sites before making a significant online purchase, with 28% visiting at least four sites; 93% of shoppers compare at least two products before committing to purchase. 

Users take advantage of the convenience and speed of the digital shelf to compare products across retailers and among brands to ensure they’re getting the product that aligns with their needs, values and budget. 

Content consistency is essential in the age of omnichannel shopping. It creates a unified message and experience for shoppers across all channels and platforms where you sell your products. 1WorldSync’s 2022 Product Content Benchmark Report found that 81% of consumers expect consistent content experiences at every interaction with a brand and its products.  

Delivering consistency in your content cultivates trust, fosters confidence, and results in consumer loyalty that provides immeasurable value over the long term. Below, we explore specific ways your brand and content consistency are foundational to your success in omnichannel retail. 

Benefits of Content Consistency 

Content consistency is an essential component of any marketing and sales strategy. But don’t prioritize consistency for consistency’s sake. Below are four revenue-driving benefits of prioritizing consistency in your product content. 

1. Deliver a Unified Brand Experience 

Your branding is the heartbeat of your business (and your marketing strategy.) Brand identity establishes your brand at every in-person and digital interaction. Social media, third-party retail sites, online stores, email marketing: your identity extends beyond product packaging and shapes every aspect of your brand. How do you establish and maintain the all-important brand identity in a market flooded with competition and swayed by changing consumer demands? 

Consistency. 

A seamless, unified brand experience is required to win in today’s omnichannel retail space. Content consistency allows you to deliver the brand experiences shoppers want as they’re perusing online channels for products to meet their needs. 

Consistency in content, messaging and product data ensures the consumer knows exactly what to expect with their purchase –– regardless of where they buy –– which results in higher customer satisfaction and lower rates of return. 

2. Create Trustworthy Touchpoints at Every Stage 

Your products will not sell if the customer doesn’t trust your brand. Consistency helps you build trust –– and loyalty –– that delivers long-term revenue from first-time and repeat customers. 

As shoppers browse multiple channels and retailers, in-person and online, they encounter your brand and products across many touchpoints. From awareness to post-purchase, consumers interact with content at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Each engagement is an opportunity to establish your brand and build trust. Every touchpoint along every step of the buyer’s journey brings the shopper one step closer to conversion. 

As shoppers bounce from page to page and view your products, seeing the same data, content, and messaging communicates a trustworthy quality that comes from meticulous attention to product content details. 

3. Earn Conversions Built on Confidence

Once the consumer trusts your product, you can cultivate lasting confidence that inspires them to purchase. 

As users engage with your brand and products as they shop, each interaction allows you to establish and build confidence. A shopper only buys when they’re confident in the product and the brand that produces it. Consistency helps you earn conversions built on confidence through multiple interactions with your brand. 

4. Increase Recognition and Recall 

Retailers operate in an oversaturated digital landscape. Increasing brand recognition helps you stand out in a sea of content and competing brands. 

Content consistency, including design and tone, makes your brand and products easily recognizable to consumers. Recognition and recall result from shoppers consuming consistent branding, messaging, content and data over multiple product engagements. 

Consistency creates visual and memory patterns in consumers and helps them identify and remember your brand as they’re bombarded with competing products. As a result, they’ll feel familiar, comfortable, and even more trusting of your brand, which positions them to move toward purchase. 

Achieving Content Consistency Across All Channels 

Retail exists within an omnichannel market. Users shop across myriad digital platforms and have returned to in-person shopping post-pandemic. Your content strategy must adapt to fluctuating shopping behaviors while ensuring consistency for all content across every channel. Below are three crucial components of content consistency for brands competing in today’s omnichannel retail spaces. 

1. Ensure Compliance with Industry & Regulatory Standards

All product content needs to meet global industry (e.g. GS1 Standards) and regulatory standards where applicable. Adhering to guidelines ensures your content is visible and accessible to users shopping your products: essential factors for any retail brand. 

Operating from a single source of truth ensures you meet product data requirements. A streamlined compliance strategy leaves no stone unturned regarding content compliance. When all content and data meet the same standards, you reap the rewards of increased sales and revenue.

2. Syndicate Rich Content Across Your E-Commerce Footprint

Rich-content syndication allows you to engage shoppers with high-impact, conversion-driving content. 1WorldSync’s ContentCast enables you to seamlessly deliver your brand experience, marketing campaigns, and detailed product information to retailer sites in real-time. 

With instant content syndication to a massive pool of global retail partners, 1WorldSync ensures content consistency with a single click. 

3. Consistency across Content Formats 

Effective marketing strategies make use of various product content formats, including 

• PDFs containing product information 
• How-to video
• AR applications 
• 360-degree imagery 
• Hot spot photography 
• Product bundle recommendations 
• Product spec sheets 
• FAQs

Even as your content highlights various aspects of your products, work to maintain consistency across formats. AR applications should communicate the same message as your how-to-videos; spin imagery and hot-spot photographs should be of the same high quality.  

Shoppers want streamlined brand experiences across channels. They expect you to deliver consistency across content formats, especially when content is housed on a single product detail page. 

Capture Your Audience with Content Consistency 

Engaging, informative, and conversion-driving content only works when coupled with a strategy that prioritizes consistency. Consistency in product content, voice, design and details are essential to capturing and converting audiences. 

1WorldSync has tools that guide content creation and publication to ensure consistency across all channels. Our resources help you maintain consistency at every consumer touchpoint, establishing trust for your brand and products. 

Connect with the team at 1WorldSync today. We have the solutions to establish and maintain consistency for every element of your product data and content. Reach out to access the tools you need to position yourself at the top of the digital shelf.