Getting rid of these brand rhetoric strategies will increase your influence and improve your brand’s reputation.
Brand rhetoric, the art of creating and maintaining a unique voice for your brand, is an essential component of your content marketing strategy. While there are many correct and valuable ways to approach brand rhetoric, there are a handful of strategies that are only going to hurt your brand. As SEO algorithms and consumer tastes evolve, more tactics and strategies are becoming obsolete—so make sure you audit your current content marketing strategy and avoid these tactics:
1.      Implying urgency with exclamation points. Those annoying ads with phrases like ACT NOW!!!!! are nowhere near as effective as they used to be. An overabundance in the ad world and a smarter consumer population make this strategy completely ineffective, increasing negative perceptions of your brand.
2.      Ignoring the competition. Brand rhetoric that focuses only on self-promotion might be effective for people you’ve already own over, but it’s going to do nothing to generate new leads and new customers. Call out your competition and explain what makes you different.
3.      Threatening or scaring your customers. Making customers feel like they need your product through fear has been an unfortunately effective strategy in the past, but consumers today are wise to these tricks, and they crave honesty.
4.      Tacking your company onto everything. Older content marketing strategies revolved around providing valuable content, then throwing your name into the mix to generate a lead or two. If you’re doing this every third or fourth article, it’s fine, but when you start selling yourself with every post, readers will lose interest.
5.      Trying too hard to imitate someone. Don’t make your brand voice a copy of another company’s. You’re going to make yourself appear awkward. Feel free to look at examples, especially amongst your competition, but always add your own spin.
These content marketing gimmicks are going to crush your program, so don’t use them! Instead, focus on a unique voice that respects your readers’ intelligence and is only focused on providing value.
