The Hidden Cost Of Noise

Why Consistency Alone Will Not Save Your Brand

Analysis of 12 Series B software companies between £2M and £15M revenue revealed a counterintuitive pattern. The businesses that increased content output by more than 200 per cent saw revenue growth stagnate below 5 per cent. Those that reduced publishing frequency but sharpened message clarity grew between 28 and 34 per cent. Their effort increased. Their clarity declined. The market responded accordingly.

This pattern repeats across founder-led businesses between £1M and £20M annual revenue. More content. Less signal. Stagnant growth. The culprit is not inconsistency. It is a governance failure disguised as a marketing problem. When the message is unclear, more output amplifies confusion.

The Trust Equation Has Shifted

Trust in brands has climbed to 68 per cent since 2022, while trust in institutions remains flat at 55 per cent. According to Edelman's 2025 Trust Barometer Special Report, 80 per cent of people now trust the brands they use to do what is right more than government, media, or NGOs. Brands are filling the void that traditional institutions have left behind.

But this trust is conditional. Seventy-three per cent say their trust increases when brands communicate clearly and reflect cultural context. The inverse is equally telling. Vague positioning trains audiences to ignore you.

The shift creates an opportunity and a trap. Brands that speak clearly to real tension earn authority. Brands that flood the market with unclear messaging train audiences to scroll past. When your message lacks emotional precision, consistency becomes spam.

What Noise Actually Costs

Conversion research firm MarketingSherpa documented a Canadian travel insurance company that tested two landing pages. The original used what marketers call a clever approach. The headline read "You can't be too careful". The treatment used clarity instead. "Our Travel Medical Insurance has provided peace of mind for over 35 years".

The clear approach generated 330 per cent more conversions.

This is not an anomaly. An online retailer started with fuzzy messaging. "Let's Grow Your Collection Today". After customer research revealed what mattered, they changed the headline to "Handmade Bowties Designed to Keep a Full Knot All Day". The business went from losses to breaking even to selling for a profit.

Monzo Bank demonstrates how message governance scales trust. When the challenger bank launched its US expansion in 2019, it faced the challenge of reintroducing itself to a market where it had zero brand recognition. Rather than amplify output or deploy splashy marketing campaigns, Monzo worked with strategic communications advisors to establish messaging fully tailored to American press and consumers.

The bank's CEO conducted in-person briefings with Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal. Not to announce features. To articulate a single belief: that Americans deserved banking built around transparency and customer trust, not fees and friction. The disciplined message governance resulted in 30-plus pieces of launch coverage, all reinforcing the same positioning.

Most founders miss this. They assume the problem is reach or frequency. The actual problem sits upstream. When messaging is vague, audiences interpret inconsistency as unreliability. Mixed messages across teams erode credibility at scale. The cost is structural, not tactical.

The Clarity Audit

Here is what to do this week. Stop publishing for seven days. Use the time to run a three-part diagnostic.

Audit: Measure Signal Versus Noise

Pull your last ten pieces of content. Email subject lines, LinkedIn posts, homepage copy, sales decks. Read them as if you are a time-poor founder seeing your brand for the first time. Then answer this question with brutal honesty.

If a prospect consumed all ten pieces, what single belief would they walk away with?

If the answer takes more than one sentence, or if different pieces suggest different beliefs, you have a governance problem. You are letting activity make decisions that clarity should make.

Align: Define the One Belief

Name the emotional tension you solve in plain language. Not a value proposition. Not a tagline. A complete sentence that describes the specific change that happens when someone works with you.

Before (vague belief): "We help companies grow faster."

After (precise belief): "Enterprise sales teams waste 40 per cent of their pipeline on unqualified leads. We eliminate that waste in 90 days."

Test it against this standard. Would a tired founder remember it after one conversation? If not, simplify it further. An insurance firm documented by MarketingSherpa increased appointments by addressing prospect-specific cost reductions in every outreach. They researched public filings and calculated exact savings before making contact. The result was one booked appointment per 65 calls, compared to 121 before clarity.

Relevance beats volume. Research shows that audiences who perceive content as both relevant and useful say it helps them accomplish their goal 91.5 per cent of the time. That is 15 times more often than audiences who find content neither useful nor relevant.

Amplify: Lock the Message Across Teams

Once the belief is defined, translate it into decision rules for every team. What does sales say when a prospect asks what you do? What does the website emphasise above the fold? What does marketing repeat in every campaign?

Research from Lucidpress shows that companies presenting their brand consistently across all touchpoints can see revenue increases up to 33 per cent. This is not creative work. This is governance. When the message is locked, consistency compounds trust instead of eroding it.

What Wins Now

The market rewards precision over presence. Brands that simplify the signal speak with intent to the tension their audience already carries. This is not about posting less. It is about repeating something worth remembering. When clarity precedes consistency, repetition builds authority instead of fatigue.

The businesses that plateau do so because they confuse motion with authority. They assume more reach will solve a relevance problem. But you cannot outpost vague positioning. The brands that break through now govern their message before they scale their output.

Meaning is what makes content memorable. Meaning is what creates trust. Meaning is what turns consistency into authority. Without meaning, consistency becomes the noise you are trying to rise above.

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About the Author

Arnt Eriksen is a brand strategist who has worked with growth-stage B2B companies across technology, SaaS, and professional services. He writes about the intersection of clarity, governance, and commercial outcomes for founders whose businesses have outgrown their original story.