| Seamless Communications |
by Leslie Speidel.
Disillusions With Marketing
How many times has a business owner said, "I spent a fortune last year on advertising and marketing and it didn’t do any good." Or, "I’m not going to bother advertising - it’s getting too competitive out there and my ads will just get lost." Better yet, "Every time I advertise my prices, my competition comes along and advertises a lower one for the same item and I’ve wasted my money on advertising again." Sound familiar?It doesn’t have to be that way. What those business owners probably didn’t know, was that to develop top of mind awareness with their customer, everything they do has to work together seamlessly and consistently. The more often this can be achieved, the more cost effective their business’s marketing and advertising becomes. And what does that mean to your business?
Developing An Image Through Consistency
One voice... one message... one theme - the market’s perception of your business. It means that any other way will be too costly. It’s too expensive to send mixed messages to your target market. It’s too costly to confuse your customers with multiple promotions, multiple identities, and multiple images that represent your business. And it’s very costly to change your identity and direction too often in a reactionary response to the ups and downs of the marketplace.Consistency is the one thing that most successful businesses have in common. These business owners have learned to stay with their marketing and advertising strategies regardless of the day to day business activity. These businesses project seamless communications so that their market will recognize them quickly, which then increases efficiency from their marketing budget. It can be something as simple as the first recognisable bars of a jingle that you use frequently.
Seamless communications covers all areas of how your business is perceived by your target market, your potential market, your competitors and your suppliers. It is seen in the smallest investment such as your stationary when you send a thank you note to your clients, to the largest investment you make in mass media advertising that everyone will see. It includes your company’s logo, your colors, your in-store displays, your brochures, delivery trucks, direct mail, and every other thing your business does that will be seen and measured by the outside world.
Seamless Communications Throughout The Organisaton
Seamless communications is complete when everything you do delivers the same message. The creativity in your advertising, your public relations, your database marketing; even your employees represent seamless communications. Employee turnover is a huge turn-off if a customer shops with you one day, goes home, thinks about the purchase and when they’ve returned to the store to buy, no one is there that can remember them.Even worse is when a customer buys from your store, has a problem, and then the follow-up service or delivery is a disaster. You know they not only won’t be back, but they will tell a number of people about their experience. Which means that everything that you’ve done right up to that point has now been undone in one short hour. All of the money your business has spent to get that customer to do business with you has now been lost.
A consistent message delivered through seamless communications is the most important marketing tool that a business can have. It takes a long time to develop equity in the consumer’s mind, and a very short time to lose it. Quick changes in your advertising, quick changes in your marketing, even quick changes in your business procedure can easily create confusion and will throw your forward momentum off track.
Summary
Chances are that the business owner who is complaining about wasting their money on advertising is the same one who changes their medium and their message like the changes in the wind. By holding tight to your position and by integrating the mission of your business into the corporate culture from your sales team to your service and delivery personnel, your business will develop top of mind awareness when your customer is ready to make a purchase. The larger the purchase, the more security your customer needs when they decide to do business with you.This security can only be achieved by letting the customer see your seamless communications in a consistent manner over a long period of time.
Leslie Speidel is President of The Speidel Group, Inc. Raleigh, NC. A business coaching, consulting and media management firm specialising in broadcast media. She is a member of the International Coaching Federation and writes for a number of media outlets on marketing and advertising. She can be reached by e-mail at Leslie@Rainmaker1.com or fax (919) 836-1211 to see how you can obtain a copy of The Advertising Checklist that no business can do without. Have a look at http://www.wwork.com/marketing for more details.
Copyright (C) 1996 IRL