Tell Them About It

Lately I've been going on and on about branding.  WHY?  Because promoting a consistent brand image and message can be a shortcut into the mind of the buyer.  Translation:  good branding can boost sales.

But branding doesn't work if you keep it a secret.  Remember PROMOTION?  Promotion is about telling the world -- or rather the corner that cares -- about your product.

So if you hear stuff like this:

• “We told them about it, but they didn’t come.”
• “We advertised, but got no good leads.”
• “We tried that once, and it didn’t work.”

Yell "FOR SHAME!  FOR SHAME!" (Or something stronger.)  Where ever this stuff is coming from, there are big problems to watch out for.  Consider these thoughts:

1. First, ya gotta follow basic communications practices. Foremost among these is repetition. Tell your audience and then repeat, repeat, repeat your message for it to get through. Once is definitely not enough!

It’s not that anyone’s stupid or slow. People have a lot going on in their lives so you have to work hard to get through. It can take up to 9(!) repetitions for a message to sink in.

2. You can boost the effectiveness of repetition by using lots of different ways to deliver your message. Think about how you can send it out. Social media, public relations, mailings, advertising, newsletters, trade shows and websites might work.  The more, the merrier.   Do as much as you can afford.

3. If you’re doing the above and STILL not getting a response, you may need to take a step or two back to make sure your message is meaningful to the audience. Some marketing campaigns produce disappointing results because they promote what the company wants to say not what the audience wants to hear.

'Course if you did the brand POSITIONING legwork up front, this won't be a problem.