This post is all about the importance of how you present and deliver your marketing messages. Content may be king, but if that content is delivered inappropriately, no one will read it.
Here’s a recent example of what I mean.
I was emailed today by a company that wanted me to buy some software. I could tell that from the subject line of their email. However, I have no idea what their software does or even how compelling their offer was. That’s because I never read their marketing message.
Why?
Because they emailed me using the free version of an emailing program, which inserted advertisements all over their marketing message. It immediately drew my attention away from their marketing message and caused me to wonder why they were using such a low class way of marketing their services. After all, emailing software is not expensive these days.
I drew a number of immediate, negative conclusions about the company that was trying to market to me. After all, how professional are they likely to be? They have just shown me, (and everyone else on their list), that they either think it’s OK for pictures of semi naked women advertising online casinos to be plastered all over their messages, or they were too unprofessional to check first. In either case, I was unimpressed.
My conclusions may or may not have been correct, but that’s not important. What’s important is that the way they delivered and presented their marketing to me, caused me to ask myself questions about them that they could easily have avoided.
More importantly, and the reason for this post, I was unimpressed before I even knew what they were offering!
The way they chose to present and deliver their marketing was enough in itself, to ruin any chance they had of winning my business. You might think that this is a rare example, but I see it many times every day. All day long I see people, who make such a mess of how they present and deliver their marketing message, that their message never gets the oxygen it needs, in order to work.
Here are some very common examples:
- People who email you marketing messages, without your permission. They just add your email address to their list and spam you.
- People who cold call you, reading from a script, showing you no respect for your individuality or needs.
- People who have never previously connected with you, sending you messages on Twitter, with a link to a sales page for their wonder product.
- People who walk up to you at a networking event and give you a sales pitch, whilst looking over your shoulder, eyeing up their next ‘victim.’
The bottom line here, is that if we want people to take our marketing seriously, we need to create a powerful, professional impression. We need to do everything possible to encourage them to trust us – and that includes the way we present and deliver our marketing messages, not just the content of those messages.
What’s your take on this?
Photo: Mysza831
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Definitely agree on this one. I know from years of running forums (oh God…forum owners…) that if you don’t create a nice impression and take the time to talk to people, you’re never going to get anywhere.
I’d like to offer a personal example of appearances – band camp. When helping the rookies, you look for people who are focused, hard working, and ready for anything. My now best friend was quite possibly the most absent-minded marching member ever her first year. We nicknamed her “fidget.” But at the end of the day when I said “who’s ready for more?” she was the only one who said yes.
Absent minded, but dedicated.
Sometimes first impressions can be false, so you should work on creating a -continuous- impression. At first glance, “fidget” was a little on the hopeless scale. The second impression blew my mind.
Sorry if that was kinda off-topic. Cool post. =)
Hi Corey – thanks for sharing the story. It may have been a little off-topic, but it’s given me an idea for a post
Glad I could help! It sounded relevant in my head…
As always, a thought-provoking post, Jim.
You nailed the issue particularly well in your final paragraph, too: this issue is all about trust. As soon as we make contact (whether by email, telephone or face-to-face) judgements are being made about our trustworthiness. If we betray that trust with our opening remark, or simply with a disrespectful appearance, we ruin any chance of our message getting through.
Thanks for raising the issue.
I also think this is why design is so important, Ash. With marketing, good design is a great confidence / trust builder.
Thanks for the feedback.
Can’t agree with you more on this – packaging IS important, getting the design right IS so important… and it doesn’t have to be fancy too. Its like dressing up smartly for a job interview. Fail on that, and nobody bothers what qualifications of skills you have!