Insights to enhance your communications and stretch your budget
Every organization has them. Even seasoned marketing executives fall into them. They are insidious traps hidden inside your marketing plan.Some of these traps may seem obvious, at first. But all too often marketing professionals settle into an organization and accept it exactly the way it is, losing sight of the fact that there are always ways to fine-tune marketing messages. Once the common traps are defined for you, you will be able to think more open-mindedly about who you are as an organization and make cost-effective improvements to your communications campaigns.
#2 — The Singular Message Trap
This ugly trap wastes billions of dollars in printing costs every year. It happens because the messages marketers direct to different audiences bear no relationship to one another. To get out of that trap, try an integrated approach.
Integrated marketing embraces one “horizontal” corporate message that acts like a large umbrella encompassing and trickling down to all “vertical” products, each with its own distinct message targeted to a particular market segment. The corporate umbrella concept influences and is evident in each message, be it in your direct mail, statements, cooperative ads, kiosks in banks, ads on radio and television, newsletters and even story ideas you submit to the press. Integrated multi-level message programs thus strengthen the impact of any single campaign component as they combine to build image for a company in a cost effective manner.
To create a distinct and clear umbrella message broad enough to include every company division and product line, first interview your executives. Find out what they believe to be the substance of the company and where they want to be in the next three to five years. Then, thoroughly research the competition to understand what differentiates your products in the marketplace. Study how your clients perceive your company and products. Then match the product to the need of the client. Base your campaign theme and message on a need your audience may not be fully aware of. Find out why this product is right for them and begin to educate. Then you have a ripe market for receiving your product.
As an example of matching products to needs, consider a leading financial services company who in 1988 introduced the fact that federal tax rates had reached a 53-year low. Over a three-year period, this company launched a multi-faceted marketing program to increase that awareness among tax-conscious consumers. Their umbrella message was educational. Yet the company refined and customized the message for each audience group and strategic marketing channel, including public relations. As a result of timing all campaign elements and linking them in a strategic fashion within a common, carefully thought-out theme, the company soared from the middle of the pack in tax-exempt mutual funds to a strong #2 market share.
If you have chosen your messages carefully and wisely integrated them under one corporate umbrella as that successful company did, but you are not yet seeing results, perhaps you aren’t giving your messages a chance to work for you. Since awareness builds over a period of years, patience and consistency are required, leading to another trap that dilutes marketing efforts.
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Excerpt from an article for Thompson Becker International and published in the member magazine of NAVA, the National Association of Variable Annuities.