Envisioning Success

Make Your Marketing Consistent

Posted by Chris Shockley under Marketing

We are all very aware that to successfully accomplish a goal takes a certain amount of vision and planning. We look ahead, think about where we want to be, what we want to achieve and then we work backward from that point until we reach our starting point. We do this whether we realize it or not.

Some are better at this than others and some are more organized about it than others. Lots of us find ourselves getting off track half way through the process because we either get stuck on some detail or we start moving forward before the process is completed because we just want to get going.

Obviously if we are talking about a family trip to grandmas, starting before we have everything in place can be a disaster. Anyone remember to feed the cat, lock the door, turn off the stove?

It’s the same in business marketing. Before we begin a new marketing campaign/strategy, we should start with our goal and work backward to the beginning. Look at each step and define how the step supports the goal. This may sound like a lot of work, but think about how much money you can save by having your plan in place knowing that you have planned it out the best you could vs just throwing your money away, hoping it will work.

With the steps in place, look at your marketing as it fits in along the path. Maybe it’s a direct mailer or an email newsletter.  Maybe you decide to re-do your website to better fit into your branding efforts or you create new business cards and brochures to tie into your newly design site.

Depending upon what you are planning on doing, keep in mind that you must build consistency into your plan. Your customers and prospects react much better when something is predictable. Anyone hear of McDonanlds®? Not the best food, not the best atmosphere, but amazingly consistent. Not matter where you are, it’s a pretty good bet that you will get what you expect to get when you walk in.

Here is a pretty good article on this subject of being consistent, so I am not going to reinvent or rewrite. Take a few minutes and read through it. Take what you like, ignore what you don’t, but be sure that you are making that decision consciously.

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Chris Shockley is owner of Envision Design Solutions and has been building websites for over 12 years. He can be reached via the web: http://www.EnvisionDesignSolutions.com/