Ensure that your Marketing Message and Offers are Consistent Across all Media

We distributed leaflets for a client who shall remain nameless (for obvious reasons) and found that they had made a basic mistake in the design and/or implementation of their marketing campaign.  The leaflet was well designed, printed on good quality paper and was promoting a good offer.  In addition it was distributed in an area where their ideal customers were likely to live.   Everything sounds good so far so what was the problem?

The problem was that the offer that was being  promoted at the top of the front page of their web site was different (better) to the offer that was being promoted on their leaflet!

I am not raising this issue to poke fun at our client but to raise awareness that when creating a marketing campaign you have to ensure that it is consistent across all media, including print, web and social media. If you don’t you risk causing confusion in the mind of the prospective customer at best and at worst losing their trust as they may see the mixed messages as some sort of scam.  This may sound a bit extreme but remember that in todays environment we are constantly being warned about on-line scams and while this example does not fit that scenario, people have been educated to look out for inconstancies in what companies say so this sort of inconsistent message could cause problems.

The solution to the issue is simple.  Make sure that you have a very clear strategy with a message that has been agreed in advance and have someone with overall responsibility for implementing the marketing campaign.  Also make sure that you check all artwork, no matter which media it s for before signing it off so that you can be sure that it is consistent.