Yesterday we offered you the first 11 tips of Mark Hallen’s checklist for improving customer retention. Today is the second installment with the final 10 tips.
12. Give Instruction On How To Get The Most Use From Products And Services
Obviously, this is most important with brand new customers, but also has retention value when an existing customer renews, buys a more expensive model, or accepts a new release of the product.
13. Do Not Turn All Communications Into Sales Pitches
Don’t train the customer to believe that anything with your logo is trying to sell him something. Communications that are thank you’s, welcomes, usage tips, anniversary messages, case studies, etc. make the customer feel that he is more than just a target for additional sales, and pave the way for opening the envelope when you are selling.
14. Assume That All New Customers Are Created Equal
When somebody first buys your product, you may not know how good a customer they’re likely to be. Only performance can dictate that. Therefore you won’t be able to pick and choose which customers to invest in with a relationship program. However, you can reduce or increase the investment in a customer as you see what kind of customer he is.
15. Don’t Try To Start The Relationship In The Middle
This is the corollary to #1 (realize that your retention program starts on Day One). While an action-based loyalty program can be augmented at any time, a true relationship program will get the biggest return by beginning at the beginning. There will be less effect with older customers.
16. Understand That Unexpected “Perks” Do More Than Expected Ones
Think carefully about how you position extras. Let’s say, for instance, that you’re marketing software to an installed base. If the upgrade mailing says “and you’ll get 30 days free support” it might get some extra sales, but it may also decrease response because the customer thinks support will be necessary. It also raises expectations and may lead to disappointment. However, if you tell users AFTER they upgrade “to thank you for your purchase, we’re giving you 30 days FREE support” it can’t have a negative affect. It lets them know you’re thinking about their welfare, since there is no (obvious) profit in it for you. In addition, because it was a “surprise” and not an incentive, users’ expectations for it are lower: whatever they get is a bonus.
17. Determine The Effects Of Any Retention or Relationship Program Only In The Long Term
By definition, any relationship program must be viewed as a long-term investment with the potential for a sizable, but deferred, return on that investment. Do not look to see results this quarter or even this fiscal year. Your customer will reward you for good products, service and treatment only after a long enough period of time that establishes this as your company’s way of doing business.
18. Make Customers Feel That The Relationship Is Worth Something
Here’s a real relationship killer. I get a mailing with a special “customer price,” then see a lower price in a store (or store circular) where anyone can walk in off the street. Treat me as an “insider,” eligible for things that a non-customer can’t get. Otherwise, what’s in it for me?
19. Keep A Control Group Long-Term
To accurately measure the affect–and ROI–of a relationship program, you must retain a control group that has absolutely no contact with any component of the relationship program. Just as important, every action of this control group must be compared to the test group for a long period of time.
20. Define Your Goals And Be Sure They Can Be Accomplished
Direct marketing is not a branding or image medium. Even mailing monthly, the frequency just isn’t there to create a brand. Direct marketing can reinforce what I already think about the company, but not change it. That’s why it’s so important to start with new customers; that’s when they feel best about us, so it’s the best time to build on that.
21. Do Not Even Think About A Relationship Program Without Reciting This Mantra: “LIFETIME CUSTOMER VALUE IS EVERYTHING”
All marketing should have lifetime customer value in mind, but it’s the whole point of relationship marketing. Three, five, 10 years from now, how much more business have you done with Customer A (in whom you invested in a relationship program) vs. Customer B (in whom you made no additional investment). If you don’t plan to look at the program this way, there’s really no reason to do it in the first place.
Source: This article came from Lee Marc Stein. Lee Marc Stein’s Direct Marketing Newsletter Issue #55.
Lee Marc Stein developed this checklist with copywriter Mark Hallen, in preparation for a major client. They came up with so many ways to improve customer retention. View the first 11 keys here.
1. Realize That Your Retention Program Starts On Day One
If your business model involves lead generation, Day One begins with your handling of the lead. You not only affect conversion, but the tone of the entire relationship.
If you’re generating most of your new customers at retail, Day One is what happens when customers open the box after they’ve left the store. Are you doing enough to get them to register with you? How can you help them use the product more easily?
2. Assume That All New Customers Are Created Equal
As a general rule that worked in the past, a new customer generated through direct mail always had a longer lifetime value than a customer coming through direct response TV, inserts, or retail. Now, because of the Internet and because consumers are using all their channel options, we don’t know how good a customer they’re likely to be. Only performance can dictate that. Therefore you won’t be able to pick and choose which customers to invest in with a relationship program. As the relationship unfolds, we can reduce or increase the investment.
3. Don’t Try To Start The Relationship In The Middle
While an action-based loyalty program can be augmented at anytime, a true relationship program will get the biggest return by beginning at the beginning. There will be less effect with older customers.
4. Make It Easy To Be A Customer
Remove some of the necessary barriers you set up for suspects and prospects (e.g. automated email and voice response, long login forms). Think about a dedicated phone line for repeat customers. Some companies have different (easy re-order) web sites for customers than for prospects.
5. Reward And Recognize Longevity
You can afford to give long-time customers discounts, special services, and red carpet treatment. Don’t think so? Do the math. In many cases, it’s not even necessary to invest in a formal “loyalty” program. Recognition can go as far in exceeding customers’ expectations as rewards. Stage and invite best customers to “inner circle” events, even if the customer has to pay for the trip. Example: For its Select Banking customers, Chase arranges for a week-long golfing trip to Scotland. Even having a dedicated phone line for long-term customers can help them understand how much they’re appreciated.
6. Divide And Conquer.
Score your customers as you would prospects and leads. You can do this in many ways – everything from the old standard RFM (recency, frequency, monetary value) to share-of-wallet and potential based on relationships with other direct marketers. Once your customer files are scored, break customers up into distinct groups and build mini-marketing plans based on the segments’ unique needs, previous behaviors, established predispositions and potential to grow. Be sure to establish control groups within each segment so you can see the incremental value of your new marketing efforts.
7. Personalize And Customize.
Think about how good it feels when the waiter at your favorite restaurant greets you by name and knows exactly where you want to sit. You return again and again and always tip more than usual. The same thing works even with hardened enterprise IT buyers. Give them advice, counsel and content specific to their needs. There’s no question that direct marketers have the technology to do this.
8. Market To The Life Cycle Stage And To The Customer’s Schedule
New customers have different needs and expectations than those you’ve had for years. What’s even trickier is that new customers acquired today will probably have different needs than the new customers you acquired three, five or ten years ago did. Do the research to understand and respond to these differences.
Track triggers to certain behaviors and use those triggers to time your messages. When is a customer most likely to buy again? Immediately? A month later? A year later?
9. Ask Them What They Want
Most people want their opinions heard. And they’ll like being asked for them. The act of surveying your customers makes them think you care. When you report the results of the survey back to them, that’s a double confirmation of your concern. While you don’t want to do format surveys too often, you can get feedback after particular transactions.
10. Turn Customers Into Stakeholders
Build a customer panel and/or an advisory board and invite customers to join. You’ll be surprised by how many will join, share, refer and buy more as a result of their participation. If you listen and act on what they have to say, that not only builds their loyalty but makes them more willing to reach out to prospects.
11. Use The Power of Referral Programs
No customer is going to make referrals and then defect. Most customers will feel even better about the value of your product or service when they refer you to people like themselves who have stronger retention value.
Don’t forget to check back next month for the second half of Lee Marc Stein’s 21 improvement keys!
While out for dinner with some friends I saw this trailer. Branding is all encompassing — how you look, how you present, what you say, the environment you create, and more. Make sure your message is clear. In cases like this, an editor or a trusted friend with a modicum of proof reading abilities will go far.
Here’s a nice little 10 Tip reminder that Cohen & Pratt put together made up of quotes from great business leaders. There are some real nuggets of wisdom here. Enjoy!
If you want to be a better leader, learn from those who have been successful leaders themselves. Here are ten quotes that contain basic principles sure to improve your skills if you apply them to the way you that you lead others.
1) “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” Peter Drucker
2) “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
3) “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” Stephen Covey
4) “I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.” Lee Iacocca
5) “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” Norman Schwarzkopf
6) “People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.” H. Ross Perot
7) “Example is leadership.” Albert Schweitzer
8) “What you cannot enforce, do not command.” Sophocles
9) “The question, ‘Who ought to be boss?’ is like asking, ‘Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?’ Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.” Henry Ford
10) “Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.” Bill Bradley
When you launch a multi–faceted job search campaign, you quickly learn that employers, hiring managers, and recruiters are looking for the same thing – a unique value proposition supported by solid, measurable achievements. Therefore, if your executive resume is not providing readers with an accurate picture of why they should hire you, you are doing yourself a disservice in your job search.
The first thing to do is take an objective look at your accomplishments. There are good, better and best ways of demonstrating career achievements. And hiring managers know the difference between them:
Good:
‘Helped the sales department reach their $500,000 annual revenue goal in the Fort Lincoln area.’
Better:
‘Helped the sales department reach their $500,000 annual revenue goal, despite rising competition in the Fort Lincoln area.’
Best:
‘Played a pivotal leadership role in ensuring the sales department achieved their aggressive $500,000 annual revenue goal. Accomplished this by instituting company–wide training initiatives that increased closing rates by 25% and enhanced customer retention by 15%.’
So, how do you take average sounding achievements from boring to standout without embellishing the facts? The idea is not to exaggerate, but to tell a story. For each achievement be sure to build in a mini–story that covers the challenge, the strategic action plan, and the bottom–line impact that resulted from your efforts. Remember, when developing your top achievements it is critical to provide the reader with the full scope of your contribution.
Below are three tried–and–true techniques that will help guide you in developing your high–impact accomplishments.
1. Describe the Challenge
What was going on with the company when you took over the position? What objectives or goals were you brought onboard to achieve? Don’t be afraid to reveal if you were hired to increase market share in a competitive industry, reduce operating costs for one of the company’s divisions, improve customer satisfaction ratings in a 12–month period or help navigate a product launch in a new marketplace.
While quantitative accomplishments may have a bigger impact on your resume, a well–written description of your challenges can be just as powerful. For example: ‘Tasked with delivering a 10% return on a $700 million investment portfolio in an unpredictable real estate industry.’
2. Describe Your Strategic Action Plan
How did you address the situation and what resources did you employ? What new strategies or programs did you put in place? This portion of the story allows you to give the readers insight into your leadership, strategic planning, and problem–solving capabilities.
Be careful, however, not to overwhelm your resume with minute details of each task you completed. Instead give an overall description of key steps you took to achieve those impressive results. For example: ‘Led transition team and orchestrated all facets of corporate acquisition including financial analysis, revenue projections, evaluation and pricing, and bid submission process.’
3. Quantify or Qualify the Results
What was the bottom–line impact of your actions? Was your plan successful? When formulating your final accomplishment statements, make sure your write them in a manner that speaks directly to your performance abilities and core competencies. Once you have extracted the “meat” of each accomplishment, simply summarize the main points in one to two sentences. Remember not to bury your performance impact at the end of the accomplishment statement. Place the bottom–line results first and use the remaining portion of the sentence to provide the background of your story. For example: ‘Grew investment portfolio from $500,000 to $3 million in two years by executing ardent negotiations and implementing innovative investment strategies.’
You’ve been recruited, promoted, and managed corporate challenges. Take your resume from good to better to best, and let your experience speak for itself.
Abby Locke, Executive Director of Premier Writing Solutions, is a Nationally Certified Resume-Writer and Personal Brand Strategist who helps senior-level professionals and C-level executives achieve personal success with customized, branded executive resumes and career marketing documents.
We’ve all heard the relatively miserable stats on how many entrepreneurs succeed at their ventures. With any type of business, success requires a meticulous approach in regard to building the business from the ground up.
Everyone knows they should have a formalized new business process, just as everyone knows a budget and a million other things are good ideas too. But all too often, a lack of process in the new business arena is responsible for other shortcomings or failures that could have been avoided.
The reason this occurs is simple: most entrepreneurs would say a new business needs as much money as possible coming in, which means spreading a wide net. While this may be theoretically true, this method would cause a fledgling independent PR pro, for example, to fall short of goals. This method means you’re chasing everything under the sun you can find; there’s little attention paid to whether it’s the right fit, which dictates whether you’ll successfully serve the client. This method also often leads to low–budget and low–margin projects to gain traction in the short term, while your resources would have been better used going after clients and projects to promote long term stability.
Differentiate Yourself From The Competition
To avoid this entrepreneurial trap, launch your business with a focus and method that clearly differentiates you from the competition. Don’t try to be all things to all people. To use an example from outside the world of public relations, say you need an attorney. You might first turn to someone like the attorney who handled the closing process when you bought a home. While that attorney is almost certainly qualified in their specialization, they might not be best suited for your current needs.
Likewise, a PR practitioner who’s spent their entire career focused on consumer products shouldn’t be chasing accounts dealing with complicated financial products and services. Starting your practice with a core focus and mission will keep you focused on what you know. This increases the likelihood that you’ll have happy clients, and build a clear brand.
Customize Your Pitch
Once you choose one or a few areas to focus on, start thinking about identifying your ideal clients. From there, determine how your experience aligns with what they might want from you and how you can perfectly illustrate to the prospective client that your expertise is exactly what they’re looking for. This leads into one critical piece of advice: Never, ever go the generic route. And don’t take shortcuts, either. People make this mistake all the time: for example, job seekers won’t truly customize cover letters and will instead just replace elements like the prospective employer’s name. A seasoned professional can tell when this is done and it won’t get you very far; in fact, it’s a surefire way to get tossed into the “round file.
A much better strategy is to customize each pitch letter to give specific details on the work you’ve done and the clients you’ve served. Elaborate on how that experience makes you a good fit for the client you’re chasing. Backing your claims up with work samples, such as media placements and testimonials from past clients will be even more effective. Taking these steps shows focus and the ability to put together clear, concise messages to market yourself and potential clients. It also shows that you’ve taken a keen interest in putting together a proposal and deserve careful consideration.
Getting Off the Ground
Obviously, this process isn’t likely going to happen overnight. In the meantime, it’s almost a certainty that in a new business you’ll take on some work that isn’t exactly what you want, but it’s in the name of building a long term practice that better matches your goals. In addition to being prepared for ebbs and flows as your practice takes off, the best strategy is to realize and develop your core competencies. You may want to hire a business coach or identify a person who can serve as a mentor. Either strategy can be an effective way in getting you to stay focused on operating optimally for the long term.
In addition to seeking out counsel on identifying and going after suitable clients, a coach or mentor can help you put in place systems and processes, such as proper budgeting, that will go a long way toward making sure that you not only have enough money for today, but that you will have enough money to grow the business tomorrow. A successful business will always require continual reinvestment; the key is to make sure that money is spent is wisely and maximizes the chances for solid returns.
Finally, as you grow, do all you can to market yourself. One of the key metrics I’ve always used in judging the competence and success of any consultant is how well they market themselves. Someone who’s done a good job of marketing their business has proven their ability to put together unique messages that showcase why they’re worthy of attention. Over the long haul, that goes a long way toward building a brand. With any luck, you’ll have that greatest of all problems; you’ll have so much work that you’ll either have to expand or become selective and turn away anything that’s not the perfect fit.
Cyrus Afzali is president of Astoria Communications, a suburban New York City-based PR consultancy. His clients include law firms, legal organizations, technology companies and several non-profit organizations. Before opening his PR consultancy in 2004, Afzali worked at several New York agencies as an editor and as a writer at several media outlets, ranging from small, daily newspapers to CNN Financial News
A little humor to help you through your week. Enjoy!
I found a new doctor, and asked him the following questions during my last visit — here was his answers:
Q: I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true? A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that’s it . . . Don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables? A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.
Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake? A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!
Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.
Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? A: Can’t think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain…Good!
Q: Aren’t fried foods bad for you? A: YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!!! . . . . Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they’re permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me? A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It’s the best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure? A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.
Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about
food and diets.
And Remember:
“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways – Chardonnay in one hand – chocolate in the other – body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO HOO, What a Ride!”
AND . . . .
For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health. It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION:
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Just saw this and had to share. In 2005 Nikola Basic designed the Sea Organ. Located in Croatia, the Sea Organ is composed of a series of large marble steps hiding 35 tuned tubes located under water. When the ocean waters move back and forth, air is pushed through the tubes, and musical sounds are sent up through holes in the steps.
My friend Jerry, at TiER1, wrote an interesting article on performance management. Take a look at it and let me know what you think about his ideas. Feel free to respond to Jerry as well, he’ll appreciate any input you have.
In the field of performance improvement and knowledge management: 90% delivered is 100% effective 95% of the time.
OK, I just made that up: I’m not out to posit another theorem, we have enough of those (90/90;80/20). My goal is to underscore the importance of time-to-market in a resource-constrained environment.
So what is 90% delivered? Let’s take a look at two hypothetical training interventions…
In developing a learning strategy, a critical aspect is how engaged the people are, and how they will play a role as the strategy builders and as the recipients of the strategy successes. People simply are the driving force behind every part of the strategy. Basically, as learning and performance professionals we state that the development of programs, courses, lessons, and knowledge objects is for the overt use of an individual who has a specific need to learn, refresh, or teach while engaged in a performance-measured task or function. This individual is our end user. A focus on the principles “Simple is better and less is more” is one over-arching objective when developing a learning or an e-Learning strategy. When faced with the building of a strategy, selection of key people from across the organization will be the most important decision to ensure success. For this reason a teaming approach seems to be best when developing a learning strategy.
Why involve people from Accounting, Operations, or even Sales for that matter? It’s simple, really… they are the people who will bring focused attention and a level of importance to the rest of the organization. This is an organization-wide strategy, and, as such, needs to have key people across the organization and within the executive level involved. Executive level sponsorship, ownership, and understanding are the single greatest assets for successful development and implementation of a learning strategy, as well as an e-Learning strategy. It is how you allocate resources, and it will enable
access across the organization.
In the past it has always been apparent that development and implementation of a learning strategy is established largely through a push from the top down, rather than from a user-focused, bottom-up approach. The reason for the top-down push has been for cost reduction, human capital realignment within the organization, large technology purchases, or to capture knowledge and information before it leaves the organization. Any learning and performance systems approach will begin to show significant return on value when the process is user-focused.
The job roles and functions of individuals and groups within the organization drive this approach. Learning and performance content developed from the users will have a significant impact on how work, and workers, are perceived and valued in the decisions they make and their role in the organization. This focus is directly associated with involving people from across the organization in developing the learning strategy.
It’s one thing to be able to answer interview questions well. It’s something else entirely to be able to get an offer. One way to ‘sweeten the pot’ is by offering something that most applicants do not – a written summary of the steps you’d take during the first ninety days of employment. In doing so, you show that you’re:
• Seriously considering what it would mean to work there
• Completely understanding what the job entails
• Taking the initiative to further differentiate yourself from the other applicants
• Able to communicate through the written word
• Willing to share your insights and observations, without cost or obligation
Focus on the Foci
While creating a 90–Day Plan may seem onerous, it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t even have to provide a calendar of events. All it needs to do is provide some additional insights into how you’d approach the job if it was yours. Think of it as providing a few missing pieces to the puzzle they’re trying to solve about which applicant would be best–suited for the position.
The key is to focus their attention on your understanding of – and ability to address – four major aspects of the work at hand: problems, processes, projects, and people.
Remember, you don’t have to completely address each of these foci to maximize the impact of your 90–Day Plan. You just need show that you (a) understand the issues involved, and (b) have a plan for working them. Let’s take a closer look at doing exactly that:
Problems – Pick a problem, any problem. Chances are good you’ll have several to choose from. Most employers bring on new hires to help deal with immediately pressing and/or urgent issues. Show that you know what the big ones are and offer your thoughts as to how you will quickly come up to speed and start handling them satisfactorily. Processes – Sometimes the problems that organizations face are more chronic in nature. Bottlenecks, inefficiencies, conflicting priorities, etc. all slow down an organization’s ability to be crisp, agile, and progressive. You probably noticed several such process breakdowns during your interviews. State what you found and frame your approach to turning them around. Projects – Surely there are also some major projects and key deliverables that you will be responsible for if hired. List them out and highlight what you see as potential trouble points, along with some solutions for mitigating those risks. If you’re thinking about some new initiatives, this would be a good time to include them and their underlying rationale, as well. People – While executives are typically hired because of their functional expertise, their success is usually more a function of their leadership acumen. Frame your plans for creating and sustaining support, respect, and regard from your staff, peers, boss, and other key stakeholders. Use this as an opportunity to articulate your Leadership Message and how you will assess if the right people are in the right roles. Indicate, too, how you will learn who needs what from your organization, and what your organization needs from whom. Focus on leadership, communications, camaraderie, and collaboration.
Based on the specifics of the particular opportunity you’re pursuing, you might prefer to address a different combination of foci and approaches. If that’s the case, then good for you! The more situationally–specific you can make your Plan, the more relevant and better–received it will be. So feel free to use this format as is, tweak it, or completely rework it, based on what makes most sense to you.
Begin with the End in Mind
Are you still thinking that this is waaaay too much work – especially for an employer that hasn’t even hired you yet?! It doesn’t have to be. In fact, just spending 30–60 minutes per focus point might be all you need to create a fact–based, hit–the–ground–running summary document. And, if you “begin with the end in mind”, as Stephen Covey suggests in The “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” the task will be far less burdensome because you’ll probably start asking far more focused questions during the interview process than you might have otherwise considered.
By the way, take note if you really don’t want to develop a 90–Day Plan as it might indicate that the job isn’t one you’d really like to have. Better to realize that before you accept the offer, yes?!
But assuming you follow–through, a 90–Day Plan gives a prospective employer deep insight into who you are and how you work. And, by providing it voluntarily, you create a far more compelling justification for hiring YOU, rather than someone else who merely answered the questions they were asked.
All things being equal, who would you hire?
Barry Zweibel, CEC, PCC, is a Certified Executive Coach, a Professional Certified Life Coach, and President of GottaGettaCoach!, Incorporated. He specializes in providing 1-on-1 executive coaching and leadership consulting to seasoned and newly promoted leaders.
Mixed messages can kill a campaign. And yet, people send disconnected messages all the time. This is part of the reason we learn not to trust them and even question their actions. Marketing messages or corporate communications are no different. What we say and do must match.
Let’s visit the definitions of congruence and continuity so we can see how these apply to marketing.
Congruence
As an abstract term, congruence means similarity between objects. It is a relation which implies a type of equivalence, but not complete equality. It can also be the quality or state of agreeing or coinciding. In psychology, congruence is a rapport within oneself, or internal and external consistency, perceived by others as sincerity or certainty.
With these definitions we can see how important the application of congruence is to an effective value proposition within a campaign. If you want to appear sincere and certain (and who doesn’t?) your value proposition and what you actually deliver must be consistent.
Make Your Case and Support It
For example, if you are creating a direct mail campaign that has clearly identified an effective value proposition, use support statements that align with that original proposition. Though it seems obvious, sending any mixed messages can and will dilute the communication’s power. Each supporting message must sync up with the main idea. If your headline starts with one idea and your supporting statements veer off track, you make your case weaker. The best way to think of this is like an attorney proving their case in the courtroom. The lawyer must explain their case with congruent emotional and logical arguments. If they bring in bad or irrelevant evidence, they’re likely to lose the case. If anything is out of place in an argument, people lose trust in the presenter and start to question the case they are making.
Another example would be this article you are reading now. Every statement I make in this article needs to line up with what is promised in the headline or I start to lose focus and veer off track from what made you read it in the first place. If I don’t deliver on it, then you just stop reading. Still with me? Good.
Continuity
In fiction, film and other media, continuity is understood to be the consistency of persons, plots, objects, places and events as seen by the reader or viewer. But how does it relate to marketing? Let’s use film and television production as an instructive example. Most productions have a script supervisor on hand who is paid solely to maintain continuity across the chaotic and typically non–linear shoot. In a sense, this person is like the “Brand Manager” of the project. Their job takes the form of stacks of paperwork, photographs, and an extremely detail–oriented memory. Their memory is often assembled into a ‘story bible’ which usually includes scene notes and technical details, such as camera positioning and equipment settings. They also catalogue images, using Polaroids or, more often today, digital cameras. All of this is done so that, despite perhaps being shot thousands of miles and several months apart, the story is told in a logical flow. If this job is done perfectly, the script supervisor, or brand manager, can often pass without notice.
Make Sure Your Details Match Up
Continuity can be a bit more challenging. Every customer touch point should be evaluated to ensure that each message and experience is aligned. If there is any breakdown in this process you will have opened up a weakness for a competitor to use against you. Let’s go back to the example of the attorney. Without doing his or her homework, from timelines to evidence to what was said and when, they will be unable to prove their case. A customer is just as, if not more, skeptical than a jury. They are very discerning with their dollar. If your argument is weak and poorly developed, you risk losing your case, and thereby your market share. The best way to protect against this happening is to apply continuity and congruency to your value proposition.
Build your case well and you will be rewarded.
Steven Diebold is a brand strategist, author, and speaker that brings over 10 years of proven business, creative, and human relations expertise to the table. Steven has coached over 300 entrepreneurs and professionals to launch new ventures, develop their online brands, rebrand companies or optimize their business models and marketing systems. His gift lies in connecting them to their unique value proposition and making them stand out in the marketplace.
Here is a post from dAlen about Flock, the Social Web Browser. If you blog, use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube you will want to check this browser out.
Flock also provides tools for bloggers and other users who want to create content—and that’s where this browser really shines. If you run a blog, you have the option of inputting your log-in information for a number of common weblogging hosts and services, such as Live Journal, Movable Type, or Blogger. Once you’ve entered that information, you can click on the browser’s Blog option to launch a pop-up window that is preconfigured with your weblog’s categories and posting options, and also provides space for writing an entry.
Posted by ebrown 
Posted by ebrown 
Posted by ebrown 
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