I’ve got friends who run a nice company and decided they need to set up a blog and start sending emails to everyone on their list every week. So they did. Now the people who used to care about their brand automatically delete any message coming from these nice folks.
What happened? They got so caught up on the idea of blogging that they forgot what they were about. They blogged mostly fluff, and so taught everyone that messages from them were disposable, a waste of their time.
“Everyone’s doing it” is the dumbest reason to do anything ever, and especially in marketing. If the point of marketing is to get yourself noticed above the noise, being part of the noise is not going to help you.
Worry about your message before rushing into the latest media delivery frenzy. Before jumping into Twitter, Facebook, blogs, mobile, video, whatever comes next, ask yourself two questions:
- What does my audience care about?
Be relevant to something your audience cares about. Give them a reason to pay attention to you. Set yours apart from the 1,000+ other messages they’ll see today. - What’s the value at the center of my brand?
Your best message is built upon a value, before the goods and services come in. Putting your value at the heart of your message helps people pay attention to you and what you have to offer, because you’re standing on solid ground.
Think before you start teaching your audience to ignore your messages. Consider the message first, then how you want to get it delivered. Message before medium.