Marketing is easier when you mean what you say

It’s easy to fall into the trap of telling your customers whatever you think they want to hear. In the short term this type of people pleasing pays off, but people are fickle. What they want to hear changes all the time.

If you run a regional airline your audience might gobble it up when you say your top priority is being the fastest most convenient way to travel between Indianapolis between and Louisville. Do you really mean that?

If that really is your top priority that will show up in all your company decisions. You’ll structure your boarding procedure to get people seated and in the air quickly. If there’s a mechanical problem, you’ll get people onto another plane immediately to keep them on schedule – even if that means you need to keep an extra plane in both Indianapolis and Louisville in case something like this comes up. Yup, that decision means less profit, but did you mean it when you said fast convenient travel was your top priority. If it’s only second or third, don’t pretend anything different. That’s still probably a higher priority than it is for most of your competitors, so just be honest about it.

Your marketing should always reflect what you are really about. The alternative is spending a lot of resources and mental energy on repairing your damaged reputation when your true organizational priorities are exposed. And they will be eventually be exposed.

This isn’t just about avoiding negative consequences, though. There are real, positive benefits to being authentic with your marketing:

1. Consistency. You are automatically developing a consistent voice that your customers can rely on. (Basic Marketing Tenet #23: People give more money to someone they trust than someone they don’t.)
2. Repetition. On a related note by virtue of always telling the truth, you’re repeating the same message to your market.
3. Flexibility. When your values are transparent, you know how to respond to all the unexpected challenges that come up. Public responses are faster and easier because your response naturally comes out of your authentic values (instead of what you think people want to hear).

The wrinkle that makes this so complicated is that your business does depend on addressing the pains of your customers. You really do need to listen to them, understand what they need, and provide solutions.

Just make sure you never describe yourself as something you aren’t to appease people.