Snap, crackle and pop

In a crowded market place, you need to stand out. But these days your customers want more from you than a business card and a contact us page. They want to get to know you.

So who are you?

It’s no longer good enough to describe your brand as ‘innovative’, ‘passionate’ and ‘customer centric’ then hope for the best.

Phrases like this tend to blend into the background and end up sounding meaningless (I mean, who doesn’t want to be ‘cutting-edge’ and ‘service oriented’ these days? Can you imagine someone who wanted to be ‘behind the times’ and ‘listless’?).

Things have moved on and people are communicating in a much more relatable way than ever before. So you need to inject your communications with a bit of spark.

But how do you stay professional among this ‘let’s-all-photograph-our-dinners-and-put-them-on-Facebook’ chumminess? How much is ok and how much is too much? Are we talking a polite ankle? Or full cleavage?

Well it depends on the medium – you might want to hit the audience between the eyes with your bosom of a story if you’re on The One Show* or you might want to reveal it subtly behind a quivering fan if it’s on Twitter.

The good news is that showing even a little of yourself can go a long way. It just needs to be planned. You need to make sure it’s consistent with your brand and aligned to your business objectives.

1. So first of all you need a clear brand identity – this will help what you say sound authentic, personal yet professional.
2. Secondly you need to work out who you’re targeting – that means establishing some clear ‘client personas’.
3. Then you need to tie it all up in one big juicy marketing plan of action – so that all that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.

This will help you decide whether to simply update your website, start sending more regular emails, or get yourself on social media.

Once all this starts working together your audience will start to see clearly who you are, what you’re about and what you’re offering.

And the good news is that once your client engages with you in this way, they’re more likely to stick with you. The old saying ‘people buy people’ isn’t an old saying for nothing.

So why wait? Don’t let some other business take over from you just because they’ve got this human thing wrapped up. Just a few tweaks to what you’re already doing could be all you need to get your marketing on track.

Talk to me.

*I ain’t getting you on the One Show. I’m not Simon Fuller.

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