It’s been a tough week for our country’s leader Enda Kenny. In a state of the nation address before Christmas he stated that the crisis in the country was not “yours, the people’s fault” and yet a month later he’s at an international conference in Davos saying the opposite and that we were all guilty of greed and over borrowing – it was us the people’s fault. The truth maybe somewhere in between but what lessons does the furore have for us in business?…… BE CONSISTENT!

In the same way people are left confused as to what Enda actually believes, your potential customers are left confused by your web site which uses one set of colours and one way of engaging and your printed material which is in another set of colours and talks in another way. Add to that, how you might talk about your company or the company you work for and you can see how potential customers may not be sure what you stand for, effecting your ability to win business.

Being consistent across all customer communications, both visually and verbally is essential if you wish to build brand recognition and loyalty. It may seem obvious, but we come across inconsistencies everyday of the week. We spend a lot of time talking to clients to ensure we help deliver the right message in the right way for them.

If mixed messaging can effect the leader of the country with the large communications team he has behind him, maybe it’s time to reflect on what your key messages are for  your target audience so that you ensure every touch point, across all the types of media communication, is the best and most consistent it can be.

I’ve received a flyer through the post from our local county enterprise board. Nothing new or usual about that except there in the corner was a QR code. My first reaction is I’m impressed. The Board are obviously looking at new ways to engage with business people. I then scan the code out of curiosity to find myself on their website. Not a mobile optimized version of the website but the standard website that doesn’t present itself very well on my iphone and isn’t at all user friendly. I’m therefore left, as a customer, hugely disappointed. Will I be scanning through again when I see another QR code on their literature? of course not ,as they’ve not thought through the most essential part of using this technology… what benefit does the customer get from scanning through? If all you’re going to experience as a potential customer is a clumsy website with no mobile optimization then you have just lost that potential customer and that is an experience no business or state run board wants in these times.

….chatting to a potential customer who was very enthusiastic about linking print and mobile. He could see the benefits and possibilities and after watching the Tesco’s youtube clip of the use of QR codes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7HnR02kJxY. He wanted to find a company to help him achieve a similarly impressive campaign on the London underground and had already talked to a UK agency who said they could deliver the campaign to promote the company’s new store.

I simply pointed out that the Korean subway system has wifi which is why the Tesco’s QR use worked but that London like the New York subway doesn’t have that facility so the QR code would be redundant for this particular job and may even frustrate potential customers trying to see what the content behind the QR code might be.

Linking print and mobile is the future of talking to your customers for so many reasons but how you create the interaction needs to be thought through….

Happy New Year to you all.

Well apart from drinking and eating and enjoying time with family and friends I spent time reading numerous websites, retail, corporate and marketing magazines and newspapers over the Christmas period and it seems one of the main trends in 2012 will be the continuing shift in marketing campaigns becoming more of a cross media experience with direct mail, email, mobile and web all playing their part in conversations with potential customers. It’s great news for us as we’ve been eulogising about this for quite some time and developing strategies across several forms of media for our customers so let’s hope the talk is true and we continue to see more businesses talking to us about cross media communication. Here’s to 2012!

Simple and straight forward. We’re not into complicating what is a straight forward message for our existing and potential customers. Interactive print is very much the now and future. People are time poor and therefore increasingly access their content whether emails, news, websites etc while on the go, through their mobiles and so by linking your print to mobile technology you have the chance to interact with your customers across several forms of media.

What we’re here to do is make that interaction more fruitful. The new website simply gives people an overview, the real work starts when we sit down with clients, understand their goals and their budget constraints and then make their marketing work harder for them. It’s exciting times!! so keep an eye out for blog and twitter feeds.