Did I mention repetition?

This week we asked: Are your marketing ideas, efforts and materials separate entities or a united front?

1) Separate. – 12%

2) Unified. – 9%

3) Half and Half. – 79%

My Thoughts: Only just under 10% of you are convinced that your marketing efforts are working together to create a seamless message. Not great. In order to achieve the best (and fastest) results you have to present a united front.

Quick Test! Lay out on your desk the following items: your bio, your brochure, a print out of your firm website (homepage is good enough), two presentations and a PowerPoint template. Now step back and look at them. Do they all LOOK like they came from the same firm? Now read them. Do they all SOUND like they came from the same firm?

Staying true to your firm language and visuals is an important part of being “seamless.” You have to build brand recognition and keeping a consistent look and feel to your materials is a key factor. Even firm announcement and ads should feature the same language, logos, fonts and colors as your other materials. Think REPETITION.

The best part? It will make your marketing and business development efforts even EASIER. Yes, easier. Once you have a strict set of guidelines you need only pull from other materials to create new ones. Pull brochure headlines to use as marketing statements in presentations or on folders. Hand out articles or blog posts during speeches or presentations to punctuate your points.

Remember…Be Seamless!

Black Pearl: For those of you who use social networks and E-mail in your marketing and business development, here’s a great post (http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/01/10-ways-to-integrate-your-social-media-and-email-marketing/) by Jeff Bullas (http://www.jeffbullas.com/bio/) on integrating the two for maximum results.