Marketing communications isn’t brain surgery

I don't usually post repeats, but it's the 21st birthday year of this blog, so I thought I would republish my very first post, from May 2005! What's your TOT?

Marketing communications isn’t brain surgery

Marketing communications isn’t brain surgery. Know your audience, address your audience, and serve their wants and needs, not yours.

So why do so many people mess this up?

At a meeting recently I was asked to comment on a colleague’s website. Another attendee thought it was fabulous. Me, the more I looked at it, the more I found wrong with it. Overlong, bulky, unclear, poorly designed and badly punctuated – and that was just the main headline on the home page!

Then there were the grainy pictures that had nothing to do with the adjacent copy, the lacklustre menus with the vague names, the lack of focus, the three blurbs that seem to define what he does but had no discernible link (logical, HTML or otherwise ) to any other part of the page…The discussion went on for half an hour, as we discussed various copy, content, branding and design flaws, and why they matter so much.

As the entrepreneur explained what he had done, it became clear that he had made most of his content decisions based on his own druthers – things he wanted to see on his website, whether or not they made sense to his audience (or enhanced his image). The result, predictably, was a mish-mash of messages, poor quality photos, and vague benefits, if any, to his customers and prospects. It was clear that he was putting his own needs first, not those of his target market.

And as another commenter mentioned, the site failed to communicate TOT: The One Thing that makes this entrepreneur unique, and distinguishes his products and services from everyone else in this cookie-cutter world. It was good advice, and should be heeded by all: What is your TOT, and how do you communicate it?

I’m not sure if we achieved a consensus at the end. But I did get a light-hearted death threat from the entrepreneur. A few days later, though, we got an e-mail saying he had taken our comments to heart, and would be working on fixes.

Rick's 2026 Takeaway: Marketing comms is still hard.

Consider all your messages and platforms to be "works in progress." They're never perfect. But you can keep adjusting them, updating them, trying new things. You never know what will click with your audience, so keep talking to them, and keep switching things up to learn more!