Avoid The Marketing Communication Minefield

Posted by m4bmarketing under Marketing
From http://www.m4bmarketing.com 5054 days ago
Made Hot by: HeatherStone on January 21, 2011 7:24 pm

Small business marketing communication is important if you want success. What you claim about your product or service can affect your credibility and profit if you can't back up the communication claims.

Who Voted for this Story

Top BizSugar Users

This week's most active BizSugar users. Join Them!

Comments

Written by businessavante
5055 days ago

Hi Susan,

I didn't realize product claims had to account for future competition, too. That must make it a lot more dicey for the legal depts.

businessavante

- 0 +

Written by m4bmarketing
5054 days ago

Hi Duncan,

I may not have explained it correctly. What I meant was you make a claim against your current competitors and it may be fine. However if you get a new competitor enter the market and you want to still make the same claim you will need to be able to substantiate it against the new competitor as well.

Sometimes in larger companies you would know in advance what products your competitors were going to launch so you test in advance.

Susan

- 0 +

Written by saraib820
5055 days ago

Susan,

Thanks for more great advice in the year 2011 and beyond!

Rivkah

- 0 +

Written by m4bmarketing
5054 days ago

Thanks a lot Rivkah.

Susan

- 0 +

Written by yoni67
5055 days ago

Susan,

Great article! Claims are definitley a HUGE part of marketing and need to be substantiated. I often ask myself though when something says "new and improved", 'so what was the crap you've been selling me up until now?'""

Customers, as you said, are very perceptive and can easily get to the bottom of the claims and navigate the minefield. We have to be honest with them.

There are a lot of laundry detregent makers who make a lot of claims that their brand gets blood stains out the best. Jerry Seinfeld summed it up best when he said, "if you have that much blood on your clothes maybe laundry isn't your biggest priority at the moment!"

Yoni

- 0 +

Written by m4bmarketing
5055 days ago

Hi Yoni,

When I worked in marketing we used those words on packs and had to have evidence to back them up. It worked backed then, not sure about now and was usually about some feature that was inportant to consumers. It also meant to consumers that we were continuing to seek improvements to our products. That said you could only use those claims for 6 months which meant more pack changes and costs to the business.

Love the Jerry Senfeld line.

Susan

- 0 +