New Doesn't Always Mean Improved in Marketing

New Doesn’t Always Mean Improved

In marketing, have you ever seen a company offer something new? It’s a standard ploy to get customers to switch to their product or keep buying. Most people, myself included, assume that “new” means “improved” - that I will get something more or better for my money. That isn’t necessarily the case. 

  • New can mean the company has added a new ingredient to its formula. It may not mean the product is better. 
  • New can also mean that the company has changed its packaging and added different sizes to its product line. 
  • New may mean the product is now available in different colors or sizes. 
  • New can also mean a product is now offered in new scents. 

You get what I mean. 

The word “new” can mean a company has made cosmetic changes to its product. The essential parts or integrity of the product remain the same. This would lead savvy customers to ask themselves, “What is really new about it?” 

To be transparent with your customers, be straight with them. Avoid using the word “new” in your marketing until you have something really new and improved to share with them. 

They will thank you by trusting your brand and continuing to buy from you. Happy customers are more likely to recommend your brand to their family members and friends online and in person. Your marketing efforts will be more successful as a result. 

 


The Four Ps of Marketing: Pillars of a Successful Marketing Strategy

What Are the Four Ps of Marketing?

When I was in university studying for my Masters in Direct and Digital Marketing, our general marketing course began with the fundamentals: the four Ps of marketing. Although others have said over the years that there are three, five, or any number of Ps, the four Ps remain the foundation of all marketing. Therefore, it's vital that anyone in the marketing role understands the four Ps of marketing and how the interplay shapes marketing strategies.

So, what are the four Ps?

  • Product
  • Price
  • Place
  • Promotion

Let’s dive into the significance of each of the Four Ps and understand how their interplay contributes to the success of your marketing strategy.

Product: The Heart of Your Offering

At the heart of business and marketing lies the product. It's not merely about having a product; it's about having one that resonates with customer needs and distinguishes itself in the market. Continuous product development and innovation take center stage, emphasizing the place of products in the marketing mix.

Price: Finding the Right Balance

Determining the optimal price significantly influences how a product is perceived. Prices must be aligned with customer expectations, market averages, and the costs of goods sold. Using pricing as part of a marketing strategy is truly an art that must be refined over time. Prices can undoubtedly influence perception, as can many aspects of marketing. It can be used as a leverage point, a selling point, a competitive point, and more.

Place: Reaching Your Target Audience

Place among the Four Ps of marketing refers to where you market your products and to whom. That's your target audience, and I've written a lot about target audiences over the years. It also refers to the marketing channels you choose to reach your target audience. The goal of "place" in the marketing mix is to find the right combination of channels and tactics to reach your target audience effectively.

Promotion: Building Awareness and Desire

Promotion extends beyond mere advertising; it's a multifaceted approach that includes public relations, social media, and content marketing. Understanding the target audience is vital, so tailor promotional efforts effectively. Integrated marketing communications (IMC), too, remains an integral part of the promotional mix, ensuring that all messages, no matter what channel is used, remain consistent and appealing to the target audience.

The Marketing Mix: Examples of How the Four Ps Are Used

Companies use the four Ps differently. Some products or companies emphasize one or the other.

Tiffany: Emphasis on Product and Promotion

Tiffany, the famous Manhattan jewelry store, uses product and promotion heavily in their marketing, with price as another factor. Place for this venerable upscale brand is essential, but their emphasis is on the products (diamond jewelry), pricing (high), and promotions (exclusive and branded with the trademarked blue color.)

Dollar General: Emphasis on Place and Price

Dollar General, the ubiquitous variety store found in every small town in America, leverages price and place heavily in its marketing mix. Price is obvious; it's even in the store name! Everything is inexpensive and priced at a round number -  $1, $5, etc. The company has gone on the record about its strategic use of place, building stores in underserved rural communities throughout America to ensure access to basic groceries and household items for all. The company rarely sponsors promotions. The stores feature commodity products found in most variety stores and supermarkets. It heavily uses price and place as its marketing focus.

Use the Four Ps of Marketing to Your Advantage

By understanding and effectively managing the Four Ps of marketing, professionals can create a strategic marketing mix that resonates with their target audience and positions their products or services for long-term success in an ever-changing business landscape.


What Is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence (also called corporate intelligence) is the practice of gathering information on your competition and your target market to gain an edge when making business decisions. It includes tracking brand positioning, social media presence, product levels, pricing, and recent job listings. Data sources like purchase history, user demographics, and site activity are helpful when used properly. These pieces form a picture of your competitors’ strategies. 

How to Use Competitive Intelligence

Your business can use competitive intelligence in multiple ways, including the following:

Improving Your Understanding of the Market

Competitive intelligence increases your understanding of your customer base; it will either confirm your assumptions or reveal something new. Analyze your competitors’ products and messages to confirm their target markets and the problems they are trying to solve for their customers. Compare this information with your company’s value statement to reveal any weak areas.

Helping You Set Criteria for Measuring Social Media Numbers

Your competition’s social media performance can help you determine how you measure your company’s numbers. Use their data to guide your strategy.

If you see your competitors spending a lot of time engaging on a social media platform without getting positive results, you have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Competitive Intelligence Helps You Make Better Business Decisions

All employees can benefit from when you conduct competitive research. Sales representative can adjust their quotes for customers based on your competitors’ claims. Your marketing team can plan their messages with the competitors’ campaign in mind. Competitive intelligence helps your team make better decisions.

 

 


What Is B2C Marketing?

Business-to-consumer marketing, or B2C marketing, is a term used in the business world to describe the tactics and strategies a company uses to promote products and services to individual people. Think healthcare, health and beauty products and tourism. Both brick-and-mortar and online retailers can have B2C target audiences. 

Similarities and Differences Between B2B and B2C Marketing

While there are similarities to B2B marketing, B2C marketing is its own discipline. That’s because consumers have different needs and expectations than people who make purchases for their employers. For instance, consumers often want to act quickly on a purchase and they tend to not research to the extent that someone would when representing a company’s interests. This means B2C marketers don’t have as much opportunity to influence consumer behavior. Depending on the product, the sales cycle may be shorter, with fewer touchpoints and it can be more challenging to get the timing right.

B2C Campaigns Evoke Emotion to Sell Products

With this reality in mind, successful B2C campaigns typically evoke emotional responses, while the B2B model speaks to logic and reasoning. Grasping these differences and implementing changes to your B2C marketing strategy can help you lead with the right message at the right time.

Simple B2C Marketing Funnel

That said, B2C marketing success begins with a simple marketing funnel that helps you connect with consumers strategically. For instance, you might:

  • Introduce the prospect to your company
  • Encourage them to engage and interact with you
  • Guide the potential customer towards a purchase that fits their needs

For more information on marketing funnels, see:

 

 


Content Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Navigating the Modern Marketing Landscape

Content marketing vs. traditional marketing is the most recent debate in the evolving marketing landscape. Some argue that content marketing is merely a tactical channel rather than a strategy. In contrast, traditional marketing, with its emphasis on the four Ps of marketing (product, price, place, and promotion) as the fulcrum of lead generation and sales, is the only valuable marketing approach. The truth is that either approach can be effective if chosen wisely. Here, we dive into content marketing vs. traditional marketing, and why a modern marketing plan may include both rather than focus solely on one.

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Understanding Traditional Marketing

Technically, the definition of traditional marketing is marketing offline – that is, non-digital media. Think direct mail, print advertising, television, or radio commercials. It’s the kind of marketing that’s been around for decades since the first business published a newspaper ‘advertisement’ touting hair tonic, ladies’ dresses, or the latest shows or entertainment. Even as far back as ancient Rome, people used advertising – for example, bread preserved in the volcanic ash in Pompeii displays a maker’s mark on the top. It was a form of advertising used by bread makers to distinguish their product from another’s bread, similar to how we might use a wrapper or label on products today.

The Evolution of Web Marketing

Because I am as old as dirt (well, not that old), I remember the early days of internet marketing. Just as the first automobiles were called ‘horseless carriages’ because the carriage was all people understood as a conveyance, marketers transformed print ads into digital formats. Behold: the banner ad.

The banner ad appeared in the early days of the internet, like a print advertisement in a magazine. Static, except for this incredible thing we called click-through. You could click it and be taken directly to the product page. Wow!

You are probably laughing at this mental picture, but I assure you, back in the late 1990s, it was the ‘right’ way to advertise. Of course, we still have some static ads – my blog, Home Garden Joy, displays two in the sidebar for affiliate programs we belong to. I do this for a simple reason: I am very choosy about my advertisers, and so are my readers. I was unhappy with the quality and quantity of ads displayed by Google’s algorithm technology, so I switched to tightly controlled advertising. It works for me, and my readers seem to appreciate it.

Evolution of Digital Marketing

That brings me to my next point. The evolution of traditional marketing into digital marketing is more complex than one might assume. The two areas overlap. Like content marketing vs. traditional marketing, digital vs. traditional marketing is a false dichotomy. There’s no need to choose between them. Instead, finding the right blend of online and offline advertising, choosing narrow tactics like cause marketing or broad tactics like social media, and incorporating successful content marketing strategies and tactics into the overall marketing plan may be the best way for your company to obtain leads and sales.

The Right Marketing Approach Depends on Target Audience

Choosing the right marketing approach, whether it’s traditional marketing, digital marketing, content marketing, or a combination of all three, depends on one thing: your audience.

Advertise Where Your Audience Is

You must fish where the fish are biting. This means you must market to your target customers in ways that appeal to them and in places where they are spending time. Depending on your target audience, this may mean:

  • Print advertisements in magazines or newspapers
  • Radio commercials on traditional local radio, national radio, or digital broadcasts
  • Google advertising or other search advertising
  • Social media advertising
  • Direct mail
  • Outbound calling (“cold calling”)
  • Events and conferences (attending, presenting, a trade show booth or sponsorship)
  • Sponsoring the local sports team
  • Billboard ads
  • Become part of a trade organization (chamber of commerce, etc.)
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Content marketing, including case studies, white papers, videos, and more
  • Coupons, sales, and rebate programs

I’m sure I have forgotten traditional, digital, or content marketing methods, but the point is that the list above is not a ‘one size fits all’ list.

The Best Marketing Plan Is Created Just for Your Business

The best marketing plan is one that suits your business. It is a plan created by researching the product, its place in the market, and its competitors. It is a plan that draws from market research into what your customers – not your competitors, not anyone else’s, but YOUR customers – want and need from the product or service. A good marketing plan charts a roadmap to position your company among a sea of competitors so that it stands out and helps develop recognition, awareness, leads, and sales.

Content Marketing vs Traditional Marketing: Let Common Sense Be Your Guide

So, regarding content marketing vs. traditional marketing, here are the similarities and differences.

Content Marketing:

  • Focuses on awareness, education, and sharing information to empower customers
  • Does not overtly ‘sell’ with a call to action
  • Provides useful, desirable information
  • Meets the consumer need at the point of interest

In sum:

  • Educates customers on how to use products or services
  • Provides increasingly detailed information to bring customers to the point of sale
  • Highly targeted to specific customer groups called “personas.”

 

Traditional Marketing

  • Focuses on generating awareness and a desire to own a product
  • Does “sell” or calls to action: buy, call, click, etc.
  • Motivates through emotional appeal
  • Promotes to a mass market or large targeted market to generate interest

In sum:

  • Generates interest to generate leads and sales
  • Appeals to emotions (keep up with the Jones, look better, feel better)
  • Often mass market or to a large audience, but can also be targeted

Content Marketing vs Traditional Marketing: We’re All About Content Marketing

At Seven Oaks Consulting, we have over 20 years of experience in all aspects of marketing: content marketing, traditional marketing, and digital marketing. We specialize in business-to-business content marketing and can provide this service to your company. If you feel content marketing is a helpful adjunct to your marketing program, call us, and let’s discuss your ideas. We’re honest. If we think we can help you, we’ll tell you. And, if we believe content marketing isn’t helpful, we’ll let you know that, too.

Also Read…


What Is BOFU?

What Is BOFU?

BOFU is a marketing acronym for “bottom of the funnel.” 

This term is derived from a marketing framework known as the sales or marketing funnel, which describes the different stages a potential customer passes through before making a purchasing decision. 

The stages are categorized as follows:

  • Top of the funnel
  • Middle of the funnel
  • Bottom of the funnel

The BOFU - the bottom of the funnel - is the final stage of the buyer’s journey and is where the marketer focuses on turning the already nurtured lead into a customer. 

Decision-Making Stage Content

Prospects at the bottom of the funnel are at the decision-making stage of the buyer’s journey and only need an extra push from the marketer in the form of discounts, rebates, testimonials, etc., to make a buying decision.

Besides the incentives the marketer offers here, one of the major characteristics of BOFU is the type of content the marketer publishes. 

Here, the marketer focuses on publishing materials that help the prospect make a decision. 

These can include case studies, product demos, trials, customer stories and reviews, and even initial consultations to clarify any doubts or questions the prospects may have. 

This is where the marketer provides a detailed description of the products or services and the benefits customers stand to gain.

Metrics

The metrics for measuring the success rate of BOFU strategies and content include:

  • Conversion rate
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Average Order Volume
  • Return on advertising spend (ROAS) and 
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA).
  • Customer retention rate
  • Sales cycle length
  • Case study views and downloads

For more on marketing funnel content, please see our article on TOFU: Top of Funnel.


What Is TOFU?

What Is TOFU?

TOFU is a marketing acronym for “top of the funnel.”  It is the first stage in the marketing framework, known as the marketing or sales funnel, which represents the customer’s journey to making a purchase decision.

Prospects at the top of the funnel are at the beginning of their buyer’s journey. 

At this stage, the prospect knows they have a problem and need a solution but is unaware of the solution they need or the brand that offers it. 

Here, marketers try to create awareness and attract attention to their brands or products. 

They position themselves as industry authorities, providing valuable information relevant to the needs of TOFU prospects to make them interested in knowing more about the solutions. 

The information becomes their first contact with a marketer’s brand, and if they’re interested in learning more, they go further down the marketing funnel into the middle of the funnel.

Marketers don't attempt to sell to their prospects at the TOFU stage of the buyer’s journey. Instead, they nurture the prospects by providing educational and informational content that answers their most dominant questions and gives them insights to understand their problems better. 

Content for TOFU Marketing

TOFU content includes blog posts, infographics, social media posts, videos, e-books, and whitepapers.

After the TOFU in the marketing framework is the middle of the funnel (MOFU) and bottom of the funnel (BOFU), which describes the points when the customers are aware of brands that offer the solutions they want and when they’re making comparisons to choose the most suitable option for their needs.

Metrics to Assess Top of Funnel Success

The metrics for measuring the success rate of TOFU strategies and content include:

  • Bounce rate 
  • Time on page
  • Clickthrough rate (CTR)
  • Lead generation
  • Social media followers, etc.

Creating high-quality, search engine optimized top of funnel content is an art. A good content marketing agency can help you quickly fill your TOFU content for optimal results. 




Content Marketing vs SEO - Which Is Better for Marketing?

Content marketing and SEO are digital marketing strategies that guarantee optimal online visibility, engagement, and overall success for any B2B company. However, some content marketers and B2B companies are confused about the similarities and differences between the two strategies and which to devote the most effort to.

Three key questions remain:

  • Is one of these strategies superior to the other, or do they function better when integrated?
  • Should B2B companies focus on one or leverage both for overall company success?
  • What’s the best way to approach SEO and Content marketing?

Understanding the distinct attributes of each strategy and the potential synergistic power of both remains the only way to determine the answers to these questions.

Content marketing and SEO complement each other, and research has shown they work best when integrated. B2B companies that resolve how to complement both strategies make the most of their powerful synergy and stay ahead.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable content in the form of blogs, videos, eBooks, and podcasts to educate or inform an audience. Companies leverage it to educate and inform their audience about their products and services, helping them understand how the company stands out from their competitors.

By consistently publishing and distributing valuable industry information, B2B companies present themselves as reliable go-to resources for industry thought leadership information. This helps the company build trust and authority, enabling them to convert their prospects easily.

To excel with content marketing, you need an efficient content marketing strategy that includes plans for audience research, content planning, creation, distribution, analytics, and others.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to the strategies and techniques used to improve a website and its pages to rank at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs). Ranking high on SERPs increases a website’s visibility, as research has shown that most people don’t go beyond the first page of a search engine when seeking information.

The increased visibility generates more traffic, increasing the website’s leads and conversion rate. The primary aim of SEO is to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to a website from search engines.

Companies adopt SEO to increase their company’s, product’s, or service’s awareness, improving their revenue generation chances.

To execute SEO successfully, you must have a robust SEO strategy that includes plans for keyword research, link building, competitive analysis,on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and technical SEO, amongst others.

Difference between Content Marketing and SEO

While content marketing and SEO are similar or complementary, they have differences in their goals, scope, and the role search engines play.

The Goals of Content Marketing and SEO

Content marketing aims to build brand awareness, establish industry authority, and build solid and beneficial relationships across all marketing channels with potential customers. To achieve this goal, companies create relevant and educational content that resonates with their target audience, depending on the marketing channel.

However, SEO aims to increase a website’s visibility and rankings on search engines, enabling it to attract high-quality leads. Companies achieve this goal by optimizing various elements, such as website load speed, meta, and title tags, HTTP status codes, mobile friendliness, backlink structure, etc.

SEO significantly increases the chances of success on one vital content marketing channel – search engine marketing.

The Scope of Content Marketing and SEO

Another difference between content marketing and SEO is their scope. Content marketing focuses more on content creation in various formats and distribution through multiple channels, such as social media, blogs, search engines, emails, etc.

On the other hand, SEO involves all technical, on-page, and off-page activities in helping a website achieve the most content distribution and visibility on search engines.

Role of Search Engines in Content Marketing and SEO

This is a more subtle difference between content marketing and SEO. Content marketing emphasizes creating high-quality, relevant content that addresses the target audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points. When content marketing involves website content, the content might help the website rank on search engines.

However, SEO is more direct in helping websites rank on search engines. It focuses on the website’s technical sides, content structure, and other on-page and off-page elements like keyword research and integration, quality backlink building, user experience, etc. All these help search engine algorithms understand a website’s relevance and rank it at the top of SERPs for those searching for related information.

Content Marketing and SEO: How They Complement Each Other

Content marketing vs. SEO shouldn’t be the question. The better question should be how can both work together for optimal results. SEO and content marketing complement each other, from keyword optimization to brand and product visibility, user experience, and link building.

Keyword Optimization

Keyword optimization is one of the most vital ways SEO helps actualize content marketing goals. When users seek information on search engines, they do so with keywords. Identifying and optimizing for these keywords is only possible through extensive keyword research, an SEO activity.

To rank high and generate traffic from search engines where prospects actively use these keywords, companies create relevant content that addresses prospects’ needs and pain points and integrate these keywords naturally into them.

Improved Visibility and Brand Awareness

Content marketing and SEO work hand in hand to improve a company’s website’s visibility on search engines, creating awareness for its products and services. SEO is used in content marketing to help search engines identify and index well-written content that addresses customer needs.

The more readers find the content useful, the more search engines will help push it to a larger audience. Content marketing efforts are more fruitful when the content reaches a broader audience, and SEO helps achieve this by pushing the content higher in search rankings.

Quality and User Experience

Content marketing and SEO also work together to improve content quality and user experience.

By conducting extensive keyword research and SERP audits, companies gain more insight into their target audience’s expectations. They can then create content that addresses those expectations.

The quality of a piece of content depends a lot on how relevant it is to the readers. And the more relevant the content is, the better the user experience.

Engaging, informative content improves a website’s search engine rankings. It keeps readers hooked on your website longer. And the more people stay on your website, the greater the odds they’ll contact you.

Increased Link-Building Opportunities

Great, informative, and exhaustive content attracts backlinks from other websites. The more backlinks content receives, especially from authoritative sources, the more search engines recognize the content and website as relevant and trustworthy. And this makes the search engine algorithms push the content higher up on the SERPs.

Great content and SEO marketing strategies lead to more organic link-building opportunities. In turn, this increase a website’s ranking, visibility, traffic generation, and ultimately lead generation and conversion.

Integrate Your Content Marketing and SEO Strategies and Achieve Optimal Results

Undoubtedly, optimal online marketing results come with integrating SEO and content marketing strategy. An extensive content marketing strategy without a complementing SEO strategy is ineffective. You can miss out on many organic leads and leave a lot of money on the table. Similarly, a robust SEO strategy without solid content marketing backing it up is almost futile.

The ideal approach is to develop a complementary SEO content marketing strategy that includes content marketing and SEO plans. Smart B2B companies integrate both strategies to give their brand, products, and services much-needed organic visibility, ultimately increasing revenue-generating opportunities.


Content Strategy Tips - Owned vs Rented Land

On our brand new YouTube Channel, Jeanne shares her thoughts on Joe Pulizzi's famous quote, "Don't build your content house on rented land" - as well as why you should actually have a strategy for sharing content on 'rented land'.

What Is "Owned" and "Rented" Land in Content Marketing?

In content marketing, we talk about owned vs. rented digital land. This is an analogy to building a house. When you build a house, you must own the land you build it on - or else the owner of the land can kick you out of the house at any time.

 

If you build your digital version of a house, that central place where you direct your customers, clients, and readers to, on a website you neither own nor control, you are at risk of the site owner cutting off access at any time - the digital version of a landowner kicking you out of the rented land!

 

I've seen this a lot with small business owners who build their 'house' or digital business presence on a Facebook page. They even go so far as to put the page URL on their signage or business cards. That's not bad, per se, but using only Facebook as your online presence is very dangerous. Facebook can at any time cut off your access to the page, shut your page down, or decide to charge high fees. If you build your online or digital presence on a website that you own or control, you're assured it will be there as long as you want it to be there.


The Cost of Poor Business Writing

Poor business writing is an often overlooked problem. Most business leaders will agree that effective communication is a key driver of success. But budget constraints can be a stumbling block in improving communications within the organization. 

A study by Grammarly revealed that poor communication costs U.S. companies an estimated $1.2 trillion in annual losses, or about $12,506 per employee each year. Workers spend more than 20 hours a week on business writing, so the ability to get their point across clearly and succinctly has become an essential skill.

What Is Effective Business Writing?

Good business writing follows correct sentence structure, grammar rules, and punctuation. A haphazardly written piece riddled with errors lacks professionalism and risks sending the wrong message.  

Isn’t it infuriating to wade through rambling business emails? How about long winding reports that don’t connect the dots? Meandering sentences are a surefire way to lose your audience. Keep your messaging focused on one main idea instead of several competing ones.

A good rule of thumb is to write the way you speak. Use active voice to make your written communication more precise and direct. The passive voice sounds stiff and makes sentences wordier. Make you written materials easy to read. Aim for a readability score that meets the average reader's needs.

Do away with filler words. For example, instead of ‘due to the fact that,’ say ‘because.’ Make every word count. Ditch unnecessary jargon unless you are writing a technical document. Big fancy words impress no one. Consider the purpose of your content and what you want your audience to gain from it. It will determine the appropriate style and tone.

Poor Business Writing Hurts Your Business

Here are a few examples of how substandard writing can impact your organization:

  • Low productivity and disengaged teams 
  • Poor customer retention and tarnished reputation 
  • Marketing campaigns that don’t convert to sales 

Low Productivity and Disengaged Teams 

As more companies shift to remote and hybrid work environments, teams rely more on collaborative software tools. Writing with clarity and brevity is more important than ever. The Holmes Report shows that companies with effective communication enjoy as much as 47% higher returns, more engaged employees, and lower attrition rates. 

Workers are overwhelmed by the volume of information they digest daily. Leaders who can’t express themselves effectively won’t get desired outcomes. It results in confusion, wasted resources, and productivity loss.

Writing is a core skill not just for higher-ups but is essential for most white-collar employees. If business writing skills are lacking, team members will struggle to decode information. It can cause delays, increased costs, and lost opportunities.  

Take the case of FedEx. The company wanted to assess how well employees understood their ground operations manuals. After hiring a consultant, they discovered that readability was low. On average, it took five minutes to find the correct information, and errors were spotted 50% of the time. Revamping their collaterals increased productivity and resulted in a savings of $400,000 in the first year. 

Poor Customer Retention and Tarnished Reputation 

High customer retention rates are a boon for businesses and are crucial for sustained revenue. Acquiring a new client costs more than keeping an existing one. According to Forbes, the probability of selling to new clients is only between 5% to 20% compared to 60% to 70% for current customers. 

Loyalty rides on excellent after-sales support. Customer service agents who lack business writing training will negatively affect your brand. Problems arise when technical personnel hired for their knowledge take on customer-facing roles. They might have the expertise, but without business writing skills, they will struggle to communicate effectively, leading to a poor customer experience. 

Marketing Campaigns that Don’t Convert to Sales  

It only takes a few seconds for visitors to scan your website or collaterals and immediately form an impression about your brand. A typo or grammatical error can instantly kill your credibility.

Place your audience front and center, and the rest will follow. Aim for clarity and truth when building a company website, creating blogs, or sending out newsletters. False claims and misinformation can erode trust and even lead to lawsuits.

It’s tempting to hire content farms or depend on article spinners as part of your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. The new Google updates can quickly recognize auto-generated or unhelpful content. Your website will be penalized, and your page ranking will suffer. 

Develop a Culture of Clarity in Writing Communication

It is not always easy to measure the negative impact of poor business writing. But imagine the time saved from wading through fuzzy and confusing text or spending fewer marketing dollars on campaigns that deliver better ROI. 

It’s time to cut through the noise and champion a culture of clarity. Invest in training and tools that can improve business writing. The productivity gains will be well worth it. Vague, incomplete, and stuffy communication is frustrating and will cost your business big time.

Seven Oaks Consulting is a unique content marketing agency that can help. We have a team of talented writers that produce quality SEO articles. The more content you have, the more internal links you can build! Visit our website to discover how our services can bring your business to the next level.