What are you trying to say?

I was talking with a friend the other day about a topic that's important to him personally. At one point in our discussion -- in the middle of a sentence -- he suddenly stopped and switched gears.

"What I'm really trying to say is,..." And then he made a clear, eloquent statement. Immediately, I understood. Somehow, though, it had taken us 30 minutes to get to this point.

Now, let's admit it. We all do this on occasion. Sometimes important personal matters can be hard to articulate.

Yet, how many times do businesses dive into talking to clients and customers in the same way? How often do we completely miss the point in marketing communication?

Pretty frequently. And often it's because we're so busy that we jump into making communication happen-- creating a web site, writing a brochure, announcing news -- without stopping to consider the bigger picture, the brand promise, the desire our service is meant to meet, or the many ways to get that across. Unfortunately, when marketing your business, you don't often get the chance to go back and say, "wait... I know what I wanted to say."

Think about this for a minute.

How often does it take two pages to say what can be said in one? How many times do we bore prospects with a list of random features when what they really want to know is, "will this meet my needs?" How often do we attempt to articulate every single thing we do and leave nothing out (kitchen-sink marketing) instead of focusing on a distinct, targeted message? How many times has there been pressure to "get this out there quickly"?

How often do we muddle the message-- or miss the larger opportunity?

Chances are, it's happening more often than not unless you're sitting down and giving this some thought on a regular basis. The truth is that it doesn't take a lot of time. What it takes is a cool head, a bit of strategy and a habit. More on that next week.

In the meantime, let me know if you've had this experience-- and what you're doing about it.