Does your company suffer from a split personality?


If your company is sending mixed messages to the marketplace, you're wasting two
valuable things--money and opportunities.

How do you tell if you are? It's easy.

1. Just gather up your company's literature: brochures, ads, collateral pieces,
newsletters, a printout of your website's home page, etc.

2. Lay them all out on a table and look.

Do they match or clash? Do the colors vary? Are the typefaces different? Do they
look like a family or like the United Nations?

The differences don't have to be big ones...people are a lot more sensitive than you
think. Research shows that we all unconsciously sense subtle differences and are affected
by them.
It's a hard and fast marketing rule that every communication you send should reinforce
your earlier ones. But if they vary, people are less likely to connect your latest
communication with previous ones. So instead of building up awareness of you and your
message, you're pretty much starting from scratch every time. And that wastes a lot of what
you've invested up until that point.

Why do companies suffer from this kind of multiple personality? Usually because they
don't have one person or entity controlling the vision. For instance:

1. Does every department and/or division in your company work independently (and in
isolation) to create the various pieces of your sales tool box?

2. Do you have one company doing your website, another doing your collateral
materials and another doing your advertising?

That's a recipe for disaster. Because each project is viewed as a separate entity instead
of one piece of your corporate branding mosaic. And each piece should reinforce your
positioning by carrying the same message, look and tone.

There are several ways you can avoid these mixed messages:

1. Have one person in your company oversee the development of all of your collateral
material. You can still meet the needs of each division and department, and at the same
time create pieces that work together.

2. Use a single source to supply all your communications. That way everything you do is
guaranteed to have a unified look and speak with a single, strong voice.

Not all companies have the experience to do it all. At The Next Level, we do. From
brochures to advertising to websites to direct mail, we offer that kind of across-the-board
capability that ensures your marketing dollars are all marching to the same drummer. And
working a lot harder for you.

Call us at (310) 477-2119 to cure your split personality.

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