Here’s an example of a poorly executed corporate communications plan and bad message development from the good people at Network Solutions. I received an email from the company thanking me for an order for a dot-biz web address that I didn’t want and didn’t place. There wasn’t any financial charge applied, but boy, did this raise red flags. I thought it was a phishing scam and was very concerned. And so I spent five minutes navigating through the company’s cumbersome voice mail system until I finally reached a live body. And then I learned that the company was actually trying to offer me a new service for free for one year.
Wow! No good deed goes unpunished. Instead of making me feel good about a special promotion, they made me really angry. And this failure all comes down to poor communications and message development. Why didn’t they just tell me that they wanted to offer a free service, that if I elected not to buy it after a year, it would quietly go away, as the nice person who answered the phone did? Why did they cause me and, I’m sure, many other customers’ grief and wasted time?
What are some lessons from this debacle? Remember the five C’s of great communications.
Clarity of purpose
Be clear about what you are trying to say and why. If the marketing team had thought through this campaign and what they were trying to achieve, they might have avoided this problem.
Clear Compelling Messaging
Speak to the emotions of your audience and what matters to them. The company should have started off by telling me that, as their customer, I have access to the best Internet tools to grow my business and now they are going to give me one more—at no charge to me. That’s compelling.
Connect with Your Audience
Understand where your audience is in relation to what you are telling them. How familiar are they with your product and your offering? What are their needs and what are the benefits that you present to them with your products, services, or cause? This ISP team might have explained how the two new services would help me grow my business; instead they just told me they were good, without telling me why.
Context and Story Telling
Remember that your communication with your targets is not and should not be a one-time thing. You are part of an unfolding story that is the relationship you have or are trying to build with your audiences. Ask yourself where this communication falls within this story. If the last time your stakeholder heard from you was because you sent them a bill or asked them to renew, start off with “Because you have been such a loyal customer, we’d like to thank you by offering you this free service/product…”
Convey and Confirm
Don’t assume that your audience will understand the messages as you intended them to be heard. In this case, it might have been better if they had tested this campaign out on a few people beforehand. And now that they have conveyed and gotten some bad feedback, the might want to confirm their commitment to me with a formal apology and an explanation. It’s not enough that the person I spoke to said management is aware of the problem. Management needs to DO something. I don’t want an impersonal form letter. I’d like to hear from a person.
Network Solutions created customer ire because they didn’t take the time to think through their new marketing campaign. Don’t let this happen to you.
