That was something that I read recently that resonated with me as I’ve long believed that communications are the worst knee-jerk place to cut costs.
Communications are often the only thing prospects have to go on when deciding whether or not to contact one company over another. In that sense, it’s potentially preferable to say nothing than to say something that undermines your company’s brand and message. As such regular communications are a legitimate investment to be taken very seriously.
Yet, prospects never open a dialogue with “I’ve been slowly convinced of your competence in this field thanks to the steady supply of useful information and insights from your marketing team making you the obvious place to start now that I need a service like yours.” As such, the temptation to underestimate, or completely miss, the importance of this "quiet" marketing tool is common—even understandable at first glance.
Regular communications are, indeed, a subtle medium, so we might naturally pause before spending on something that works thanklessly behind the scenes.
But their part in getting you to that negotiation table or contract in the first place is in building a foundation of consistency and trust with your prospects. And that is what you should remember before deciding what can wait and what is expendable.
Trust either comes from a sales conversion process where you need to do the convincing as you go (lengthier, and with lower conversions) or from what they know of you before you actively seek their business—in other words, quality, well-structured regular communications.
Let’s put it another way: unless you do this for a living, an invite to be a keynote speaker at an event will probably see you taking quite a bit of time to make sure your speech is as good as it can be—you are unlikely to improvise at the lectern. You know that what you say, and how, will directly impact how the audience views you. Give your company the same benefit so that your first impression made is the very best it can be with the people who matter.
So, if you want to be heard by the right people but feel the temptation to do it in-house without having a copywriter on the books, step away from the abyss of missed opportunities and talk to someone who does it for a living. Your sales and your profits will thank you for it.
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