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August 15, 2005
The Credibility Gap
(Next-to-last post from Stan Slap's Sunday Session)
According to Slap, the better your advertising, the more dangerous it is. Because it makes a promise you have to live up to, and all too frequently, companies (and associations) don't.
When a company is having trouble keeping customers because its customers don't like its product or the company's service, one of the first reactions is to come up with better advertising -- so they can disappoint a whole bunch of new customers.
In the association world, if an organization is losing members, the reaction is frequently the same -- we need a membership campaign! A new brochure! A new website! A new plan!
None of these things get at the real issue -- which is that you're losing members. Getting new ones doesn't help if they're just going to drop out, too. The issue is the experience we're providing as organizations. Don't create the cool new membership campaign until you're ready to back it up with a membership experience that's spectacular, signature, and sustainable.
As Slap said, "Don't say something until you stand for something."
Another interesting point he raised is that a lot of people aren't going to believe your advertising (or membership marketing) anyway. Being bombarded by 3500 commercial messages a week, we're all pretty jaded.
It's not enough to create marketing messages that make a lot of promises. We have to figure out how to create credible messages, backed up by a service experience that our members will love -- and that's hard, because people judge your advertising's credibility based on their experience, not with you, but with everybody else's advertising.
Slap suggested that organizations are going to have no choice but to become more honest and credible in their marketing -- because customers (and members) are going to force us to be held accountable. In a world where anyone can publish their opinions about your association on a blog, accessible by everyone, organizations are not going to be able to hide behind clever marketing slogans or ra-ra news releases. The truth, as they say, will be out there.
Posted by Kevin Holland at August 15, 2005 04:47 PM
Comments
I loved the panel discussion and the "old school vs. new school" debate that it turned into. I'm definitely on Slap and Gilmour's (is that a comedy team?) side. Being more honest and credible follows another trend that I think has to gain more traction - transparency. Lack of transparency makes it easier to be a little loose with the truth.
Posted by: Doug Bladecki at August 18, 2005 12:34 PM
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