Avoid "one-night stand" marketing campaigns

I believe the reason is that unless the brand promise is designed from the moment the brand wants to create interest and awareness through advertising and marketing right through to purchase and post-sales support, the journey will be inconsistent. The customer will experience the brand as being schizophrenic and fake, resulting in it losing opportunities to build trust and loyalty.

So let's talk specifically about social media marketing campaigns. They are usually loud and in your face. They usually boast about the attributes of the brand or product. When consumers act on the campaign call to action and try the product or service and find it does not deliver on its promise, that's when they realise it was just a "one-night stand"! Although it showed promise for a relationship, it was a delight that lasted for a moment when the customer decided to engage in or consume what was on offer.

So next time your agency presents a marketing campaign concept, critically review the total customer journey and ask whether it delivers on its promise. Even look at the parts of the customer journey that you don't have direct control over and look at opportunities to influence the delivery of the promise even in those moments with the customer. Then deliberately design the moments in the client journey that would follow from the client taking up the call to action of your campaign.

Quick pointers

1. Understand the objectives of a marketing campaign clearly - get all stakeholders to understand and agree.
   
2. Carefully discuss the brand/product promise (again)! Explicitly define what inherent promise the campaign makes and whether you can truly, authentically and honestly deliver on that promise.
   
3. Understand the consumer expectations and possible calls to action, even the ones you don't specifically invite.
   
4. Design the interactions - deep into the organisation, involve the front line, sales, call centre and back office. Make clear the experience and promise that should be delivered.
   
5. Measure and listen to customer feedback.
   
6. Always, always prepare your complaints team for possible issues. Don't let them be surprised or act surprised. You can anticipate 95% of complaints - you can even script them if your people do not have adequate emotional intelligence to ad-lib!
   
7. Admit your mistakes and learn from them. And move on quickly. Kevin Roberts of Saachi and Saachi says: "Fail fast, learn fast, fix faster!"
   

"One-night stands" can be fun, but not if you are going for a quality relationship where you envision longevity, commitment and positive word of mouth!