Fit vs Fat

Obesity is not just a health epidemic; it’s a marketing epidemic as well.

In an attempt to communicate their value, businesses will try and cram as many messages as possible into one marketing piece. Everything gets bolded, underlined and called out. With so many marketing messages, it’s like having too much food on your plate: you can’t possibly consume it all.

This is what I call “Fat Marketing.”

The opposite is “Fit Marketing.” Fit Marketing means you restrict your marketing diet to a few simple messages. Less clutter means more impact.

Fit Marketing moves people through the sales funnel one step at a time. Fat Marketing tries to consummate the deal in one step. Fit marketing is clear and concise. Fat Marketing bogs you down.

Get fit with your marketing and you will move your business to the next level.

How do you get fit? Here are a couple of ways:

• E-newsletters: drive readership with valuable content, but stick with one message at a time. Don’t overload your newsletter with too many articles and too many calls to action. One article, one call to action is perfectly fit.
• Website: a website is mostly a source of information about you and your company. Keep it that way. You can’t do everything with your site, so don’t. Most important, your website will evolve so be prepared to analyze visits so you can optimize it and streamline it.
• Print Ads, Direct Mail: focus on one primary message. Be sure you ask yourself: “What one thing do I want someone to do once they’ve seen my ad/postcard/letter?”

This is just the start. The Fit Marketing concept should be applied to all of your marketing collateral because Fit Marketing is a long term approach to building a customer base.

So put your marketing on a treadmill today and shed some of that clutter!