Is your marketing communication better than you?

Have you ever run into a situation where a company has absolutely gorgeous marketing materials, but its service or product is sub par? That’s a situation where the marketing draws people in, but the product  or service loses them.

I am looking to do some home improvement and I went to Angie’s List. I found several companies in the category and checked out each company website. I was pretty impressed with one company in particular. Their website was not only attractive, but functional and informative. I called to make an appointment for an estimate. The woman seemed friendly and knowledgeable and set up an appointment that would be confirmed via email. This company seems to be pretty technologically savvy. The appointment was confirmed but a couple of hours later I got an email from a manager saying that he couldn’t keep that appointment and could we change it. We went back and forth and settled on Tuesday (yesterday) at 6 p.m.

At 5 p.m. yesterday the estimator called to tell me he can’t make it and can he come tomorrow. As it turns out, I don’t have time today, and I figured that if a company can’t keep an appointment that does not bode well for the process. Further, it is not professional to keep changing appointments and to offer excuses. My time is valuable and if this company wants my business, the estimator would make an effort to show at the appointed time. I told him to forget it. There are other companies that do this work, and so far, two other companies have shown up on time for our estimate appointments. For me, punctuality and reliability are important indicators of how a company performs.

In this case, this company appears to be competent but in practice is not.

When your marketing is bad, you may not get the customers you want. But if your marketing is better than you are, your potential customers will not stick with you. They will be drawn in, but you will lose them.

Your marketing should be attractive, but if you are spending more money and time on marketing and less on your service or product, that marketing dollar is wasted.

Thoughts?