The Trouble with “Meh”

Meh. The equivalent of pairing a warm zinfandel with cold pizza and wearing flats with a cocktail dress. It’s not bad. But it’s not great either. It’s that zone where you just shrug and it’s fine or it’s so-so. But aside from poor culinary choices and bad fashion, there are also plenty of marketing choices that have us say a big ole “meh” as well. And trust us….if we are saying “meh”, you bet your customers are too.

What are some examples of “meh” marketing you ask? Here are our Top 5:

1. Brand Inconsistencies. – This one is easy. It’s likely you’ve spent some money on your brand, whether it’s the logos, color scheme or taglines. It’s your brand. Use it, protect it and be consistent with how you present it to the world. Getting those items wrong, well, that’s just wrong. It’s confusing and frankly, doesn’t reflect well. Because if you get you own brand wrong, customers will think that you get plenty of other things wrong too.

2. Being Outdated. – Now this is a tough one. Because you can’t reinvent the wheel every time you execute on a marketing tactic. BUT, we do think you need to approach your marketing through a fresh lens each and every time. For example, if your email templates haven’t changed since 2012, then hear us now – please update. Stay modern, stay relevant. And if this means updating your website more than once every ten years (cue the sarcasm), then do it. There are thousands and thousands of company websites that have that boring blue bar, headline and 3 newspaper style columns below. To quote Ryan Gosling, “Be better than the Gap. BE BETTER than the Gap.”

3. Website Scrolling Too Fast – Ok, so maybe we’re being nitpicky. But honestly, doesn’t it annoy you too? Now that you’ve updated your site with great visuals and probably awesome copy, don’t ruin it with ongoing scrolling that move at the speed of light. What makes this “meh”? The fact that it will take you a grand total of 2 minutes to correct.

4. Impersonal Emails – The trifecta of “meh.” We’re talking about emails that a) have no name; b) have a greeting but no name; and c) worse still, have the WRONG name. This is actually worse than a “meh,” so do yourself a favor and run a test. Send it to yourself and 3-4 friends outside of the company. How does it look? What did they say?

5. Too Much Copy – You know how we feel. We actually wrote a whole blog on this topic. As fabulous as your words are, write tight. Think about what makes YOU stop and read something from start to finish.