subject: Prevent The Marketing Mistake Of Inconsistency In Your Business Online [print this page] There are a number of important aspects of online marketing that are not commonly talked about, and being consistent throughout your marketing is one of them. Possibly it is safe to think that it is purely forgotten by many who publish about business. If you forget to take advantage of this simple to understand idea, then your efforts will not produce the kind of results you desire. The rationale for this effect is a characteristic of human nature and the way in which we perceive and feel about what we see. When our experiences are not what we imagine, based on prior experience, then it brings about uneasiness and can certainly instinctively seem illogical. When these scenarios come about, the common response is to move away from it, and the reaction is identical if it occurs in your marketing.
Let's take a look at an instance involving the very common squeeze page scenario so many of us are familiar with. We have all witnessed and used squeeze pages when somebody is building an email list for online marketing. Right after a prospect opts in, then often they will be shown a website that contains a sales letter. Naturally what is presented after the person subscribes is the marketers option. This is the standard situation whereby consistency is extremely important as we will speak about next.
The general, usually unknown, feeling perceived by the prospect will be affected by the layout and overall color pattern of the squeeze page and the next site that is viewed. If the contrast is sufficient, then that is inconsistency and will create an uneasy affect on the person. The clear answer to this is merely make the squeeze page much more similar to the following site that is viewed.
Another relevant situation concerns all the affiliate marketers and the way they use their marketing. Review sites are well-known due to the fact they can be incredibly effective, and the usual scenario is for a review page to have not less than one outgoing link to a vendor site, if not more. It is not feasible to make your review site, or page, similar to the vendors or almost all of them if you link to many. However you can design your review site in neutral terms that work to blend well with other sites. What you really should strive to do is refrain from a design that is highly unconventional and serves to provide a glaring contrast to any other site. We realize there will be some interpretation needed in this situation. Very often an effective approach is to be conscious of this and lessen unacceptable contrasts.
This very identical process is true to all you do in your small business particularly in your written communications and marketing messages. We seldom see any glaring examples of inconsistently written communications concerning email marketing. Nevertheless you can cause problems in what you advertise to any audience if it represents an unusual or significant departure from what they are used to getting from you. In our experience, this is not a substantial problem we see in email campaigns. But it does occur, and the significant point is that you are now informed of it and can very easily avoid this conversion killer.
