It doesn't matter what you say

I used to tell my son, "it doesn't matter what you say, what matters is what they hear". Bottom line: It was his responsibility to be understood. He's 22 now and fed this lesson back to me during a recent visit.. good to know some things stick. The reason I'm bringing this up is that I've been asked to be a judge for the Multi-Channel Merchant catalog competition. After carefully reviewing a stack of catalogs, (and I'm not kidding about the carefully part, it's been a time sink-hole... 14 catalogs!), I realize how that lesson applies to marketing and creative. We, (the greater "we"), tend to talk with one another about all the things we're doing to make our offer sweeter, to capture market.. the little improvements and the big ideas. We set our course with confidence, sure to achieve sales goals and move our business to the next level. Here's the problem; sometimes we forget to let the customer in on our plans! We create killer guarantees and promises of satisfaction. We create price promotions that eat into our margins, (convincing ourselves that sales volume will make up for it). And our product assortments are fine tuned to deliver precise improvements that will benefit the customer. The fact that we don't always tell the audience about all the good work we do, makes most of the effort pointless.. or I should I say ineffective. Many of the catalogs I've been looking at have hidden gems that are buried on the order form, at the end of the product copy or somewhere quietly placed on an  interior page..sshhhhh.. don't wake the shopper.. Sometimes you need an outside perspective to recognize your best qualities, (like a creative consultant.. I have no shame). But really, it's a good idea to take stock of where you're invested in customer benefit and satisfaction and be sure it's clearly presented-  don't be so darn quiet about your best qualities, (I should have told that to my son too..).