DIY Communications: Multitasking Your Way to a Mediocre Brand

Until 20 years ago, organizations were highly structured and sought to maximized operational efficiency through the division of labor. Need a sign? Call the sign shop. Need a Press Release? Call PR. Want a great presentation? See if the consultants are available.

Then, in 1990, Microsoft released the first version of its Office software, an instant blockbuster that fueled the PC revolution and leveled the barriers between job tasks. No longer did organizations need a fleet of secretaries, accountants and marketing associates; now anyone could easily prepare a corporate communication, balance a budget, and prepare a presentation. While this allowed larger organizations to reduce costs by retaining fewer specialized employees, it also created an entrepreneurial boom by empowering smaller organizations to do more with less. From every angle, this software seemed to be increasing productivity and leveling the field.

Fast-forward 20 years and two software revolutions (desktop and SaaS): today, there is little that you can't do. Presentations, websites, online publishing, even 3-D modeling are freely, instantly available—and sharable—at the click of a mouse. But there's a dark side to this shiny coin; as rapidly as the traditional barriers to business communications deteriorated, so has the quality of the end product.

These days, corporate communications are often so poorly executed that letterhead is no more than a logo slapped above a few strung together sentences. Online publishing software has unleashed a tsunami of serviceable, but unremarkable websites, blogs, and social media profiles. Presentations have become the corporate playbox, a productivity sinkhole that leads intelligent people to mistake styling for substance. But inasmuch as software has standardized tasks and unlocked new, low cost opportunities for many organizations to compete and communicate with a seemingly infinite audience, it has also marginalized the end product. In other words, while this shift may have helped their bottom line, it hurt their brand.

So what can you do to avoid these pitfalls? In our work with a wide variety of organizations, we've developed a number of strategies to help clients leverage office and online publishing software to enhance the quality of their communications and reclaim productivity.

Know your audience. It can be dangerous to assume that what's important to you is equally important to your audience. Before you draw up a strategy on how you want to communicate with your internal and external audiences, you have to do your research. Get acquainted—or reacquainted—with your audience first so you can engage them on the terms that are most meaningful to them. Get this right, and chances are your business communications will positively impact their decision making process.

Be consistent. Audiences are increasingly savvy and brand-aware. When they perceive a wide variation in the quality of your communications, it influences their opinion of your brand's commitment to quality. Take Apple, for example; every brand touchpoint, from the product down to the invoice, shows an uncommon thoughtfulness and commitment to quality. Consumers are drawn to that, they trust it, and they are even willing to pay a premium for it—so much so that Apple recently surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization.

Work smarter. In today's DIY world, the simple promise that anyone can do it, coupled with a lower price point, has enticed an entire culture into believing that they should do it themselves. While this may work fine when you're pickling your own vegetables or installing your own garage door, it makes less sense when you're talking about materials that are critical to your business. Sure, anyone can pop a logo onto a word doc or mockup a brochure. But that just leads to a sloppy communications that send the wrong signal to your audience. Don't just hit the default button; think about all the costs, including lost productivity and damage to your brand experience— before you commit to doing as many business communications you possibly can in-house.

Build a Reliable System. As your organization grows, perhaps the best way to counter the parasitic loss of productivity from managing and executing quality business communications is to build a system of templates and guidelines. By working with an experienced firm, you can build a common set of assets such as letterhead, presentations, press releases and the like to extend across all your brand's touchpoints. Operationally, this will help you execute more quickly and scale without sacrificing quality. To your audience, it will ensure your brand looks and feels the same from every angle.

There's no doubt that office software, and other applications like it, have fostered enormous advances and growth in productivity over the past two decades. But they have also spawned a race to the bottom in the creation of business communications. As new applications continue to emerge and the volume of communications continues to multiply, it will be increasingly important to outperform your competition when it comes to the quality, timeliness, and efficiency of your communications. This means that before deciding the types of tools you want to use in your business, you think about what you're really trying to build and talk to people who can help you build it.