Whether you’re a dealership or a vendor, I’m sure you want to gain the attention of your audience. The problem is that everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs how great their products are… regardless of it’s the newest Chevy or the newest website widget.

And, chances are nobody will listen. Why? Because unless they care about you or what you’re selling, if they don’t need your product or service right now, they simply have no reason to pay attention in the first place.

That’s where content marketing comes in.

So, how can content marketing help? Well, the whole purpose of content marketing is to build an audience that WANTS to do business with you. An audience that listens to your advice, pays attention to your messages and relays those messages and advice to their friends.

Perhaps they aren’t currently in the market for that new Silverado or website widget. That doesn’t mean they will never be. However, most marketers are so focused on “buy right now!” and low-hanging fruit that they forget there are plenty more customers who are in the consideration mode, at the top of the funnel. These customers will eventually naturally work their way towards the bottom. And, when they get there, they’re aren’t going to remember the companies whose messages have gotten lost in the noise, but they will remember those that have connected with and continue to engage them.

To most shoppers, the constant price messages are meaningless. If you’re a Chevy dealership shouting how you have $12,000 off MSRP, chances are that your competitor is also shouting the same message. If you’re a vendor shouting “a free month of service” for something the dealer may not need right now, it’s the same thing.

Connecting with and engaging your audience is imperative in today’s world where consumers are constantly inundated with sales messages. With everyone shouting the same thing, most will not really listen until they need your product or service. So, what WILL give you the edge?

Quality content that people want to become engaged with.

Content marketing is an excellent way to break the ice, engage with an audience and make them connect with your company. Then, when they do need your product or service, you’re the first company that pops into their mind. Not because you have $12,000 off MSRP, or offer a free month of service, but because your content has helped them become familiar with and interested in you as a source of expert advice and good useful information, rather than in-your-face marketing messages.

Content marketing IS marketing. It’s simply another way to spread your message to your audience without being intrusive, pushy or salesy.

A proper content marketing strategy can help convince and motivate your potential customers that they should give YOU the first chance at their business.

Tell your story. Help educate your audience. And they will repay you with their business.

Content marketing has become somewhat of a buzzword recently. With developing technology and the Internet taking over our lives, PR and marketing terms constantly develop and shift in meaning. So, I thought a little primer on content marketing might be useful!

The classic definition of marketing typically involves activities such as ads, coupons and direct mail pieces, both digital and in traditional media. Add the word “content” in front, however, and things get a little fuzzy for some.

What exactly is content marketing? And, do you need to be involved in it?

Content is at the heart of what we do as marketers. We send messages to our customers, clients, and our readers. The messages we relay, regardless of the form it takes, is our content.

Content marketing is using that content to meet a marketing goal. Perhaps it is the acquisition of potential customers, retention of existing ones, or making more people aware of your brand or products.

You’re probably already doing some of it. Content marketing includes any piece of content you put out via any platform that does NOT involve direct selling. “Why would I not want to sell directly with ALL my content?” you may be thinking. Because sometimes, your audience is more willing to listen to and interact with you if you’re not shouting, “buy something from me!” in their ear.

Content marketing can include blog articles, social media posts, trade magazine articles, images and anything designed to engage your audience OTHER THAN your traditional advertising and direct marketing efforts.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

1.   It keeps you top-of-mind – Whether you’re a dealership selling to consumers, or a vendor selling to dealerships, not everyone buys immediately. In addition, those customers who did purchase, and your current clients, may be ripe at some point to repurchase. A great content marketing strategy keeps your business, product and services in front of the customer without being intrusive or in-your-face salesy.

2.   It can lead to indirect exposure – Blog and magazine articles are an excellent way to position executives as thought leaders, and your business as a source of helpful content. People like educational material that is relevant to their needs.

If you are a dealership you can perhaps provide information on vehicle service, or how to synch your smartphone with your in-vehicle entertainment system, for example. As a vendor you could focus on some key pain points dealers are faced with daily. By providing that material, you can easily get exposure through comments, sharing and just plain curiosity. Perhaps the person reading the blog doesn’t need your product or service right now. But, by adding them as an audience member, creating your company as a thought-leader, they could easily consider you first when the need arises.

3.   It drives engagement and builds relationships – Content marketing can increase exposure through engaging the audience with relevant, thought-provoking material. I’m not talking about click-bait or pictures of puppies and kittens, but rather helpful information that is welcomed by and, eventually, looked forward to by the audience. This promotes a sense of relationship and begins the process of trust.

4.   Search engine optimization – Google looks for relevance in content. It crawls sites and includes you in its search results when it finds new content. The more often that new content is added to your website, the more likely you are to appear in a relevant search on the topic, increasing organic exposure to your website. Without content, there would be nothing to optimize for search engines. Every link earned by every marketer points to a piece of content, and the keywords that people type into search engines are an attempt to find that content.

5.   Web site traffic – The more eyeballs you have on your website, the more likely you are to get leads and sales. A good content marketing strategy will push people to view that content on your website which could then lead to further exploration and conversions on your website CTAs.

The bottom line is this: If you create great content that targets potential customers, you can shorten the distance between these customers and your products, increasing the chance that they'll make a purchase later.

These days, consumers are no longer willing to engage with in-your-face marketing tactics and quality content is king. Simply put, there are too many marketing messages, consumers have grown tired of them and simply tune them out.

As a business you still need to get your message out, acquire and retain new customers. If your customers are no longer listening to straight-out sales pitch marketing messages what DOES get their attention?

Well, it’s time to think about the art of subtlety.

Let’s say you’re about to launch a product or service. Prior to launch, everyone is busy fine-tuning the product and waiting for the right time to announce it. Perhaps you’re waiting for the next large industry conference. Before the conference comes around what many companies typically do is… nothing. They wait.

Then, when the conference comes around… boom… they begin to virtually scream at their audience “Hey, look at this service we just launched! You need this!!!!!” The problem is that just about EVERY other company is doing the same thing – that’s a lot of noise to cut though in order to get the attention you need.

What if you could start the process of marketing prior to launch? If the audience is primed with information, they get more familiar about who you are and tend to be that much more receptive when your product actually does launch.

Now, I realize that you do not necessarily want to release the big news, secret sauce prior to the show.

I’m here to tell you that you can have the best of both worlds.

Let’s use a hypothetical example of a mobile product designed to improve the customer experience. Through the strategic use of content marketing, six-eight months out from the show this business starts priming their customers for launch -- without them even knowing it.

Company executives craft and place thought-provoking blog posts, as well as industry articles, centered around the importance of mobile devices for consumers. Topics could also focus on customer experience issues, or the pain points their yet-to-be-launched product solves. The company’s social media strategy is also integrated into the plan, introducing content that corroborates and reinforces the company’s current content and messaging.

In essence, in a subtle manner, this strategy educates the audience about the importance of key points related to the product or service in advance of launch. You push content your audience wants to read, increase the profile of your company and position executives as industry thought leaders.

Now, when that industry conference rolls around, your press release hits the trade publications and you are ready to start selling, your audience (and the audience you didn’t know you had) will be more familiar with who you are. They are more receptive to your product. You’ve just spent six months educating them why everything your product solves is exactly what they need.

In the marketing world, businesses have a steep slope to climb. It’s a long way to the top. But, once you get there, it’s much easier coming down the other side.

Start your marketing planning in advance with the type of content your audience desires. Ensure it is also aligned with your business messaging and/or supports an upcoming product -- and you should find more success at the end of the day.

Sometimes, the most successful marketing isn’t selling anything at all.

In the best-selling book of 1979, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by science-fiction author Douglas Adams, one of the oddest and most unique creatures exists – which is also the most useful creature in the universe: the babel fish.  When you insert it into your ear it instantly translates any alien language for you.

This, of course, became incredibly useful while hitchhiking through the galaxy. In fact, this novel creature even inspired a website-translation service (Babelfish.com) and Google has already launched a product that can instantly translate in real-time up to 40 languages through earbuds. It’s amazing how science-fiction suddenly becomes reality.

But what does this have to do with content marketing?

One of the core benefits of content marketing is that – over time – you gain exposure for the company and transform company executives into thought-leaders. This, of course, takes a lot of work – especially in the beginning.

First and foremost, an audience must be driven to your content and find it attractive. Then that audience needs to grow. The audience grows because the message resonates with them and/or helps them.

Once that audience has grown large enough, the whole process looks like a snowball that rolled down a hill and became an avalanche. Not so much work. However, those content marketing efforts still need to engage and connect with your audience.

And, on that point of engaging and connecting with your audience, when it comes to content creation, one common downfall I find is that, when trying to stand out, people can be too smart for their own good!

Hey, I love smart people. But no one likes to read something they simply cannot understand. You don’t gain any audience by being too smart. You may be the foremost expert in quantum physics. But, if you talk to a regular person on the street about that topic in the same way you would to another expert in quantum physics, you may as well be speaking a different language.

If all your audience hears is babble, and they cannot understand or comprehend the data being relayed, NO MATTER HOW VALID OR GOOD IT IS, they tune you out and stop listening.

There is a lot to be said for the maxim, “Keep it Simple Stupid” (KISS).

The best thought-leaders realize that any content (whether it’s video, audio or written) needs to be articulated at a level the majority will understand. If your executives wish to create a thought-leader position through content marketing, they need to understand and address their audience in layman’s terms. If they don’t, the message is meaningless… and I don’t believe any translation device (or fish) exists that can translate knowledge… yet.

While the knowledge you wish to convey may be extremely important and valuable, the audience will not connect with you unless it is at their level and interesting to them. Please don’t bore your audience with a message that is simply too high brow, beyond their level of understanding.

To win at this game, try not to be overly clever. Don’t simply blow over the head of your audience. Instead, communicate at their level of reality and understanding.

If you were selling a vehicle to the average customer you wouldn’t talk about internal combustion engines and overly complex vehicle technology. You would find out what features are most important to them, and talk about that.

Of course, you should be creative with your topics, make your headlines stand out and use eye-catching images. Once you consistently provide interesting content of value to your audience, you will find you quickly rise in popularity and your audience grows through increased views, syndication and word-of-mouth. Eventually, if you’re lucky, and follow a consistent strategy, the focus shifts away from establishing an audience to growing and maintaining it.

And that is the best problem that you could ever have.

One of the most frustrating things for marketers and public relations professionals is that companies tend to be so focused on producing sales, and/or marketing to prospective clients, that they become a bit like horses with blinders on -- focused on the single carrot in front of them – namely, customer acquisition.

Don’t misunderstand me; whether you’re a start-up or an established business, of course you must build your business, that goes without saying. The point I am trying to make is that it pays to be open to new ideas which can help you accomplish that goal.

With the advent on the Internet and a new digital world, public relations and marketing have changed drastically. There is a whole new world of opportunity available enabling you to create an impact and get your name out there, where you need to be.

Plenty of opportunities exist for companies to build brand awareness throughout the industry and position executives as thought leaders. Sure, it’s a long-term play -- but it works. Inevitably, through consistent quality content your audience starts paying attention, views your blogs and articles, writes comments, attends your speaking sessions and interacts with you. And, when the time is right, your company is top-of-mind during the selection process.

Perhaps that influence is only subconscious. However, the fact remains that your message could have resonated with them and be the one thing that tips them over the edge and towards you, versus your competition.

There is a lot of value to be gained from establishing your executives as experts through blogs, articles in trade magazines and speaking opportunities. These opportunities raise your profile and help place you top of mind. While leads and new customers may be your goal, there is another upside here. Your core audience starts to see you as an expert and a source of great data, which can also lead to reseller agreements, partnerships and, if you’re interested, company acquisitions.

If your focus is so narrow that it is solely placed on building a client base (or increasing one), you can miss out on the opportunity to also get your company, executives, products and services in front of like-minded, complimentary and eager businesses that need such a product to offer to their client base.

Opportunities abound in the automotive space. Through webinars, press releases, white papers, case studies, trade magazine articles, blogs, social media, and more, your company can achieve a great deal of exposure by leveraging audiences that have been cultivated over decades. All it takes is a little effort.

The best position to be in is to have a stellar product everyone wants while, at the same time, being a company that every other company in the industry wants to partner with. That’s like having your cake and eating it too.

But many are so focused on acquiring new business that they miss – or never see – the opportunities that are ripe for the picking -- because they are so focused on the carrot they so desperately want.

And, by the time they figure out that that they should pay attention to, a competitor has already swooped in and not only taken the carrot they’ve been chasing, but also all those opportunities they could have had, if they had only had a broader focus.

When it comes to providing the ultimate customer experience, can technology go too far and instead, backfire by creeping out the customer?

Consider this example, which disturbs many people – Facebook’s unnatural ability to read your mind. While Facebook has denied any eavesdropping, there are plenty of articles reporting stories of Facebook users engaging with a friend, spouse or family member IN REAL LIFE, concerning a service or product, then bam! -- all of a sudden Facebook serves up ads on the EXACT subject of those conversations. Some place the blame on Facebook’s Messenger app, causing several users to delete it.

Or, consider home assistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Home. By necessity, these devices, constantly listen to everything happening in the home. They must so they can function and respond when appropriate commands are given. Although Amazon denies any passive eavesdropping; and that conversations are recorded; consumers have been served up ads and messages, as with Facebook.

Bringing it a little closer to home, in the automotive industry technology allows dealers to monitor an individual on their website, tracking every activity in real-time. In addition, some chat services allow dealers to initiate a chat session with a website visitor, without being asked.

This certainly isn’t a new practice – businesses have been using data to stay ahead of consumers for years. In 2012, Target was able to identify when a teenage girl was pregnant before she even told anyone and started sending her coupons and advertisements for maternity and baby items. How creepy is that? This of course, was news to her father and certainly caused some familial conversations – probably rather awkward ones at that!

Let me be clear here. I certainly believe data is king and SHOULD be used to tailor the right message to the right consumer at the right time – which produces KILLER results. However, a hard line exists between where technology improves the customer experience; or just turns the consumer off as it is too intrusive, abusing their right to privacy.

While you should certainly strive to provide a better customer experience by having good data about the customer in front of you – which improve communications, deliver more relevant marketing messages and make transactions more efficient -- consumer’s still want privacy and, in some cases, anonymity.

I’m not in any way suggesting that you shouldn’t take advantage of the data… just be cautious how that data is used and be smart about how you personalize those messages for each customer. It’s easy to get so caught up in the data and the opportunities it identifies that you forget there’s an actual a human being you are communicating with at the other end – and they may not be so welcoming if your message crosses that line.

In a world filled with noise, companies large and small are competing for consumer attention. Your message needs to be relevant, or the consumer will simply tune you out. Of course, you also need to make a profit and get in front of customers whenever can – and that’s where marketing and content come in. Some may say they are the same. I’m here to tell you they are not.  

And here’s why: 

The whole purpose of marketing is to get your brand, product and services in front of prospective clients -- and that should be the focus of the message. Content, on the other hand, is designed to engage your audience and get their attention. And that attention is not on your brand or products, but on the content. You get their attention as an industry expert and begin to build interest and a relationship of sorts. THEN you can sell. 

Examples of content are engaging social media posts, educational blogs, or video blogs that help position key executives as thought leaders. Once the audience is engaged, and those executives start being recognized as thought leaders, customers pay attention, and everything snowballs into interest in your brands, products and services.   

The problem is that many companies, dealerships included, are so focused on their products, they neglect to offer anything of value to their audiences. They focus most of their attention towards marketing. What if the only thing you posted on social media was the vehicles you have for sale? That would get annoying, right? 

And that’s where many tend to get stuck -- repeating the same message over and over, not understanding that it is counter-productive. Just like Gary Vaynerchuk explains in his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook,” you would be wise to stop trying to knock your prospects out with every punch, but rather soften them up with compelling and relevant content (jabs) that the audience wants to read. Then, after you have their attention, go for the sale (right hook) through marketing. Stop trying to beat people over the head with marketing messages. If you don’t they will simply stop listening to anything you say – whether that’s content OR marketing – and you essentially become spam.   

I get it. Everyone thinks their products are better than their competitors and want to tell as many potential customers as possible just how great they are. But are your products as great as YOU think they are? Maybe they are… but perhaps they’re not. Do you know? It’s important to know the competition and put things into perspective.  

If a customer comes into your dealership and a salesperson can’t explain the car they are trying to buy, and why it’s better than competing cars, they will probably head someplace else. Being truthful, transparent, honest and armed with knowledge will go a long way to convincing a customer to give you a shot -- and probably close more deals.  

Knowledge of your product, competition and market will give you what you need to create content that will interest your audience, craft more compelling marketing messages AND make the sale. It’s so important to earn their attention through content before marketing to them. And when it does come time for that marketing right hook, delivering a message that is truthful, transparent and believable will win the fight.

In this era of dealership expansions and acquisitions, groups are often put in the unenviable position of inheriting promises or perks that were offered prior to the dealership acquisition. One would think that it is simply a matter of grandfathering the customer into a perk offered by the previous owners. However, one automotive group chose to take a different approach, as recently covered in an article in Automotive News.

Unique Value Propositions – or differentiators – are increasingly important in the automotive industry. Regardless of whether a dealership offers free oil changes, free “tires for life” or any other perk, each dealership will do what it thinks best to attract, sell, service and retain the maximum number of people. But what happens when a dealership has perks it’s promised to buyers and then is acquired? In this case, the acquiring dealer group decided NOT to honor those perks – which, in and of itself, may seem like a risky move – but was it the right one?

In any acquisition, one of the attributes considered is any existing promises made and how the community views the dealership as far as its honesty, integrity and reputation. Obviously, the better the reputation, the more attractive the dealership is for the acquiring dealer group. That being said, when a dealer group is expanding – and doing so under an umbrella brand name, versus simply taking over and retaining the original dealership name – the challenge is how to retain the acquiring dealer group’s existing value propositions and embrace its newly acquired customer base.

In some cases, those two things can be at odds, as it was with this automotive group, a well-known and highly respected group with its own unique set of values. According to the article, if they were to adopt the values of the previous owners for each dealership acquired, they would “be all over the map” and that would be very hard to keep track of and also incredibly confusing for customers. Imagine 10 dealerships all under the same brand name. One of them offers free oil changes for life. Another offers nothing. Another offers free tires. This list could go on. Not only would it be hard for executives to keep track of, it would also make consumers question which dealership they should do business with. It really doesn’t matter if the group’s dealerships are in the same PMA or not. It only boils down to this – when you go to one Wal-Mart, you expect every other Wal-Mart to have the same “rules”, if you will.

In this case, the existing customers of the dealership being acquired didn’t take the changes very well. The local media covered the issue and the customers also took to social media to vent. Did that change the new owner’s minds? No… and for a very simple reason. An organization with multiple value propositions that differ from location to location is doomed to fail. Customers will come in expecting one thing, simply because it is offered at another location, and will then be disappointed when they don’t receive it.

This group, however, understood the value of consistency in brand message and, despite the fact that they knew there would be upset customers because of this change in ownership and loss of perks, it chose to stay with the values and propositions the group was founded upon.

But what about those upset customers who lost the perks promised when they purchased their vehicles?

Their organizational values were non-negotiable so the dealer group trained its entire staff in how to handle these complaints and ensured that online reviews and social media complaints were quickly responded to and addressed appropriately.

The acquired dealership also addressed the ownership change on its website, offering customers discounts on maintenance packages and every fourth tire free. It also explained that Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. now gives free oil changes for the first two years.

As a result the group has begun renewing relationships with each individual customer and things are calming down.

They certainly didn’t buy the dealership because they wanted to alienate the customer base they acquired. But they also weren’t willing to deviate from their organizational values and selling propositions.

This is an interesting conundrum. Consistency and core values are key to any company. But, on the other side of the coin, customer acquisition costs are sky rocketing and the market is so competitive that an upset customer can easily defect to the competition. Did this group make the right move?

It’s inevitable. Businesses grow and, as they do, many look for ways to automate processes. Dealerships do it with auto-responders. Many companies have automated phone trees which circle you around pressing 1s, 2s and 3s, driving you mad as you can never reach a live person for help. Customer service inquiries are responded to by e-mails you cannot reply to. Is it just me or does it seem like sometimes technology actually hurts these businesses? Specifically, as far as customer experience is concerned.

I fully realize that in today’s digital world, in many cases it is much quicker to have no human interaction, and many consumers now prefer that experience– such as shopping online – which I LOVE! In these cases it improves the customer experience -- and I am all for that. I love buying on Amazon and Zappos, and escaping long car rental lines with cool aps that allow me to book online, jump in my car and drive off.

However, when it comes to having a problem with a company and needing help via customer service, I think most people prefer human interaction.

One of the most obvious functions of a public relations firm is to submit press releases. To do this, every PR firm utilizes one of many different companies that specialize in distributing them to appropriate audiences. In most cases, these releases are set to be distributed on certain times and dates as, in some instances, the timing of the release is very important. I’ve been using a service through PR Newswire, one of the largest press release distribution companies in existence. I scheduled a press release on a Thursday for delivery on the following Monday at 8:30am. Due to human error on their part, the release was published later the same day, instead of 4 days later as planned – a really bad time slot. This particular service does not have a customer service number you can call to get immediate help. That’s when technology failed and I went on to have one of the most horrible customer service experiences ever.

The only way to contact customer service is through a chat feature on their website. It took a good three minutes for an agent to come on and every time I asked a question, at least two minutes went by before I received a reply, as if they were handling multiple customers at once, while also going to and fro consulting with a manager before responding. The main problem was that they would simply not accept responsibility for the error and make it right. All I needed was for the release to be issued at the correct date and time.

At first, I was told that the only thing they could do was offer me a coupon for a future press release distribution. They stated that it was simple human error and that there was nothing that they could do for me. It took me 20 minutes of going back and forth via chat to explain that it was their error, that a coupon was of no use to me and that they simply needed to take down the press release and re-release it on the correct date and time. The customer service chat agent kept leaving me hanging, on whatever you call chat hold, to check with her manager -- who repeatedly refused to correct the error. This might sound frivolous, but any PR agency will understand that this error is quite a major one for a newswire service. Issuing a release at a wrong date and time is not a way to win friends and influence people.

Finally, they agreed to re-release it and I was promised that a customer service agent would call me. Rather than get a phone call, I received an e-mail apologizing. I went to reply to the e-mail, as there were some other issues I would have liked handled, but happened to notice at the bottom of the e-mail that it stated that the e-mail address from which I was sent this apology was from an unmonitored account and could not be replied to. It then directed me, of course, back to their chat support.

The funny thing is that customer service can actually be one of the best places to win the customer’s loyalty. Ever have a company handle a mistake so well that you then became more than happy with that company? Well, about the same time this PR Newswire mess happened, I placed a rush order via Amazon for a vitamin supplement I was running out of. The Amazon company that was fulfilling the order emailed me that they were out of the product so could not fulfill my order. I was a bit miffed as they emailed me after it was supposed to have already shipped. I emailed back that it was a bit frustrating that they took their time letting me know as I could have purchased elsewhere. As a result I got an immediate call back from a truly delightful company owner, no less, who explained an unusual problem they had with inventory control and that I was a valuable customer to them and that they were sorry for the error and would keep me informed about the status of my order. While I could have gone elsewhere and got the product immediately, the company’s great customer service and interaction made me stay with them. They impressed me. I in turn wanted to support their business. They did a great job of updating me via email and made sure I did get the product just as soon as they could.

In reflection, while PR Newswire’s technology may have been put in place for efficiency to minimize their employee expenses, it ended up costing them a customer. But more than that; the first thing I did was vent my frustration on Facebook. Something that is very common in this age of social media. My network of PR professionals may find that Facebook advice valuable when making a decision on whether to utilize their services – or not. There’s no telling if they will lose any business because of my posting.  But, they certainly lost mine.                                       

I told everyone I know through Facebook and now….

You’re reading this blog article.

Need I say more?

In business, just as is the case for any living being, all parts need to be functioning to operate at optimal efficiency. If your right leg wanted to go forward and your left leg wanted to go backwards, you probably wouldn’t make much progress walking. The same principle applies to the health, well-being and efficiency of any business. Have you ever tried to use a coupon or take advantage of a special offer at a store, only to be told by the cashier that they were unaware of the special offer? That’s a huge disconnect. But I see it happen quite frequently – the marketing department or executive management creates an offer, but neglects to tell the employees that it exists.

Communication is essential to the success of any business. However, too often, communication gets segregated by department. A marketing department could do an absolutely fabulous job collaborating and designing creative marketing and sales slicks. However, if the sales department doesn’t know anything about them, they’re pretty ineffective.

Most business utilize outside resources in some way. That could be an external ad agency, a PR company, or perhaps a technology vendor for some key function. These vendors can be important to the success of your company – or why would you have hired them in the first place? To neglect these vendors and/or fail to include them in the loop and provide them with needed communication and information, simply serves to diminish the value they could provide the company.

I’m not implying that every internal company e-mail needs to be seen by everyone. Just make sure that someone is responsible for getting these external resources the correct pieces of information and communication that they need.

I also find for external PR and marketing teams it can be really helpful to have meetings with key executives and other departments within the business when developing new ideas and campaigns. These do not have to be long or frequent -- believe me, I know how busy these departments get! But I promise you, this is time well spent. You’d be surprised at the marketing ideas you might get from your sales department, or vice versa. Include the guys on the front lines that are actually selling the product and/or servicing customers each day. Sometimes, fresh eyes and opinions can open up ideas that otherwise wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

There are so many moving parts involved in any business that it’s certainly difficult for everyone to know what’s going on at any given time. And that’s not necessary. What is necessary is for each department affected by an initiative to have a voice about it and knowledge of it. Otherwise, you can end up with salespeople with no knowledge of new marketing initiatives. Or, content waiting to be read and/or approved by multiple people. Or, announcements that could spur sales falling by the wayside, simply because the right arm doesn’t know what the left one is doing.

Take the time to connect (or reconnect) your management team as well as your outside resources and this could well help to make your initiatives more successful and help them perform better. And, your vendors can serve you in their best capacity.