In a highly competitive marketing environment, where both branded and house brands vie for the consumer dollar, most FMCG companies seeks to maintain their position as a marketer of quality products with the retail trade and to strengthen their brand image with consumers.

While new products need to be promoted to achieve consumer awareness and elicit trial, maintaining interest in long-established products, and introducing consumers to a wider product range, presents a greater challenge. Over the years B&A has learnt a few things about how to effectively communicate product information – we’ve also learnt what not to do.

So, how do you communicate with your customers?

1. Focus on your target audience

A client’s ad agency arranged a series of ads for incontinence pads in the major bowls magazine. It had an older audience, it is true. Unfortunately it was predominantly a male audience and the products were targeted to women. PR efforts, targeting the right media – daytime radio and TV interviews, plus newspaper health columns – achieved three times more response from potential customers and cost a third less than the advertising efforts.

If your audience is young and users twitter, facebook and myspace, but you don’t, you may be missing out. But if your research shows these are a complete mystery to your audience, why jump on the social media bandwagon?

2. Research what your customers need

The most effective customer segmentation identifies what your customers do and why. If your communication doesn’t provide customers with the information they want to help them make a decision and act, then it has limited value to them, or you.

3. Be consistent

If your products, your packaging, your pricing, your ads, your web site, your e-communications, your media releases and the individuals who sell your products all look, feel, and say different things about your brand, your customers will not recognise your unique offering and have little reason to buy or be loyal to your brand. All your communication must be integrated, consistent and stand out to be effective.

4. Tell your target audience to act now

Your communication must persuade your audience to do something, now. If not, why communicate? That applies whether your communication is a health message, for a branded product or employee communication.

5. Put enough information on your web site

Research indicates that over eight out of ten Australians use the web to source or decide on products and over half of internet users purchase at least one product a month on line. Yet many companies with a range of products have a single web site and only allocate one page to individual brands or products.

Consider just how much information a customer, or potential customer, needs. A single paragraph can answer a straightforward question, but if the product or service you offer is expensive and a significant purchase, or it has health benefits, then people generally want far more detailed information.

And if you offer a range of similar products, give customers a way to help them choose what will meet their needs, such as a way of comparing your offerings. One retailer of computer bags has a handy link that identifies if a particular computer will fit in the bag.

If you don’t make information easy for customers to find and practical to use, why would they return to your site later, where they might learn about new products or services you want to sell them?

6. Tell customers more than just what you want to sell them.

Too many web sites and brochures provide information about what the organisation has to offer, rather than what the benefits are. They forget that customers, including business-to-business customers, are self interested. They care about what’s in it for them.

If you offer something customers want, like recipes, tips and hints, valuable information to help make decisions, special offers or promotions, or simply detailed information unavailable elsewhere, customers are likely to return to your website, and probably buy more from your organisation.

If you'd like to improve your customer communication, contact B&A today at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 02-97891263.