Less is More

One thing I learned to be true in my hobby of cooking is a lesson that we can all learn in our marketing. At some point, the dish would have reached an optimal flavor, and yet I could not leave well enough alone. Just a pinch more of this… then, to recover from the ill effects of adding 'this', I added more of 'that', and then the proverbial 'other', until the "this, that, and the other" overwhelmed the simplicity of mom's good ole potato soup.

In your marketing communications, consider yourself fortunate that extracting elements from a page is as easy as pressing the delete button, far easier than in a stew. With technology products so rich in features, it's easy to begin thinking, "what more can I say... how can I build this up even greater?" Stop and consider that what you may need could be to remove some parts. Reduce the copy, simplify the design, and do not try and say too much.

Our firm designed a collateral piece for one of our CAD consulting clients. The cover was as simple and elegant as they come – blank white with three curved lines and their logo. The owner wanted to see more. "I have to pay so much to print a full color page, let's make the most of it." After four new revisions, we finally settled on the original design.

I often find myself writing a press release or the copy for an ad and think to myself, "Something else needs said. What can I add?" More often than not, the real improvement is found when I pare down what I had and just stick with the basics. From time to time we all need to be reminded that the key to any single element in Client Path Marketing is merely to move the client one step further down the path - nothing more.