How Fractured Marketing Can Lead To Fractured Identity (And How To Avoid This)

Imagine meeting someone in a business group or meet up.

They’re friendly, well dressed and articulate – professional in every sense.

You have a long conversation, grab their business card from them and are honestly looking forward to the next time you get to chat with then.

Then you visit their website and scan through their social media posts — but something feels off.

The social media posts are filled with old content from years ago, hasn’t been updated and doesn’t reflect what that person mentioned.

Then you do a quick search – only to find that the website looks completely different in search and looks completely different from both their social posts and the business card.

Suddenly, that initial, wonderful first impression erodes – and you ask yourself: which of these is the true representation of this business?

There’s been a fracture of identity – something that causes confusion and hesitation in important decision moments – not an ideal situation to be in.

The Source Of Fractured Identity

The source of fractured identity isn’t because you’ve delegated these areas to specialists (more on that later).

Fracturing is caused because the delegation was put into place with out a centralized source or plan – or someone to sit on top to put that plan into place.

This is an easy trap to fall into — a busy small business owner, a small army of specialists across different disciplines, limited time and an increasingly larger to-do list.

While there’s nothing wrong hiring specialists, without alignment across those specialties, there will be some natural tearing and stretching of your small business’ identity — or what that identity is in your customer’s memory.

A website looks and says something.

A social media account says something else.

Search & AI summaries show old/outdated information.

Fractured — what’s the canonical version of this small business?

This Doesn’t Mean “Do Everything Yourself”

Your natural instinct might be “I”ll just do this myself then.” (This is only natural for many small business owners.)

What this really means is before you delegate, define a single source of truth, identity and align your goals across each area you delegate (or have someone help you with this).

What should your small business look like across channels? (Consistent visual styles.)

How should your small business sound? (Consistent communication styles.)

What information needs to be updated to reflect your most recent version?

What goals need to be aligned between web, content, search, social and ads?

Turn your digital marketing into an ecosystem – not a patchwork effort with diverging goals and initiatives.

These questions may, of course, be harder to define than they look on the surface – but the next time you look across your marketing efforts (from the outside looking in) ask yourself:

Does my small business marketing feel/look fractured?