Yesterday was about being authentic, Today is about the follow through. Marketing is a promise. If you don’t deliver on that promise, you might have a customer the first time around, but then you’ll lose them forever. As I just discussed with a colleague over lunch: It’s easier to keep a customer than it is to try and win one back.

Once you’ve discovered what makes you authentic, make sure your company is following through. It’s like when I went to Ireland over 20 years ago and was delightfully surprised to discover that it was everything I had imagined it would be. All the mental images I had of Ireland (think marketing) became real. The real deal lived up to the expectations, the promise of what Ireland would be like.

That’s what our marketing should continue to do: first, to be authentic, to paint a picture in the customer’s mind of what their experience will be when they buy from us. And second, to deliver on that promise.