I have a software development client that is always complaining about “feature creep.” This is their industry term for a software development project that continues to grow as users determine they need little add ons along the way. Next thing you know, nobody can really remember what the software was supposed to do because it doesn’t really do any one thing particularly well after the weight of the creep carries it down.

I think a lot of businesses do this to themselves in their marketing. In an attempt to appeal to the broadest possible audience they add or make up features about their products and services in order to sound bigger or more impressive – thus creating their own version of feature creep. The net result though is they don’t really appeal to anyone because the message is watered down.

What if you figured out one or two things that your firm can get really good at and communicated that over and over again. What if your business was more iPod like? Here’s what we do, we do it better than anyone and we’re happy about that. What if you trimmed all the fat out of your marketing content and said – this is who we are, this is why we are passionate about it and this is the end result you can expect from a relationship with our firm.

See also: Featuritis