Nailing Your Marketing Messaging By Starting With One Key Question

 

When you put time and effort into writing emails, updating your website, or posting on social media, you want to know that it will generate attention and interest from your target market.

So, what do you do when your marketing messaging doesn't generate any real demand?

Often, when messaging doesn't work, people try to change the communication medium, or the design elements and all the other variables, when in fact, the issue is with the message itself.

So, if you're facing these challenges let's help diagnose where things are going wrong.

Your marketing messages need to demonstrate to your ideal-fit client that you can help them solve their problems.

You do that by illustrating that you know exactly what their problem is and that you have a process for solving it. However, too often, businesses get caught up focussing on what their services are instead. It's backwards.

What you and how you do it is important, and it will be a fundamental component of what makes you different from your competitors, but that doesn't mean that we need to lead with this. We need to see things from a different set of eyes, which I want to help you do.

So, let's start here.

 

Re-frame Your Marketing Messaging: "What Do You Sell"

 

I ran a workshop recently where we were helping businesses develop tactics for generating demand. Some of these businesses had an existing contact database, but they couldn't get their leads to move through their sales and marketing process. And others weren't able to generate new leads at all.

I want to ask you the same question I asked our group.

What does your business sell?…..

Give yourself 30 seconds to list your answer before reading on. Seriously, do it; it will be helpful.

Typically, we get a range of answers like recruitment services, accounting and financial advisory services, financial planning services, graphic design services, insurance brokerage services, etc.

That's what you do, it's a description of your business and the sector you operate within. It's not really what you're selling.

If we're going to really generate demand, we need to go deeper.


 

Marketing Messaging That Goes Deeper

 

To put it simply, your prospective customers want the problem-solving benefit, so that's the lens we need to see your marketing messaging through.

Here's my all-time favourite example.

When Apple launched the iPad, it wasn't the world's first mp3 player, but their approach stimulated a market that was otherwise laying comparatively dormant. Apple didn't get bogged down talking about a literal description for the music playing device. They focussed on the benefits.

1,000 songs in your pocket. Clear, concise, appealing and intriguing.

With this example in mind, let's assume we are a financial planning company targeting self-employed entrepreneurs.

We aren't selling financial planning; we're selling peace of mind, the ability to retire early, the sense of accomplishment with giving your family financial freedom, the confidence to take a break from work because they're on track to hit their goals.

That's what we're selling. 

Our services are how we do it - but it's not what we should be leading with; otherwise, we will blend into the noise in the marketplace. We will appear just like everyone else. 

This is a crucial distinction because often, people get so caught in the weeds of telling people about all of the stuff that they do when in reality, it's important to you, and it will become important to them, but that's not enough for them to put their hand up and say, I want to learn more.

For now, your prospective clients aren't concerned with your how; they want to know that you deeply understand their fears, frustrations, goals and aspirations.

Your messaging needs to demonstrate all of this as clearly, concisely and powerfully as possible. 

So I'd encourage you to do this. Have a look at the emails that you send. Have a look at your website. Have a look at all of the forms of communication that your business uses and start to see it through this new lens.

Are you selling the mechanics of what you do, or are you selling the outcome?

 

Simple & Systematic Marketing

One of the most impactful things we do in the Marketing Compass Accelerator is help clients build a marketing strategy that highlights their core competencies and helps them play to their strengths.

You need to do more of what you do best and avoid any tactics which aren't a natural fit for your style, otherwise, you will get overwhelmed. 

This is the takeaway I want you to have. Your marketing doesn't have to be complicated. 

So many businesses get caught trying to turn bad-fit leads into good-fit leads because their lead volume has dried up, so they get distracted by only working with what they can get, and it's when things get messy.

Getting your messaging right is a crucial foundation in this. 

If you want to see all 9 of the foundations and assess how your business is performing in each, check out our online masterclass; the winning marketing plan.

 

Online-Marketing-Workshop-CTA

 

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