Your marketing message is the words you use to communicate with your audience to convince them to do business with you. Your message plays a big role in whether or not you achieve your business goals. Oftentimes, your marketing message is a determining factor in acquiring a new customer or losing them to your competition.
So, how do you craft your marketing message – and a good one at that? Here is a simple 5-step process.
Step 1: Identify Your Buyer Persona
In your messaging, you want to speak to one person. In copy writing, it’s an element of a foundational principle called “the rule of one.”
Every successful small business has a target market whether they know it or not. And within that target market lies your ideal customer(s).
Creating a buyer persona to represent that ideal customer is essential to knowing how to create messaging that will resonate with and attract that person. You need to fully understand who you are talking to and trying to attract for your business.
Step 2: Identify the Pain Points of Your Buyer Persona
Your buyer persona experiences frustrations and pains. Being able to clearly identify their problem, plus the pain and suffering they feel as a result of that problem, is the secret to crafting a marketing message that will make your ideal buyer sit up and listen.
Articulating your buyer’s pain and suffering tells them that you understand and empathize with them. This, in turn, will entice them to purchase from you.
Step 3: Present Your Solution to Your Buyer Persona’s Problem
Present your solution (product or service) as a simple cure for all the pain and suffering your prospect is feeling as a result of their problem. This step is important in that most people won’t make a move unless they feel triggered by a specific problem/challenge/pain/event.
Now, identify all the benefits of your solution and how those benefits will improve the life of your prospect and take away all their pain and suffering.
Step 4: Present the Results You’ve Produced for Similar Buyers
Talking about your solution and how it helps is typically not enough. Buyers are skeptical, and rightfully so. You have to prove to them that your solution works. People will believe other people who are similar to them that have achieved positive results.
Prove your results by gathering and presenting testimonials from current and former customers. You should also provide case studies of actual pain points that were solved and the results that were achieved.
Step 5: Differentiate Your Small Business from Your Competitors
Clearly communicate your differences! Don’t just talk about “unparalleled customer service” though. You need to dig deep and uncover what makes your service or product unique (and better) than the competition.
Prospects are looking for you to communicate your differences when they are in the “consideration” phase of the buyer’s journey. Those differences need to hold perceived value to the prospect. It needs to be something they care about.
Additional Thoughts
You may need to craft varying marketing messages, based on your target market. If your target market is segmented, then you are likely to have multiple buyer personas. Understanding their differences and crafting marketing messages for each is crucial.
You should also be prepared to tailor your message to the specific marketing channel/platform you use to reach your audiences.
For example, messaging for Facebook ads that directly promote your product or service can be much more aggressive than a guest blog post, which should typically be more subtle.
If you’re still unsure of how to craft an effective marketing message, book a call with our Strategic Marketing Consult and we can talk through your challenges.