Have you ever been stuck in an event with someone who just talks about himself? How did you feel? I’m sure you just wanted to flee…
That’s how your customers feel when you talk about your company and features. Your customers don’t care about you… they care about themselves. They want to know what value you bring to their lives and how you solve their problems. If you don’t answer their “what’s in it for me” question, they will not spend precious time reading and taking action.
The predominant reason for not getting the results you want from marketing (whether it’s your website, social media or collaterals) is marketing messaging that focus on your business instead on your customer. That’s why it is important to get them right and concise, especially since most times you have less a minute to convey your information.
Taking product or service (let alone a complicated technology) and packaging it into simple messages that consumers understand and connect with is challenging. Here are some tips to get you started.
Get acquainted
Marketers unintentionally assume that all buyers are roughly the same. If I am excited about my offering, than they will be too. If I am familiar with the industry jargon (especially in tech companies), they are probably familiar with it as well…
If only it was true … But it’s not!
Knowing and understanding customer and market needs are at the core of every successful business, whether it sells directly to individuals (B2C) or to other businesses (B2B).
Who are your customers? What are their pains? Why do they buy? When do they buy? Where or how do they buy? What makes them tick? What are their expectations? What are they thinking about you and your offering? Who are your competitors? Why do their customers buy from them?
To answer these questions, try to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and look at your business from their perspective. It’s an interesting drill, but it may not be as easy as it seems.
You must also collect and analyze data from your marketing channels (online and offline) to help decipher customers buying behavior.
And of course you can simply ask them …
Knowing who to target, when and how will help you craft more price messaging that increase conversion and sales.
Divide and Conquer
Marketing often casts the net too wide, hoping to address as many potential customers as possible. However, when trying to appeal to different types of clients in a single message, you end up ignoring individual needs and pains. When your message is too broad, it does not appeal to anyone.
The best way to tackle target customer types (as identified in the get acquainted process) is to segment your addressable market. You may segment it geographically, by business type, by interests, by financial status or any other criteria.
Segmentation helps you focus your marketing and sales efforts to drive more sales. It may imply creating different offerings or simply creating distinct messages for the different buyer personas. It may also entail utilizing different collaterals, media types, channels etc.
Be Concise and Keep it simple
In one of HBO’s Silicon Valley episodes, the start-up team (Pied Piper) struggles with the fact that users don’t understand its software. This is a real dilemma for many tech companies. Ground breaking technology is not enough. Potential customers will not spend time to understand your technology. They’re just going to skip it.
Your company may be doing a great job at attracting traffic to its website, but if conversion rate or no. of users is low, there’s a chance that people don’t fully understand the problem you solve or the value you introduce.
Think of the last time you found yourself browsing a website. If after few seconds you weren’t sure what it was offering or what is the value for you, did you stick around to find answers or did you hit the back button? We’re all more likely to flee to the next alternative than try to fully understand what’s going on.
It’s one of the biggest challenges of marketers…
Trigger Emotions, Emphasize Benefits
Emotions drive us. You cannot ignore then when trying to persuade. To strike a chord, your marketing messages must have a personal impact, tell an engaging company story, evoke a sense of desire, and resonate with a pain point that your audience has.
Media channels are extremely noisy and consumer attention span is more limited than ever and. The easiest way to hook people into reading your pitch is to strike an emotional chord. Leave people with a warm feeling of “It gets me”. When people feel something for your product or brand, you gain new customers as well as loyal evangelists.
Do not forget to focus on benefits. If your marketing message is too technical or filled with buzzwords, it won’t connect with the average consumer and you are likely to lose out on millions in revenue.
Remember, It’s Not About You !
Consumers are only interested in how your product or technology can make their life easier. They want to know why your product or service deserves their attention, plain and simple. The details behind it are less important.
Good messaging takes your brand to the next level. It sharpens the gravity of your offering to the target market and communicates it consistently and successfully. Make sure they are distributed throughout your organization, so that everyone is telling the same company story and delivering the right messages to the right people.