Be Different or be dead

September 19, 2016

5 simple ways to get your marketing message across

5 simple ways to get your marketing message across.

Marketers today face a formidable challenge when it comes to communicating their message to the market

Never has there been so much noise from so many companies in so many forms of media all vying for mind share.

Here are five tips that will help you cut through the clutter and land your message successfully:

Be really clear on who you are talking to — Who do you want to receive your message? Who do you want to convince to buy what you are selling? Too many organizations these days push their message on the masses thinking that it will resonate with someone who cares.

It’s a supply orientation where the emphasis is on pushing what you supply as opposed to fulfilling what people need and desire. And it operates from a belief that there is an ‘average’ potential customer who possesses all the attributes of a worthy target.

It’s a risky proposition to spray the masses with your demands expecting a healthy hit rate that will yield a healthy return on the communications investments made. It might resonate with some but it will be ignored by many.

Effective messaging looks the target straight in the eyes. It is a penetrating one-on-one expression that’s based on what the individual wants, not what you think the crowd wants.

Effective messaging is ‘eyeball to eyeball’. Best to know exactly who you want to talk to before you open your mouth.

Speak to what they receive not what you give — People are tired of getting stuff shoved down their throats and being told what’s good for them in all forms of advertising.

Typically, this ‘message push’ has two characteristics that make it unproductive:

- The communications stresses what the product or service consists of; its feature elements and the gee whiz technology used to provide it;
- The messaging is based on a customer profile which is a composite of what the lowest common denominator person looks like in the market segment being targeted.

By emphasizing what the product does and the technology it employs, companies are hoping the target will be infatuated with its coolness and buy it to be part of the in-crowd.

And by targeting their message at a composite average customer profile, they hope that a sufficient number of potential customers will see the relevance of the product to their own particular needs and make the purchase.

Most organizations hope that their message bombardment will strike the relevance chord with the majority of the audience, but it doesn’t. All it does is add to the noise and clutter.

Both expectations are severely flawed. People buy something because it satisfies a need or want — like amazing pictures on their mobile device — not because it uses a particular technology to deliver it.
And, because everyone of us is different in some way, what I care about is different from most other people so I will likely ignore a message based on an average profile.

Effective messaging speaks to personal relevance, what we as individuals personally care about with absolutely no consideration of the person standing next to us.
So take off your product and service hat, downplay its technology platform and focus on what individuals desire, covet and ‘lust for’ if you seek a messaging strategy that will perform beyond expectations.

Convince them why they should choose you — You have merely seconds to establish your currency in the crowd of companies all vying for audience attention. Everyone has a shield up in front of them to protect themselves from the inundation of messages they see on television, hear on radio or that pop up on the web page they are browsing.
The volume of messaging stimuli is overwhelming so the ignore factor is always high.

So how do you capture my interest in a nano-second before my eyes glaze over and I move on?
Even if your message addresses what I care about — i.e. it’s relevant — in a compelling way I may still ignore it because relative to other companies supplying something similar it doesn’t stand out — it’s not unique.

Elsewhere, I’ve talked about creating the ONLY Statement to express what makes an organization special, unique and unmatchable in a relevant and compelling way:

‘We are the ONLY ones that…’

Your messaging plan must use your ONLY as the way to carve out your place in the crowd and enhance your indispensability to the audience.

Make your call to action respectful and easy — You can’t demand their money but make them feel stupid if they don’t capitulate to your offer at incredible savings. I’ve actually had sales people suggest I was crazy not to take them up on their offer that would save me money.

‘In your face’ asks like this are insulting. Be honoured if they decide to do business with you. And if they don’t, be respectful and grateful that they even considered you.

And, if they do agree to buy, make it easy for them to complete the transaction. Making them go through hoops could force them to lose their good intentions.

The reason most organizations can’t get their message across is they are trapped in mass thinking, and pushing their agenda on everyone. This approach doesn’t work in today’s ‘me’ society where relevance and personalization are key.

Don’t talk about low prices — The price messaging game is insanity. If all you have is lower or lowest price to talk about, you have nothing substantive to say at all. So ZIP IT!

Organizations that advertise lower prices trust that this strategy will make their business better off, that somehow they will gain a market advantage in the long run.

The benefits of focusing on price are illusory or short term at best. Revenue may spike up in the short term but it comes at the expense of lower margins unless costs can be reduced at the same time (which rarely happens).

Communicating lower prices has little strategic value; it never enhances your long term market position.

It contributes nothing to differentiate you. It doesn’t make you special or unique in the eyes of the customer.
In fact it has the opposite effect. It shouts out your status as a commodity player who is interested in providing little more than low prices.

The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about — Seth Godin

Price floggers are a dime a dozen; you will not likely win this game. You might keep your head above water for a short time but sooner or later you will either hit the margin wall, or some gunslinger will come along and lower their prices again.

And the race to the bottom is on.

Effective marketing communications speaks to value and benefits being delivered to the customers you want to attract or keep. Forget about the easy price message because you have no credibility or future with it.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 9.19.16 at 06:28 am by Roy Osing
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