Building your Key Marketing Messages
Too many small business owners spend time telling you how great they are without taking time to focus on the customer’s needs. Smart marketing delivers the right message to the right audience — a message that solves a customer’s problem. The customer always wants to know what is in it for them, how you can help them and solve their pains. Your marketing messages are the key messages that you want to convey across all your marketing platforms, from newspaper ads, to website, to social media accounts.
Start by defining your audience
You have to intimately understand your current and potential customers. Distinguish individual character profiles by age, gender, interests, profession, etc. Write down the details and find images that represent your target audience, this is your avatar or avatars. Based on your defined target audience, what are the key problems or concerns you can address or solve? Expand on and define those pain points for each character and write it under each profile. Below that, write down three key marketing messages you want to communicate to that audience.
What is messaging? How are key messages developed?
Basically, messaging is a term to describe how you talk about who you are and why you exist as a business or organization. It communicates key points you consistently make when you reach out to your audience. And it always ties back to your brand. They should also be developed for different audiences. You may want to consider crafting a set of short, standard phrases or paragraphs to describe your business, programs, products and/or services. Then, as you need to reach out to specific audiences, implement new marketing campaigns, you’ll have standard language ready to tailor to your purpose.
A well-crafted message will highlight your unique benefits, target your audience, support your mission and often include a call to action. What you want people to know about your business or organization, your services or products? What do you want people to do? How do you want them to feel about your business?
Develop a few core messages that makes the connection between what you do and how it relates to your audience. Be consistent with delivery. Each message you deliver should reflect your brand, who you are. Highlight what is relevant to the issue and your audience, but be sure to include a consistent statement about your business or organization. This makes your messaging memorable and helps position you in the market and in the minds of your audience.
Make sure there is not a disconnect from traditional marketing to your social media marketing side. They must reinforce each other. If someone reads your website, then your brochure, then your Facebook page and then talks to a staff member, all those points of information will be consistent and delivered in a similar tone.
Take a look at your marketing messages.
Are you focused on your customer’s needs or are you touting your wares? Your marketing message should be used in all your external communications. It starts with knowing the wants, fears, problems, and needs of your target market and ends by crafting a message that speaks to those problems in a compelling and believable way. The result is an irresistible message that makes your prospect want to know more.
Remember, a good marketing strategy plan starts with defining your marketing key messages. Long before you start choosing how you want to market your small business, you have to decide what it is you want to say. It’s critical to focus on something from the start and be consistent.
* Originally printed in the Smiths Falls Hometown news, July 2015 issue
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