Marketing Messages that Resonate with Your Customer

Marketing messages are specific short statements that support what your business does best. They tell a consistent story about your company and what makes it so successful.

Ironically, the term marketing messages sounds like it could be a broad term for all different types of marketing content from websites to brochures to advertising. In actuality, marketing messages are three to four very specific, short statements that support what your business does best and how your company is positioned in the marketplace relative to competitors. While marketing messages are brief, they are used broadly and liberally to guide the development of all content for the company.

Marketing messages are used internally as a guideline to help the marketing and communications team tell a consistent story about your company and what makes it so successful. It’s the common thread that runs through all marketing materials and company communications. The goal of marketing messages is to ensure each customer will receive a consistent story about your company, no matter how they encounter your brand.

Developing a Positioning Statement

Prior to writing marketing messages, it is best practice to develop an overarching statement about why your business exists and what it does best. Called a positioning statement, this short, declarative sentence simply states one benefit and addresses your target consumer’s biggest challenge. Writing one sentence sounds easy but there’s a lot of background work that must be done prior to drafting this statement.

First, in order to understand how your product is different than your competitors, you must understand your competitors. Conducting a thorough competitive analysis is the first step. Second, in order to develop a messages that will resonate with your customers, you must understand your customers. Conducting an audience analysis is the second step. Other analyses, such as an industry analysis or market landscape analysis, can also be completed to gain even more background information.

Now that you understand competitors, your target audience, and the marketplace better, you can answer a few questions:

• What does your company do best?
• How will customers benefit from your product or service?
• What can your company do better or differently than competitors?
• How do you want your customers to describe your product or service to others?

Once you answer these questions, you will be able to develop a positioning statement that is unique, believable, and important and one that will become the central theme for all your marketing activities.

Developing Marketing Messages

Now that you have an overarching statement on why your company is better than your competitors, you will be able to begin crafting three to four persuasive marketing messages that support the positioning statement and resonate with customers. A good positioning statement naturally yields a set of marketing messages that answer questions your target customer wants to hear.

Well-crafted marketing messages highlight your company’s unique benefits, speak directly to your target audience, and tell them how your product or service can solve their problem. They should answer your customer’s question: Why choose you? Marketing messages should help break down the barriers to purchase and should use language that your target customer can understand. Ultimately, marketing messages should communicate trust in your brand and your product or service.

Traditionally, particularly with B2C marketing, marketing messages are tested with the target audience prior to using them in marketing. But in today’s fast-paced business world, where electronic messaging—emails, websites, social media—can be tweaked, A/B tested, and instantaneously changed, the testing is often done simultaneously with implementation.

Repetition of your marketing messages is a critical factor in successful marketing. You will likely grow tired of the marketing messages long before the target audience may even notice it. But repeating your messages over and over is how you own a position, and, because of this, your marketing messaging should remain unaltered for at least 18 months.

Need help developing marketing messages that resonate with your target audience? Let FrogDog help. Contact us.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/Sira Anamwong