Does your brand have a voice?
Messaging provides the words for customers to understand your brand. Your messaging tells them why your business is useful to them and what your business believes in. This is essentially the purpose of your business. It is what drives desire for your products and services.
A solid brand message can give you a strong position against competition. To do this, you need to focus on the truly important issues, namely your brand, purpose of your business, capabilities and products. We often see a tendency in local businesses to dance around these issues. Ironically, businesses sometimes have a fear of selling.
As part of our Branding Services, Vermilion Pinstripes finds joy in selling creatively and effectively with the help of our Modern Marketing Framework which we use to help clients stand out in a competitive marketplace. It all starts with the Brand Message.
When you have a powerful message, you can boost your brand confidence and reputation and therefore shape perception among your stakeholders. You get brand clarity and loyalty.
How do we start? First, with some really simple questions. Who are you? What are you good at? How can you help your customers?
This is how we start when we devise a plan for our clients. It seems straightforward enough, and when the client has this really clear, that is when the brand's messaging gets through to the customers. Let's take a closer look at this.
Who are you, and who are you talking to?
Be clear about what makes you special. What you need to say and who you say that to go together naturally. The key thing is this - the more relevant your message is to a prospective customer, the more effective it will be.
Next, how are you doing the talking?
Adapt your message to both your customer profile and where they are in the sales life cycle. Think about the size of the company and the industry they are in. Are they at the early stages where they are looking around or are they ready to make a purchase decision?
When you are clear who exactly you want to establish a relationship with, you can set up a clear and thorough communication strategy. You want to build a strong foundational strategy in order to advance cost and performance-effective campaigns later.
How exactly do we create effective messaging?
First, show your prospective customers clearly the purpose of your business and how what you offer is relevant to them. They should not have to figure it out themselves. Next, transform this message for the different groups of people you are speaking to. Think purchase decision-makers vs. influencers. It is important to map your customer profile at the beginning as it will guide you in developing messaging through the sales cycle.
We have compiled some key ideas as a guide to messaging:
- The content and copy of your messaging is the foundation for all your communications. This is because each idea can then be used as a headline on a website or sections in other communications. Choose your wording to be specific. Talk about concrete benefits. Phrase things from the perspective and words of your target audience.
- Think about the response you want to create. Do you want your audience to click through, enrol, refer you, ask for information, recommend or buy? Your messaging will drive the desired response.
- Give your audience the reason, result, outcome and urgency to act. Why should they choose you and not your competitor?
Here is an example of how you can sharpen your messaging:
- Version #1: “Traditional leadership training programs are ineffective. Companies who use our unique approach promote internally three times more often than average.”
- Version #2: “It’s notoriously hard to measure the results of leadership training. Our package comes with quarterly surveys and custom analysis, so you’ll always know the ROI of your investment.”
- Version #1: “Become a leader in customer satisfaction by reinventing the standard in-store experience.”
- Version #2: “Take control of your customer’s in-store experience.”
- Version #1: We provide PET scans for cancer investigation.
- Version #2: Our PET/CT technology detects the tiniest details of cancer, but our focus is always on you.
Having worked with global and local B2B companies, we have experienced first-hand the positive impact of clear and relevant messaging. It is well worth investing the time, effort and expertise to define and refine your brand and product's key message or value proposition. This will set sales, marketing and business strategies on the right track from the very start.
You must now be thinking about whether your current communications are resonating with your audience. Does your company look like every other company in the industry? Perhaps you have expanded recently and your customer profile has changed? Companies that have undergone a merger can benefit from an update in your messaging. Is your messaging accurately reflecting the values of your brand? Or do you simply need some housekeeping to avoid looking outdated?
Speak to us about how we can help sharpen your brand messaging and bring a spark of life to the creative task of selling!
The purpose of Vermilion Pinstripes is to create Happy Businesses. We do this by building brand confidence using modern marketing and communications that have you sell more without selling.
We are proud to journey with growing local, regional and global businesses as they gain business confidence. Now let’s build your business confidence!
Vermilion Pinstripes, sales marketing communications agency | Australia and Singapore
e/ info@vermilionpinstripes.com
Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia: t/ +614 0777 9828
Melbourne, Victoria: t/ +6144 950 1277
Singapore: t/ +65 9681 7045
