Clear, Compelling Marketing
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Jan 22, 2009
At Your Marketing Lab, we offer a free email course that’s all about how to create a consistent core message that resonates with your ideal customer or client. Why is this important? We are so over-marketed to these days (you might have noticed), that only the clearest, most compelling messages make it through - and even more importantly - move us to action. Below are a few of the main points covered in that course, summarized
1. Marketing is really about a continuous conversation you are having with your customers, prospects, vendors, and partners. In fact, every point of contact your business has with the outside world is marketing some message. Further, these conversations are either helping your business succeed or fail. Great marketing involves incorporating a core message into every one of these conversions.
2. When creating this very important core message, you must understand very well who you are communicating to. Further, you must understand who your unique ideal client is and cater your message directly to them. Create a system of continuous market research that involves surveys, paying attention to what they read, what they watch, what they love and what they are frustrated by and not interested in. Read their web sites, read what they are reading, subscribe to their newsletters, and join their associations. Talk with them - and even more important - listen.
3. In order for your core message to be meaningful to your ideal clients, there must be a strong point of differentiation within it. One of the best ways to differentiate yourself is to find something your competitors are not doing that your customers would find valuable. Or, find something your competitors are doing that your customers find annoying. Differentiate with that, but never with price. Remember - you can match your competition in every way, as long as you differentiate on one thing that matters to your ideal client.
4. Communicate your core message from a “benefits” rather than “features” perspective. None of us purchase anything because of the features of that product or service. We purchase because of what the features of that product or service does for us. More importantly - we purchase because of what we perceive the features of that product or service will do for us. Perception, as always, is king. Even more important: How we think about a product or service not only drives our purchasing decisions, it also shapes our expectations about that product or service and influences how committed we are to enjoying the product or service and getting value from it.
5. Some questions to help you on your quest of discovering the real benefits your ideal customers are looking for: What are your ideal customers really looking for? What do they really want? What do they really need? What are they already looking for? What do your products or services do that can deliver on those desires? Those are the benefits. Those are the hot buttons of your core message and they will have little to do with the actual features of your product or service. As long as your product or service delivers on what they really want, the actual product or service is incidental. So here’s the big take-away: Don’t craft your marketing message around what’s incidental. Craft it around what is desired.
You can sign up for the entire free email course, which elaborates further on these points and several other key components, by clicking here. It’s great information and free of charge.
But, I also want to ask you another question: Once you’ve developed a truly compelling core message, what are you going to do to ensure that your ideal customers hear it? While taking the time to craft the right message will put you heads and tails above your competition all by itself, if you can’t deliver it to your target audience in a strategic, consistent way, it does you no good.
That’s why, in Denver this Saturday, January 24th, we are bringing you a complete Marketing Strategy Blueprint Workshop. And we are bringing it to you for under $200. (If you’re not in Denver, we apologize. Stay tuned - we may be coming to your city soon and may also attempt an online version of this workshop. If either of these options are appealing to you, it would help us out a great deal if you let us know.)
If you are in Denver, this is a workshop you can’t afford to miss.
In this new economy, having a good marketing strategy is not just important - it’s essential. This Saturday, we’ll help you map out a Strategic plan - a Blueprint - for the rest of the year. Click on the link below to read more and to register. http://www.yourmarketinglab.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254
A few other important things you should know:
1. This workshop is backed by our 10x your money back gaurantee
2. This is the last time this workshop will be offered in Denver until June.
3. This is the last time it will be offered in Denver for $197. (Register with a friend, and pay only $147 each!) Also - seating is extremely limited, so don’t delay. Reserve your space now.
Positioning Strategy: Do you choose your customer, or do they choose you?
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Nov 21, 2008
(This post began as a response to Jeff P.’s comment on an earlier post. He asked, “do you choose your customer…or do they choose you?)
“Selling benefits, not features” is a mantra that is repeated often by sales and marketing experts alike in response to those seeking marketing help. At YML, we write about it a lot. One of the YML Partners, Sonia Simone even teaches a very good course on how to sell benefits rather than features.
This concept is taught often by many for good reason. It’s good positioning strategy. None of us purchase anything because of the features of that product or service. We purchase because of what the features of that product or service does for us. More importantly - we purchase because of what we perceive the features of that product or service will do for us.
Perception, as always, is king.
To go one step further: How we think about a product or service not only drives our purchasing decisions, it also shapes our expectations about that product or service and influences how committed we are to enjoying the product or service and getting value from it.
I happen to have the perfect example of the power of desire and perception. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I decided to go to the movies. We had just finished up a tough week and were in the mood to relax and laugh. We were in the market for fun!
So, we chose a comedy that we expected to be lighthearted and funny. We’d seen funny previews for this movie and read rave reviews and fully expected to laugh and have a great time watching it. Well.. the movie was terrible. Absolutely terrible. And we knew right away that it was terrible, and we really knew halfway through that it was terrible, and we still stayed for the whole movie, which ended…. terribly.
As we were walking out of the theater, we had to ask ourselves why we stayed for the entire movie. The answer is simple. We really, really wanted it to get better. We wanted it to get better so badly that we held out hope that it might get better way past the point that rational people should.
Have you ever done the same thing? Have you ever been so determined to enjoy something or achieve something that you held on to it for way too long?
A couple important points to make about this example:
1. If you can craft a message that taps into something a group of people really, really want, they will work hard to really, really like it. If our perception is that a product or service is going to give us what we really want, we will try very hard to get what we really want out of it.
2. We weren’t really buying a movie that night. We were buying comedic relief. We were buying an escape. We were buying laughter and fun. The movie itself (the medium to deliver what we wanted) was incidental.
So - the original question was, “Do you choose your customers or do they choose you?” I have two answers.
Answer #1: They choose you - IF you have managed to be where they are, offering what they want, and can deliver.
Answer #2: You choose them - IF you first decide that you want to be the option they choose to get what they already want and shape your message accordingly.
Even better: Remember earlier when I said that “perception is king?” If the message you are communicating to your target market is in alignment with what people are already looking for, you can shape their perceptions of expecting an exceptional product or service even before they purchase from you.
BUT - your message must hit home with what they actually want (benefits) and your product or service MUST deliver what you promise.
With a well developed, relevant message you don’t have to do any of the icky parts of selling. Rather, your job is to connect and communicate and then deliver. Going back to our movie example, my husband and I were already looking for a comedy. No one had to “sell” us on wanting to watch a comedy. They just had to put something in front of us that had the potential of meeting our desire. We were sold before we bought the ticket. It took a poorly done movie to “unsell” us. And even that wasn’t easy. You have a better product. You can deliver.
So, what are your ideal customers really looking for? What do they really want? What do they really need? What are they already looking for? What do your products or services do that can deliver on those desires? Those are the benefits. Those are the hot buttons of your core message and they will have little to do with the actual features of your product or service. As long as your product or service delivers on what they really want, the actual product or service is incidental.
So here’s the big take-away: To be a successful business, don’t craft your marketing message around what’s incidental. Craft it around what is badly desired.
