Too often, companies spend a lot of time and money developing their logo and the graphic appearance of their promotional materials, important aspects of effective marketing, while only giving superficial consideration to their marketing message, an equally important component to promote with. success your business. . The development of your marketing message should take at least the same time as the development of the graphic elements or what is commonly known as “appearance”.
Here’s a six-step process that will help ensure that your marketing message sells.
1. Capture the attention of your target market with a headline that clearly defines who you are speaking to. If you are selling to retirees, your title might read something like “If you are 65 or older.”
2. Identify the problems, symptoms, problems, needs and wants of your target market. You need to start with where they are and then move them to the action you want them to take. To continue our example, if you are looking for retired people to volunteer time for a cause, your caption might read, “And Looking For A Way To Make A Difference In The Lives Of Others.”
3. Provide a brief description of the product. These are the characteristics of your product or service. Be sure to describe the characteristics that are important to the target market you are communicating with and describe them from the potential target market. In other words, talk about what your customer buys, not what you sell.
4. Describe the benefit and value the customer will get from buying your product or service (or taking the action you want them to take). Again, these benefits should be relevant to the group of customers you are selling to.
5. Give your message credibility. This could include testimonials, case studies, or money-back guarantees.
6. Specify the action you want the recipient of your message to take. For example, “Pick up the phone now and call 111-222-3333 to register” is much more likely to lead to action than simply giving a phone number and assuming that if the person wants to register, they will call the number. Whenever possible, you’ll also want to offer multiple ways for people to act (i.e. phone, email, fax, post, and website).
Follow these six easy steps and you will have a marketing message that sells. And the best thing about investing in developing your marketing message, just like your logo, can, and will, be used on all of your promotional materials from the 30-second intro to your website.