Smoke Signals

How to build your marketing message

An owner recently asked me how to build a marketing message for his product.

I told him he needs two messages.

Here is how to create them:

The first message is the brand message, an enduring, long-term headline you will use continuously. It clearly communicates why your product (or service) matters, and it often sits at the top of your website.

In B2B, a brand message is functional. It focuses on how the offering eliminates risk, saves cost or drives sales.

In B2C, the message is emotional. It focuses on how it makes life more fun or less painful.

The second message you need is the promotional message. This is short-lived and highlights specific features, deals, or campaigns at a given time.

Promotional messaging naturally takes centre stage during a big push, but over the product's lifetime, communication should balance to about 50% brand and 50% promotion.

Resist the urge to over-promote - it doesn't build long-term value.

Defining a promotional message is straightforward. You can easily ask AI to help you crank out a few options.

The hard part is building the brand message, which actively positions your business to customers.

Ideally, you want an outsider like a brand consultant or an agency to help you define the brand message. It is notoriously difficult to see the full picture when you're inside the business. I find a half-day workshop usually does the trick.

But if you want to tackle it yourself, AI is a great sounding board. Simply aim to answer the question: "What do we want our customers to know about us?"

You can do it!

Bernard

I send this out about once a month on a topic I come across as I work with entrepreneurial companies.

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