5 Steps to a Winning Marketing Message – Part 2 of 2

You can stand in the winner's circle because of your marketing message.

Ok…let’s get right into the five steps that will allow you to create a winning marketing message (taken directly from The Marketing Bible, by David Frey) for your enterprise:

Step 1 – Identify Your Market

You cannot overestimate the importance of identifying your market as you develop a winning marketing message. You may provide the best mold removal services around, but if you are communicating your message to people who don’t have mold problems, you’ll go broke. On the other hand, a message that may not be as fine tuned as it needs to be…but is directed toward the right group of prospects still has a chance of gaining interest simply because your service appeals to a real problem that they want to eliminate. Make sense?

If you are in the dry cleaning business, then your target market is probably every professional household and business within a 5-7 mile radius of your store. A client of mine (who happened to be a plumber) chose to target a 50 mile radius from downtown Atlanta. We made sure that his ads showed up on Google and all the major search engines to people searching in that vicinity.

Step 2 – Identify the problems that your target market wants to eliminate

Everyone has some sort of pain or problem that they want eliminate yesterday. The secret to making your market sit up and listen to your message is to identify with their pain. The old saying is true, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. The prospects in your market need to feel like you really understand their situation, and that you care about helping them.

After you indentify the problem(s) they are experiencing, you need to go one step further. Ask yourself the question…how does it make them feel? The reason you want to identify their feelings, is to incorporate them into your message. That’s another sure way to build credibility and intimacy with your market. Psychologically, we all want to relate to people who understand how we ‘feel’. Let your market know that you understand their frustrations, fears, and unmet desires, and you will be one step closer to winning their trust.

Step 3 – Present Your Solution to Your Market’s Problem

I hate to say this…but after identifying their pain, you will need to ‘aggravate the situation’ a bit. Maybe you are familiar with the story of the dog sitting on the porch moaning. A passerby hears the sound and asks his master, “why is the dog moaning”. The master replies…”because he’s sitting on a nail”. The passerby asks, “why doesn’t he just get off of the nail?” His master answers, “I guess it doesn’t hurt quite that much yet”.

How many times have you allowed a situation linger just because (of no good reason)? Well your prospects are no different. We all need a push every now and again. Sometimes, just a little stirring of the painful area will cause us to make some changes. Help people to see where they’ll be some time in the future if they don’t make a move now. They may need to start thinking about the consequences of not acting in order to get motivated.

Next…paint a clear picture of all the benefits that come from doing business with you. Help your prospect begin to visualize what life will be like as a result of taking you up on your offer. Describe how it will feel to have that problem eliminated. What other benefits are you able to deliver? Detail them…one-by-one.

Employ risk-reversal wherever you can so that your prospect feels as safe as possible in taking you up on your offer. Make it easy for them to do business with you, and to implement your solution. Remember, we live in a microwave society, and we all want what we want…when we want it, and without jumping through hoops to get it.

So, the third step is to ask yourself, “what solutions do I have to present to my prospect?

Step 4 – Present the Results You’ve Produced for Others in this Same Position

It’s not enough to tell people that you have a solution. You need to prove to them that what you are offering really works. We live in a day when skepticism is at an all time high. One of my mother’s famous sayings is, “I’m from Missouri…the show-me state”.

One of the best ways to present proof to your prospects is to use testimonials. According to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer in January of 2008, of all consumers who were polled, 60% of those surveyed indicated that they like to take cues from “people like themselves”. People will believe other people who are like them that have achieved positive results. With this in mind, you should systematically collect referrals from past and present clients where you show what problems were solved, and the results that were achieved. You can use the following pattern:

1. The Problem
2. The Solution
3. The Results

If possible, show the associated problems and the financial consequences that were attached to the problem. Then, detail what problems were eliminated, and what financial benefits came as a result of using your products or services.

So, the fourth step is to ask yourself, “What are the results that your solution has produced?”

Step 5 – Explain What Makes You Different From Your Competitors

Make sure that you help your market to see where you are different from your competitors. A mistake some professionals make is to communicate with prospects as if the prospect is familiar with industry jargon, and best practices. I saw this on a regular basis when consulting as a sales professional. Many owners use language and make assumptions that are not in their best interest, nor in the interest of the prospect. Be careful not to make this mistake.

Help your prospect to see where your differences add value to what you offer. Again, no matter what race, creed, or nationality a person is…we all tune into one radio station…WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?). Your differences need to mean something to the prospect. Too often, independent professionals communicate in terms of WWD (What We Do.) Most people care very little about ‘what we do’ in contrast to ‘what’s in it for me’.

Now you have five simple steps to create a winning marketing message. I encourage you to get started as soon as possible with implementing these steps. If you would like us to assist you in the development of your marketing message, go to our Contact Us page, and submit your information. We will get back in touch with you within 24 hours to let you know if we are accepting new clients at that time.