Crafting Your Marketing Messaging
If you look at your written marketing for what you do e.g. sell websites, promote affiliate offers, printing brochure etc does it communicate in the same language you would use in person?. For some reason when we write we seem to get all intellectual and forget we are talking to real people with real problems and desires. I always make a point to connect the audience I am speaking to with the message I am using, This is the basis for engagement.
Our written marketing message should be just the same as we would use selling in person. The clarity in messaging can help someone on the fence make that purchase decision at the moment.
Crafting the message can be one of the most important things you do to increase sales.
Mixed Messaging Causes Friction.
Friction in messaging kills sales.
Friction is when something happens to make life harder for someone to make a decision. Ideally, you want to make things as easy as possible. Simplifying the message and the steps involved in taking action from your message.
This ranges from:
- Too many form fields
- Too many product options
- Too many steps between add to cart to payment gateway
- Very clunky user actions
I often get reminder emails from retailers to do reviews on their product or service after I purchased products. A great example is Australian retailer Harvey Norman, during COVID I purchased a home gym and various bench press and rowers etc. 4 months later this week actually they emailed me to do a customer product review. This was so disjointed to me from the buying experience to the review request. I clicked the link they gave me and it took me to a sign-in/up page I don’t think I even have an account except for the purchase account. Then to get to the product to review I had to search for it to leave the review…..I did not leave a review.
This just felt so clunky and disjointed. It must be hard for people to leave reviews. The harder it is to do something the more likely people will not do that thing.
A solution I can see is to shorten the request window to 2-3 weeks. Make it super simple by providing two links that speak to the user.
Example:
- A link for someone who HAS an account and knows it
- A link for someone who DOES NOT have an account and may be unsure if they do
Takeaway: Try it yourself in your business and websites by doing a friction audit of your business today and fix anything that may be costing you sales. I guarantee there is at least one point of friction in any business.
Read the guide to using clear messaging to improve sales and conversions.
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The Art of Storytelling
Marketing statistics, numbers and facts don’t persuade people to take action. Feelings, emotions and stories do envoke actions. Let’s look at a marketing 101 lesson that should form the foundation of any advertising campaign messaging.
Point 1
Identify your customer avatar or persona. What do they like or dislike and where do they hang out. That’s the basis for EVERY marketing campaign at least every SUCCESSFUL marketing campaign. You have identified as a minimum the people who will be interested in what you have and what you are saying.
Point 2
Now that you have the people you will be targeting you can start forming the message. The message should live within a story, a relatable bit of information that speaks volumes to that audience.
If you get these 2 points in place you will SIGNIFICANTLY increase the success you have with the marketing of your product or service.
Extra points if you introduce emotion into your story. People react to emotion and stories. We all buy into something relatable. Myself included if that message/story falls into my interest categories I’ll spend 30 minutes reading or following the directions of the brand who is engaging with.
So anytime you are trying to persuade lead with feelings, emotions and story but back them up with facts. People buy on emotion but justify their purchases with logic.
How Does Your Message Evoke Audience Feeling?
Feelings are what we are really buying when we give over money for a product or service. We want to feel a certain way, some people play on retail therapy. This retail therapy is a thing, I know a couple people who will do a task that’s not enjoyable in their business and when they complete its head straight out to the shop to spend money as a reward for doing something huge or that was not enjoyable.
This is a treat for completing something tactic, it works for some people. When you have a message that is working you should consider forecasting what it would take to scale the traffic pointing towards that message.
Great examples of ecommerce business operations and tactics when the messaging is right can be found on this business operations for ecommerce guide.
A classic example is an Apple product. Based on features alone they are typically poor value for money. But no one buys them for the features. They buy them because they are iconic and they look cool using them. Think of the illuminated Apple logo on a Macbook. The stand out white earbuds. Your purchase makes a statement about you.
You feel good owning it. So today’s lesson is to remember you are really selling feelings not just features and benefits. This plays right into the SEO landscape for my example.
People don’t buy SEO services because the website will be in good health and they rank #1 they buy that feeling of being #1 ABOVE their competitors. That’s as simple as it is for selling SEO services, sell the feeling of beating the competitor. The associated benefits are ranking number 1, more traffic, more sales more everything from being #1 in the industry on Google.
That’s it without overcomplicating it. Sell the feeling your product or service gives people.
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