3 Keys To Successful Messaging

The most important thing in any promotion is the right message conveyed to the right customer. The message goes beyond the words you use. It’s the images, the sounds, and the words all make up the message. The message is the ultimate wording that describes how people will feel after viewing your messaging. However, these can become much easier to determine once you determine the message you want to convey. You want to ensure that it connects to how your target avatar feels, and it needs to explain why they want your solution or what you do, and it should always provide a solution.

There are countless ads that you’ve seen where the message conveyed didn’t make sense, or it didn’t connect to the targeted audience. A great example of how not to do this was Toyota who advertised lane control and safety as the key features with a 20 year old single male was driving. The message of safety is historically a much lower concern for younger males. The message didn’t connect to how their target avatar felt.

Connecting To How Your Customer Feels

It’s important to connect to how your target avatar feels today. This fictitious person has things happening in their life that affect them. Things to consider are social media, pop culture, news, schools, events they go to and other ads running. All of these things affect and change how your target avatar feels. A great example of this would be the mass effect in 2020 when covid caused some states to shut down. As well as the aftermath of the pandemic felt in 2021 – 2022. You can also see this by those who started wearing pearls that had a phase on them by baseball fans after Joc Pederson killed it in the world series.

You can see this same effect done by advertisers and undercover agents alike. If you want to have an uncanny connection with your target market then you can start to dress like them. You learn their lingo and how they speak. You pay attention to the pace that they talk at. You only make your approach to them once you understand all their small habits. Then you make the approach of dressing like them, using their slang, acting like them, and talking about the same things as them. This level of understanding your customer and building a message that connects to their current feelings is important.

Getting your customers and potential customers to follow you on social media is helpful in allowing you to know what they are watching on social media. This gives you insights into not only their thinking, but it also gives you insights into the things that are changing their perspective. For example if a bunch of your ideal customers are following Grant Cardone, then it becomes important to understand the focus of what he is talking about. This will tell you what is important to and the beliefs of your ideal customer. If Grant Cardone is talking about needing to make more money, then it’s likely that your ideal customers are concerned about making more money. Versus if they follow someone like Graham Stephen then they may be wanting to pull out of real estate and diversify their money into other areas.

Likewise which news source do they watch for their information? They are likely to have the same fears as what the news is talking about. We saw this heavily played out during the 2016 campaigns where people’s opinions and focuses were vastly different based upon which new source they utilized.

Pop culture also has a massive affect on people and their opinions. Pop culture often can be found through social media and news media sources today. However, the more important focus should be around the music, movies, and shows that are popular to your ideal customers. The topics and discussions happening in these places are all affecting your target avatar. A movie showcasing the dynamics of war will have a profound effect compared to movies about love.

Likewise events that people go to set expectations for your ideal customer. These events have speakers that affect how your target avatar thinks and what they focus their energies and time on. It could have visually appealing video or graphics that change the quality of video and graphics they expect from a business they are thinking of buying from. It may just be a focus on a specific concern with a single solution presented that connects heavily to the audience. Think Vee Con with the focus on being a part of the new for success. Embrace technological change quickly. Attendees of this event are likely to be interested in new technology being introduced, or new platforms that are showing traction.

Schools of all ages are a melting pot of ideas. However, many colleges and universities tend to have certain specific ideals that attract their students. Understanding what these ideals are can help you better understand the current students and past students of those universities. It’s important to understand that high school and college years in America tend to be some of the most molding moments of an adult’s beliefs. It’s during these 14 – 22 ages that people learn to question their beliefs. They tend to create stronger beliefs or new ones entirely. This is why understanding the conversations and lessons being taught at different institutions can help you gain massive insights on what people believe today.

When you take the time to understand your customers in this way, it will allow your messaging to directly connect. This type of personalization and connection creates a sense of understanding. It builds a relationship based on you being just like them.

Other ads will make an impact on your ideal customer’s current perception. Keep in mind that there is a fine line between appreciated different, same, and too different. There is definitely an art to good ads, but if you observe what ads they are seeing, then you can gain insights into what is appreciated that is different or the same. You don’t want to be the 10th company running the same kind of ad. However, being number 2 or 3 could lead to positive feedback.

It’s understanding these different variables that will allow you to create a message at how people feel right now. This is crucial in building connections and buy in. You want to relate to them where they are today, not where you might want them to go.

Your Message Explains The Benefit To Your Ideal Customer

It’s important that you ensure the message conveys the benefit they will receive. Having a funny ad or aesthetically pleasing ad doesn’t help, if it’s not followed up by advertising that connects it to your business. There have been numerous companies in the super bowl who focus on just having a lot of views, and many times, their sales don’t go up by a drastic amount post the super bowl. They are merely hoping that the brand will be recognized in the next visit to the store and cause people to choose them.

Even Yeti who rarely mentions their product directly, they show you how it keeps your water cool on long hot days. Their ads always show their product in use by the person. It’s important that people know the benefits of your product to them from the advertisement. Keep in mind that the ultimate benefit that you want to promote will vary depending on the customer segment that you want to go after.

Consider Apple and how they promote the camera with a younger crowd hanging out with friends, and they promote their security with an older office crowd. These are separate customer segments, and each has a different and unique benefit that matters most to them. It’s this kind of customer segment specific promotion that is needed for success.

Your Message Needs To Add Value

It is important that your message adds value to your target avatar. Here are a few common ways you can do this. It provides new knowledge. It provides a better solution. It provides inspiration, or the most common one by large brands is by providing humor and entertainment. If your message adds no value to your target market then your promotion eventually becomes an annoying ad which lowers the brands perceived value. However, when done correctly, you add value to your prospects, which will lead to an appreciation of the brand.

A great example of the entertainment ads are the super bowl ads. Those ads are ranked by people on their entertainment aspect only. Those ads lower or raise people’s opinion on the brands. The downside of this type of focus in your messaging is that often these ads can garner a lot of attention with minimal to no financial results. Entertainment however, has been used by some companies to drastically scale their business by being a community builder. It causes their customers to spend more time entertained by things that involve their product.

Two excellent examples are YouTubers that have started selling products. Channels like Mr. Beast or Dude Perfect use their entertainment to build a brand community that will then go and buy their premium products. One company that has done a great job is Liquid Death. Liquid Death built a brand around entertaining it’s ideal customers. They consistently are creating ads and content to continue the entertainment that tightens the connection between brand and community. We believe the big connection for these successes are the continual content creation that is done on top of the ads entertainment. Creating only ads that entertain without other content for your customers is usually less valuable.

A great example of providing informational value is infomercials. They either offer new information that you weren’t aware of, or they are providing a superior solution that you didn’t know existed. These kinds of commercials work incredibly well at getting sales quickly, due to the fact that they place you as an expert. Consider common troubles that people might not consider that your product is a solution for.

Nike is a great example of a company that focuses on inspirational advertising. The value they are trying to provide is to inspire you to be an athlete. Inspiration to be better. This can become a powerful value and connection point between a brand and its ideal customers.

Regardless of the value you want to add, it is important that you add value. Otherwise you are hurting your brand’s reputation and become the annoying salesperson that keeps calling. Relationships always start by someone providing value first.

It’s important to be intentional with your promotional materials. The best way to help is to first determine your messaging using these 3 metrics first. After you’ve determined these 3 aspects of your messaging, it’s time to focus on the specific creative production. As your market has seen the benefits of your business, putting more focus on creating associations with their world is beneficial. This is another advantage of constant product improvement, as it gives you new things to promote.