Your messaging is everything from the copy on your website to what comes out of your mouth when prospects ask you for your elevator pitch. But is it any good? Here a some signs that it may not be working and why.
It Doesn’t Convert
Month after month you go from meeting to meeting and keep saying the same things to describe what you do to prospects and the only thing you see is lack of interest. Alternately the same thing is happening online: your website is just a glorified digital brochure with no inquiries for further contact and your social media efforts are not getting you appointments. When you have trouble getting in the door with buyers, it’s because your messaging isn’t doing its job.
You’ve Heard Others Use It
When everyone in your industry is introducing themselves the same way as you or claiming the same trite old differentiators such as quality, service, longevity in the business etc, your messaging won’t work. Even worse is when I’ve seen businesses use such generic messaging that you can find the exact identical verbiage in entirely unrelated industries. If this is happening to you, drop that messaging stat!
People Are Confused by It
You know what you do but can you explain it to buyers in a way that doesn’t confuse them. Complex services require specific messaging strategies to be effective. After all, confused minds don’t buy.
This begs the question: why is your messaging not working?
You Made It Up
Without knowing much about marketing strategy or differentiators, you had to make up your own messaging. You had to decide what to write on your Homepage and you had to come up with a clever way to explain to buyers, what you did for a living. Sadly, as you grow, you’ll see that you’ll need expert help to hone and differentiate your message to truly have it snag you appointments with corporations.
An Agency or a Coach Made It Up
I’ll never forget paying tens of thousands of Dollars to a flashy marketing coach for my messaging that didn’t work. She literally Googled a few things and gave me her opinion. 6 months of trying it her way, I saw that I had to actually implement my own system and methodology of asking the market to come up with the proper messaging.
It’s Not Differentiated
As I mentioned before, whenever I talk to CEOs, they puff their chests out and claim that of course they’re different than their competitors. Sadly these differences are never actually relevant to the buyers. Unless a company has a technical innovation, I’ve seldom seen them be able to differentiate themselves properly. (Until they work with me-that is…)
Not Niched
My middle name should be Niche. I truly believe that the best and most sticky messaging has be to niched to a specific industry and its most expensive pain point that you can help with. Otherwise, it will blend in and confuse.
Not Using Pain Language
Sadly 70% of humans can’t hear your messaging unless it’s about them and their pain. If your messaging isn’t capitalizing on this human fact, it’s missing its mark.
Not Consistent
A client had pitched a service to a huge corporation but hadn’t created a single line of content around this niche service. So guess what happened when said prospect Googled the company and found them talking about completely different things on their collateral vs. the expertise that they had pitched. Trust is born from consistent, specific language around a very focused problem and industry. Consistency breeds good messaging.
If you’ve been hitting your head against the wall, drowning in messaging that isn’t working, look at these above culprits and you’ll have the key to changing your marketing ROI forever.
Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast on YouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.
