Ever wonder why you have no or low marketing ROI? Maybe it’s not because your message is bad. Even though messaging is the most critical part of a marketing strategy, plenty else could be going wrong for you. Here are a few things that might be happening…
Outreach
A client and I spent a month researching the perfect super-niche. We found out that the number one target should be hotels and their number one problem we could solve was the need to re-train staff that turned over very fast. We developed the perfect message for this company. Unfortunately they never actually deployed the strategy because they sat on the plan and refused to do outreach. Nobody from the company once picked up the phone, the mouse pad or tapped their existing networks for a test run of the message. Maybe it wasn’t the messaging…
Wrong Rep
A rep who doesn’t hear buying signals, soft no’s or buried objections during a sales conversation is the wrong rep. As was the case with my client who had a fairly new rep onboard. They wanted her to use the new messaging we had developed to get into new meetings and to close them. The messaging was getting the meetings but she couldn’t close because she couldn’t hear the true issues. Maybe it wasn’t the messaging…
Ops
When internal operations ruin all the hard work you did to get sales meetings with amazing messaging, you still get a 0 ROI from your marketing. Sheila was the receptionist at a staffing firm I worked with. Our new LinkedIn DM campaign was opening doors to people calling us but Sheila was treating them like a candidate instead of a prospective client. Very few calls made it past that stage of disappointment and very few sales were closed. Maybe it wasn’t the messaging…
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
One could argue that the best messaging is developed according to your exact TARGET. If your target is off, then your message is off. So maybe it wasn’t so much that the message is wrong but it’s the target that you picked in the first place. Similarly, if the message to the target is at the wrong buying cycle, then again-it’s a matter of the wrong strategy, rather than the message. An example of this is when I, myself targeted established large corporations for my niching coaching. I quickly saw that they had no need of this service at their cycle of development. However, much newer and smaller companies were still needing what I had to sell. Maybe it wasn’t the messaging…
Next time you think your messaging is the part of your marketing strategy that’s letting you down, look at all these other factors before pulling the plug on it. Build a wholistic approach where all areas of the business and market are taken into consideration.
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.
