Today’s consumer is being sold something on almost every corner. It’s a constant barrage of information to process. Whether in a virtual or physical space, taglines, headlines, cheap email marketing and more are battling for our attention.
Consumers are trying to get through the filler to find what they are looking for. People expect great customer service. They also expect to easily find products and services that solve their problems. Even with the best customer communication tool available, you’ll have to fight your way through the competition.
Marketers must coordinate their efforts to get their message across to the consumer. After all, a campaign can only be as successful as the message delivering it! And what marketers aren’t generating more leads?
While it takes good planning to hone your message, there are several strategies you can use to help yourself. We will go over some of these examples later in this article.
But first, let’s go over the fundamentals.
What is a Marketing Message?
In simple terms, a marketing message is how a company talks to its intended audience. It tells the audience about the company and what it does. In other words, who are you and what can you do for the consumer?
Before you can reach out to your audience, you must first understand what their values and purposes are. According to Accenture, sixty two percent of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by a company’s ethical values and authenticity.
This isn’t just applicable to B2C relationships in email marketing software. Any business relationship, from onboarding new suppliers to advertising job posts needs to be based on this understanding. You need to know who exactly you are marketing to.
Once you have your business ideas, it is time for the big questions:
- Who are your audience?
- What are their pain points?
- How can you fix their problems?
Answering these questions brings us to your unique positioning point or USP.
A marketing message needs to have a unique positioning point. This allows you to explain how you can solve a problem for your audience. It is how you convey why your solution is different – and better – than what your competitors offer. Are you getting the most from your landing page? Can you improve your landing page?
Think of the USP as the headline. It is what will get the consumer’s attention. This should be your reference for producing all sorts of marketing materials. You should also bear it in mind when communicating with the customer, whether that’s through VOIP telemarketing, digital documents, social media, or email campaigns.
As a marketer, you know the importance of conveying the right message to improve lead generation. So, what are some different ways one can go about doing this?
Marketing Message Examples to Improve Lead Generation
1. Get to the point
Your core message should be clear and concise. One way to achieve such clarity is to avoid meandering and wordy statements.
This marketing message from VoilaNorbert gets the job done. “I can find anyone’s email address.” The pain points and the audience are quite clear in one simple sentence. As an added bonus, there is a self-explanatory call to action button.
What email marketer doesn’t want the ability to find anyone’s email address? Even better, what marketer doesn’t want 50 leads for free?
This example is straight to the point. There will not be confusion or hesitation on the potential customer’s part. An interested visitor will click through the site, progressing on the customer journey.
The same applies to video marketing, particularly as many internet users have limited attention spans. If you’re planning to create commercial videos, for example, be sure to keep them concise and to-the-point, with a clear call to action.
2. See the problem from the customer’s point-of-view
An effective way to generate leads is to have empathy for the customer’s viewpoint. People expect great customer service, and empathy is a vital part of this. It builds trust, and increased trust will lead to greater interest in your offering.
Let’s look at an example. If a customer is looking into contact centre solutions, they might come across something that says:
“Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions provide the same capabilities as those of on-premises vendors.”
If you are a business owner, you are probably thinking what is CCaaS? How can it help me?
By acknowledging these questions and answering them in advance, you can draw the customer in. In this case, you could add something like:
“CCaaS is great for remote teams who need to manage multiple communication channels.”
Referring to a specific audience (remote teams) and a particular need (managing multiple communication channels) brings clear understanding. When the customer understands what you can do for them, they are more likely to convert.
3. Be friendly and informal and avoid jargon
Here, you can see the British Army is slang terms in order to recruit social media users. This example shows a simple way to be friendly and informal with your intended audience.
Whether you’re running an ecommerce site or using affiliate marketing tools, if you fail to present with the right tone, you will lose leads.
Talk to potential customers like new friends. Explain your core message with a conversational tone that is easy to follow.
Here’s an example:
“Partnering with institutional investors and commercial developers, we employ our expertise in the short term rental market, provide flexible arrangements for renters, and create positive ROI for our partners.”
Whoa there! Now that is a mouthful. There are several issues with this marketing message. But at the top of the list, this message feels cold and almost inhuman.
How about we try:
“We are reinventing short term rentals so that you can live the life you always wanted.”
Now that’s better! A friendly tone will help to produce goodwill and trust with your audience. They will be more likely to proceed further down the conversion funnel when treated like an actual human being. You can always explain the technical details later. Turn those emails into real people – and real leads.
4. Require no further explanation
It is important to be clear and concise. As stated earlier, getting to the point will help to hold your audience’s interest. But sometimes, a message can be too short.
There is no exact rule for this, like a sentence or word count. This will always depend on the audience you are speaking to, on which medium, and the message you are delivering.
But sometimes, a message may not be as obvious as the marketers intend it to be. We can’t assume everyone is aware of your brand. You can spend a lot of money advertising a service like business call recording, but if you don’t explain the benefits of the service, you won’t get many leads.
Let’s walk through an example. Imagine you land on a homepage that says:
“Fuel your adventures”
Without further context, this could mean a lot of things. With no further information on that homepage, this abrupt message can confuse visitors. Is it a fuel company? A site for electrolyte powder? Instead, try something like:
“Hand roasted coffee to fuel your adventures”
That’s much better – we know exactly what product they’re selling.
When a message has no further explanation needed, customers feel confident they’ve found the right product. Instead of losing their interest, you’ll be generating leads.
5. Say Something Original
We’ve discussed the importance of a unique selling position previously. The word ‘unique’ is something you should focus on when creating a marketing message.
Depending on your market, you will have varying levels of competition. This means that the greater the competition, the more important it is that you are presenting a unique message.
Otherwise, how do you expect to be heard amongst the sea of similar service or product providers?
This doesn’t mean you are solving a different problem than your competitors. Even with new technology, such as solutions for automating the workflow or natural language processing, you’ll be addressing the same pain points.
Yet, you can sell the unique way that your service or product appeases your audience’s pain points. What do you do that makes you different?
For marketers that feel stuck in a rut when it comes to crafting a USP, there is always preemptive marketing. Preemptive advertising involves giving the customer what they desire but not in the typical or expected way.
An example would be to tell the customer the step-by-step processes in your manufacturing. Or you could talk about your workforce optimization system and how it helps your employees perform better for the client.
This advert from Budweiser has a simple message that one wouldn’t normally expect to hear when purchasing beer. They have created and preemptively solved a pain point for a segment of their audience. It will capture the interest of environmentally-focused consumers, bringing in new leads. For this specific audience, they will view a heritage corporation with a fresh view and renewed interest.
6. Make the Customer Smile
As winter approaches each year, people all over the UK gather round their TVs, smartphones and monitors to watch the new John Lewis Christmas ad. The reputation of this campaign has grown over the years. Consumers tune in due to an emotional pull and and familiarity of childhood memories.
Everybody has time for something that brings a smile to their face. Maybe it makes them laugh, or maybe it brings up a happy memory. But when you elicit positive emotions from your audience, you are holding their interest for longer. You are building trust that your company and its message can meet the customer’s needs.
When people are happy, they are more likely to buy something. If you have a really good advert, they will want to share the ad with the social circles. This is free marketing for your product.
So not only will you generate more leads from your target audience but you may pick up other customers along the way!
Final Thoughts
As marketers, it is increasingly important to carefully craft the message to your audience. You need to know who your audience is and what their pain points are. Once you know which specific audiences you want to attract, you need to show them how your product or service can help them.
Empathize with the customer’s plight. Be clear and concise. Tell a story that is easy to understand. Be original and brighten your audience’s day by bringing a smile to their face.
Learn from the simple examples in this article. Go and create brilliant marketing messages! Your hard work will pay off when you generate more leads.
**Guest Post**
Bio:
Richard Conn – RingCentral US
Richard Conn is the Senior Director, Search Marketing for RingCentral, a global leader in unified communications and integrated meeting solutions.
He is passionate about connecting businesses and customers and has experience working with Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Experian, Target, Nordstrom, Kayak, Hilton, and Kia.
