Messaging Strategy Mistakes
A strong messaging strategy is central to your marketing and public relations efforts. With a cohesive brand message across channels, you can establish credibility and attract customers. But many companies miss the mark when it comes to messaging strategy. Avoid these common pitfalls to improve the quality and results of your messaging, while increasing awareness and sales for your B2B or technology company.
- Ignoring Relevant Trade or Niche Publications: A placement in top-tier publications like the Wall Street Journal is a valuable piece of marketing collateral that positions your organization as a thought leader in your industry. But depending on your audience, that publication should not be the only one you target. For most B2B organizations, trade publications can reach a highly targeted audience that directly results in sales.
- Failing to Document Your Messaging: Don’t simply talk about your key messaging and audience pain points. You need to document them so they’re easy to update and incorporate into other PR and marketing strategies. Once you develop and refine your messaging, media train your executive spokespeople and use the materials for preparation and talking points prior to interviews.
- Lacking Flexibility: Your messaging framework should be a fluid, living document that is constantly updated as your company grows and evolves. Stay on top of timely industry trends and talk to your sales team and executives regularly to ensure that your messaging document remains relevant. It’s not effective to rely on an outdated, stale messaging document.
- Overlooking Unique Differentiators: When developing your messaging, focus on benefits and truly unique differentiators, instead of generic information and product or service features. Audiences respond better when you highlight how your product or service can help make their lives easier, so take the time to dig deep and identify the benefits of your products and services that audiences can’t achieve from any other competitor.
By avoiding these damaging mistakes, you can ensure your messaging works for your organization. With an effective messaging strategy, companies can simplify the content creation process, generate leads and improve PR and digital marketing success.
Next Steps for Creating a Messaging Strategy
There are several steps you can take to kickoff your strategy development process for messaging. These include:
- Create buyer personas outlining customer and audience insights that go beyond simple demographic or geographic information.
- Define what makes your brand stand out and the most important benefits customers can achieve by working with you.
- Understand audience pain points and industry trends.
- Conduct a competitor and industry analysis to gain more insight into your market landscape.
- Define your messaging goals and key performance indicators.
With a sound approach to messaging, companies can improve the results of campaigns and initiatives. Your messaging strategy will guide all aspects of your overarching PR and marketing strategies, serving as a framework for your corporate perspective on breaking news and industry trends.
Do you need help developing your strategy and framework for messaging? Our methodical approach to messaging development uncovers key insights and unique differentiators that position your organization and experts as a leader in your space. Call us today at (312) 235-6171 to learn more about our messaging services.