How to Nail Your Authentic Messaging
Creating your authentic messaging is the foundational step in your marketing journey; in order to sustain and grow your marketing strategy, you need to be able to deliver your strategic messaging on a consistent basis. In other words, it’s essential to learn how to nail your authentic messaging.
This can be a challenging process, but with the right systems and strategies in place, it doesn’t have to be! I would like to provide you with some tips and tricks that I have found to work well – and that my own Marketing Team uses on a regular basis to make sure our messaging is on point.
As you go through this process, it’s important to remember that messaging is as much an art as it is a science. Not everything you try is going to work, at least not the first time. That’s ok! Keep going, keep trying new things and tracking your results, and soon you will find the messaging that works for you and resonates with your ideal clients.
By the way – if you would like to dig deeper into this process, check out Design Your Ideal Messaging! In this course, members of my Marketing Team and I will walk you through each step of your messaging process, from defining your ideal client to crafting your message and positioning yourself well in the online world.
Get Into the Head of Your Ideal Client
Defining and understanding your ideal client is a vital step in determining your messaging; without this knowledge, you have no way of targeting the people you most want to reach.
This is not a one-time exercise, however. As your business grows and evolves – and as you discover more about who you want (and don’t want) to work with – the answer to these questions may change. What worked a year ago may not be the best strategy today.
A great way to track this data is through your metrics. My Marketing Team tracks this data on a weekly basis, storing it in a spreadsheet. By doing this, it’s easy to take a look not only at what type of content is performing well, but at who is engaging with it. When this data is compared with sales numbers, the picture becomes much more clear.
Your messaging should not only attract and resonate with the people you can best serve, it should also repel the people you can’t help – saving both of your precious time and money.
Get On Their Level
When you sit down to craft your messaging, you need to make sure that your clients understand it. You must make sure it’s on their level.
A common problem business owners face is that of being an expert. While it’s a great thing to love your work and become an expert in your field, you need to keep in mind that your clients aren’t at that level. That’s why they want to hire you!
Every field has its own glossary, so to speak – its own set of technical terms and “industry-speak.” While these terms may make perfect sense to you and your team, they probably won’t make sense to your audience. You shouldn’t dumb your message down – your audience is full of very intelligent people, after all! – but you should be intentional about using words and phrases that your audience would use.
Bring it to their level. What do they understand their problems to be, and what sort of help are they looking for?
An easy way to do this is by engaging with them. Ask questions, start conversations – and then listen to what they say. Pay attention not only to the problems they want to solve but to the wording they use to describe their situation. By being intentional about this step, you can rise above your competition and quickly build rapport with your audience!
Focus Your Messaging Around Your Audience
When you create your content, you will want to think about who is in your audience and where they are in your funnel. Each platform and type of content may appeal to a different facet of your audience.
Is the person reading or watching your content likely to be new to your audience (a blog or social media post) or have they built a know/like/trust relationship with you (are they a member of your group or a friend on your personal profile)? Do they have any idea what you offer, or have they purchased from or hired you in the past?
Understanding what stage your client is at will help you adjust your messaging to meet their needs and build stronger relationships with them. This is all part of bringing your audience closer to hiring or purchasing from you – and closer to trusting you to solve the problem you can best help them with!