Have you ever thought to yourself, “why aren’t I getting the likes and follows I should on social media? Why are people landing on my website and not taking further action? Why can’t I get more people to buy from my emails or walk into my business?”
Or does this sound familiar? “No matter how much I work on my marketing, I just can’t get the traction I need. I know I’ve got a great product or service so why can’t I generate the increased sales that I want? I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to be but something’s just not right. Marketing for me is a waste of time and money.”
Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just missing a vital component?
Today’s episode is all about fixing the biggest thing I see small businesses get wrong, but when they get it right, their business just takes off.
Resources
6 Steps to Double Your Income in 12-Months – workbook
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Transcript
Today, I’m going to uncover the biggest mistake most small businesses make in their marketing, which is stopping them from attracting more of the right customers and generating the sales they want. And when they fix this mistake, attracting and selling becomes so much easier and way more effective.
Welcome. It’s great to have you here with me. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Nicci O’Mara a marketing communications strategist with over 25 years experience. Yes, I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I’ve learned so much from helping other businesses, from trial and error, from collaborating with great people and from continually educating myself. To start off today’s episode, let me ask you a question, or should I say a few questions?
Have you ever thought to yourself, why aren’t I getting the likes and follows that I should on social media? Why are people landing on my website and not taking further action? Why can’t I get more people to buy from my emails or walk into my business? Others of you might be thinking, no matter how much I work on my marketing, I just can’t get the traction I need. I know I’ve got a great product or service, so why can’t I generate the increased sales that I want? I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to be, but something’s just not right. Marketing for me is a waste of time and money.
Have you ever considered that, maybe you’re just missing one vital component and it’s not all a waste. I hear these questions and comments every single day from all types of small businesses all around the world, and they generally all have one thing in common. They have a messaging problem.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re an electrician, financial planner, fitness instructor or tour guide, your messaging is what helps attract more of the right people, sets you apart from your competitors, and it makes it so much easier to sell.
It’s one of the biggest things I see small businesses get wrong time and time again. But when they get it right, their business just takes off.
There are people successfully launching and growing businesses with the help of marketing in every industry, every single day.
And every one of them started as an idea. And while most business ideas never take off, some of them do. Think of the likes of Netflix, Airbnb, Dollar Shave Club, MasterCard and Canva. Their messaging is what really connects with their audience and makes them stand out. Yes, I know you’re not as big as these companies and many of you will never want to be as big as them.
But the proof lies that if you want to grow, you need to get your messaging right. Because if you can’t get your target audience to connect with you and you can’t persuade them to buy your product or service, then it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at advertising or social media, it’s not going to have the desired effect.
The problem lies in the fact that most small businesses concentrate most of their time and money working on marketing tactics. Tactics like email, social media events, advertising, and don’t put in the effort and time required to get the fundamentals right.
Messaging is one aspect of marketing that is something so crucial to your business’s viability and its growth that you’re going to hear me talk about it a lot in different podcast episodes.
To help you get started to improve your messaging so that you can attract more of the right customers and generate more sales, I’ve developed a great resource called Six Steps to Double Your Marketing Results in 12 months, which I’m giving to you as a free download for a limited time. You’ll find the link in the show notes when we’ve finished.
The best place to start with your messaging is with your key messages. These are the three carefully crafted sentences that are the foundation of all your marketing and brand activities. The words that form the connection between you and your ideal clients or customers. The words that make you stand out from your competition, solve a problem, showcase the transformation or the end result, and overcome objections. They’re the words that both explain and persuade. Your key messages are what you want your customers to hear over and over again, so they go from being aware to engaged and convert to being a customer. They’re the words and the messages that will appear on the front page of your website, in your advertising, in your social media, they will be everywhere.
So let’s talk about what you need to include in your key messaging. The first part is simple. Who do you help? Is that parents of tween and teen girls, first home buyers in the US, Australian wheat farmers, nature enthusiasts from Vancouver, or pregnant women in London. The more specific you can be, the better.
And for those of you saying that you have a broad audience and you cover everyone from 18 year old males and females to 60 year olds, you need to listen to my upcoming episode number four, which I’ve entitled “Stop Marketing to Everyone If You Want More Customers”, because it’s really true. And I’ll explain why in the next episode. But back to talking about messaging.
The second part of your key messaging asks what problem do your ideal clients have that you help them with? Because every buying decision is based on solving a problem. It could be they don’t have the right shirt to wear to a party. They want to reduce injury or increase productivity in the workplace. They want to lose weight fit in, stand out, reduce risk, or increase free time. And with any problem, you need to know how your audience talks about the problem they have, including what words are used to describe it. Not your words, but theirs.
Let’s take a mattress, for example, because it’s something we can all relate to. The problem might be that the person isn’t getting a good night’s sleep, which is affecting their performance at work. So the problem isn’t the single layer of foam that they’re sleeping on. That’s the cause of the problem.
This is where the third part of your key messaging comes in. What’s the transformation or the results your product or service provides? I’m not talking benefits and features here. I’m talking about results. You don’t buy a mattress because it has more springs an antibacterial cover and a 10 year warranty. You buy it because of the promise of the transformation it will give you, which is an amazing nights sleep, leaving you refreshed in the morning without stiff joints so you can operate at peak performance.
Think about the results you provide your clients. How are you transforming their lives, whether it be in a big way or a small one? If you don’t know the answer to that question, you absolutely have to get into your customers head by talking to them. Ask questions rather than assuming you know what the answers are. Your customers are the only ones who can provide true insight that will actually help you to grow.
Okay, so we’ve covered knowing who you help the problem you help with and the result or the transformation your product or service provides them. Now, it’s onto the fourth part. What is stopping them from buying? What are the beliefs that they hold that are stopping them from achieving the results they want? These are subconscious or conscious beliefs or misconceptions. Ones that you can show aren’t true all the time. Maybe they believe what your product or service is, it won’t work for them. It’s too complicated. Or maybe they just don’t have the trust in you yet. Overcoming people’s main objections to buying isn’t about talking about why you’re right and they’re wrong.
It’s about discrediting the belief to show the possibilities. In your key messaging, you’re not covering all the objections to buying. That will come in areas such as your offer messaging, where you start talking about specific products and services. Okay, so that’s objections covered. The last part is all about you.
Why should people choose you? What makes you different and stand out from the competition? How do you solve the problem in a better way? And why is your way the best way to achieve the result that they’re looking for? Do you make it easier, faster or more convenient for your customers? And what are your values or your vision that people can relate to? What do you stand for that is going to make people want to follow you? You don’t need to be the biggest or the cheapest or even the fastest to get a solid following of loyal customers. You just need to get your message clear on who you help, what problem you solve, the result or transformation you help them with, overcome their objection to buying, and what makes you different.
Developing a key messaging is not something you can do in an hour. It’s going to take some work on your part and will involve plenty of testing to get it right. But the sooner you take action on it, the sooner you’ll start making a bigger impact.
Some of you might be thinking to yourselves, my messaging is OK as it is. Is this really worth it? Well, it all depends on whether you want to grow your business and make more money or just struggle along as you have been and hope that your competitors don’t improve their marketing and start taking your business.
To make it easier for you and to help you take action straight away, I’ve developed a great resource to help you with your messaging goal setting, getting to know your audience and so much more. It’s called Six Steps to Double Your Marketing Results in 12 months.It’s a workbook that I really should be charging for. But to celebrate the launch of my podcast, I’m giving it to you as a free download for a limited time. You’ll find it at https://www.simplystandoutmarketing.com/2xeffect
And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you don’t miss out on all the juicy stuff that will help your business to take off. I’ll be back again next week to talk about why targeting more people results in less sales. Thanks for listening.
