Are you getting your message across to your customers through the mass of content you’re producing?
With multiple audiences and channels of communication, it can be easy to lose sight of key messages, who they’re for and when they need to be delivered. Conveying the right message at the right time is vital – as is being consistent in messaging and appearance to all audiences across all channels. Brand and PR communications, thought leadership and product/service messaging must all fit together factually, tonally and visually. Which means that marketing, PR and sales teams need to work in synch – which doesn’t always happen naturally.
Defining your message
What exactly are you trying to say and to whom? Perhaps you’re explaining technical details to customers, or describing the benefits they’ll enjoy from your product/service, or maybe you’re giving your expert opinion on a business topic (thought leadership).
If you first define & categorise your key messages, you’ll be able to check that your content stack does actually deliver those messages. Without a messaging framework, you could get blinded by a wave of great content and not notice either messaging gaps or unnecessary duplication.
Here’s a model I use, a simple planning tool that I find also helps to show strategic thinking to colleagues before introducing them to actual messages and content. I’ve used it successfully with sales teams, with PR teams and for website planning & development.
The model identifies 4 stages of messaging that need to be covered, when the context is appropriate.
1. Context: you don’t know me, I need to explain who I am.
At the highest level we need clear and informative brand & PR messaging to introduce ourselves – e.g. visual identity, advertising, PR, social media. This is the organisation communicating who it is, what it does and how it thinks.
2. Context: you’ve heard of me and I want you to get to know me.
Next is thought leadership, an essential and useful tool to build on brand communications by showing knowledge & expertise about the topics our customers are interested in. It’s a mixture of in-house subject-matter expertise and external research and can be a brilliant conversation-starter – either on-line (from a website or social media) or in person perhaps at an event/meeting.
Importantly, thought leadership is not talking about our organisation or its products/services, but about industry/market topics that will inform customers. Or entertain them – humour is good, even in B2B!
3. Context: you’re interested in me and want to know how I can help you.
Having set the scene and begun talking to customers, their needs/wants are starting to be identified. So this main stage of messaging comes into play: value statements and descriptions about how those needs/wants can be fulfilled by our products & services.
The key message is that we can provide this benefit or solve that problem by providing X feature of a product/service. E.g. “We can reduce your IT capital expenditure by providing your internet firewall as a cloud-based managed service.” That’s a benefit-led message. (Sometimes it works best to use feature first, followed by benefit – e.g. in a list of products/services – again, it depends on the context.)
Case studies are invaluable to bring descriptions to life – to show, not tell. If a named case study is not available, make it anonymous, or tell a fictitious story – which works really well in visual formats including animations.
4. Context: you’re seriously thinking about buying from me.
This is the final stage of the sale and the customer needs clear, unambiguous and accurate information, including the detail. E.g. technical information, pricing, servicing, commercial/legal terms & conditions.
You’ll notice that the context-flow in the model closely resembles a traditional sales conversation – that’s not accidental, it is what it is.
Of course customers don’t sit patiently waiting for us to serve up our content in this ordered fashion. The point is we need to have all these messaging bases covered for when the context is right and to monitor customer activity to discern the context. Marketing automation helps us track customer interests on-line so we can serve up content appropriately. And we can use CRM systems and aligned marketing and sales activity to tailor what content customers are exposed to at every touchpoint, on-and-off-line.
Using the framework can help businesses of all sizes develop content strategy in this way:
- Define key audiences – e.g. internal, customers, partners, media, analysts.
- Define key messages by audience/stage.
- Think of content as the carrier for messages.
- Put messages in appropriate carriers (content formats) for the message & audience.
Maximise value from PR activity
If marketing, PR and sales teams are properly working together, from the same content stack, all audiences will receive consistent messaging, which builds trust and credibility. And all talking points and opportunities for customer interactions can be utilised – from marketing content and from PR campaigns. Obviously robust processes are needed to maintain press-embargoes.
In large organisations, the PR function is typically separate from marketing. While PR’s audience is different (media/analysts rather than customers) customers are naturally exposed to PR activity, especially since so much of it now happens on social media. Existing customers really like to be told what’s coming in the media and to receive campaign content directly from us – e.g. research papers. Then if they enjoy the material, they may be more likely to become an advocate for us – e.g. commenting/sharing on social media. There’s nothing more powerful than customer advocacy.
Post-sale
Communication continues after the sale with things like satisfaction checks, promotions, offers, new product information and contract renewals. Existing customers continue to be exposed to brand/PR communications and will still be interested in thought leadership activity. As we learn more about our customer, the more relevant our communication can be. And we absolutely must make certain it is relevant because inappropriate messaging to an existing customer damages the relationship – e.g. an email about a product they’ve already bought, a link to a research paper they’ve already downloaded. So we’re back to thinking about context.
If you’d like to discuss a marketing challenge you’re having, please send me an email.
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