"So what do you do?"

How do you respond when someone asks "What do you do?" The "someone" could be a customer, or a prospect, or a new employee, or a friend, or a potential supplier. Would your answer be:-

• crystal clear?
• concise? 
• relevant?
• distinctive?
• consistent
• memorable?
• compelling and attract them to become a new and valuable customer?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you need to urgently review your marketing message, otherwise your business results are going to suffer.

Building your marketing foundation
In my seminar "A brand new way of marketing to attract customers to come to you", one of the topics I talk about is a five step process to build a marketing foundation. Today's newsletter is about one of the five steps "Creating Your Marketing Message". The other four steps not covered today are:-

• choosing your market segment (s)
• developing great products and services that solve customers' problems
• developing a marketing plan
• creating marketing assets

You can't always buy success
Whether your marketing budget is £5,000 or £5 million you are likely to be outspent by a competitor trying to reach and convert your prospects (or customers). As long as your budget is sufficient to "be in the game", it isn't essential to have the largest budget. Doing the right things and doing them brilliantly can make up for a lower spend.

When I was Head of Advertising and Media at Asda, our advertising budget was around £50 million in today's money, yet we were always outspent by Tesco and usually by Salisbury's. However, during the Asda Rejuvenation period in the early 90's our marketing programme outperformed the competition and Asda became the fastest growing superstore.

Your marketing message is crucially important
It's your message that compels your prospects (and existing customers) to respond. You will communicate your core message to your target audiences, time and time again. You will use it across all your marketing assets: stationery; advertising; sales letters; website; networking; telephone; conversations; publicity; offices or retail outlets etc. 

It needs to be consistent. If your leaflets are saying one thing and your telesales team are saying something else and your actions are "saying" something different again, what do you expect your prospect or consumer to think?

Get noticed
Consumers are bombarded by thousands of marketing messages every day. The first task of a successful message is to get noticed and stand out from the clutter, especially your competition.

At Asda I ran a media agency pitch to decide which agency we were going to appoint to plan and buy Asda's media requirements. On the day of the pitch, (whilst walking from the car park), I noticed just outside the entrance to Asda House,  a 6 sheet poster on the side of a bus shelter. It said "Ian / Peter, think before you decide." It caught my attention because it had my name and Ian (my bosses name) on the poster. It had no other messages or logos and I had no idea what it was about, but it stopped me and made me think. Later that day, one of the agencies said that they did it to demonstrate their ability to effectively target consumers with a relevant message.

You can't always do a "one to one" message but you can make sure the message is relevant (tailored) to your target audience and deals with their biggest problem.

Leave a good impression
Once noticed, the message needs to communicate something distinctive that sets you apart from the competition.

Clarity and conciseness are really important. You will probably only get a few seconds of someone's time (or a couple of minutes at the most, depending on the communication medium or channel used).

Brands aspire to own a word or a thought in their target customers minds such as Volvo and safety. Most never achieve owning a  word in a consumers mind, yet alone 2 or more words, however big the budget is. Some brands have spent millions trying to communicate a complex, confusing or long winded message with little impact on consumers. They try to "push water uphill" and as a result get a  poor return for their marketing investment. Most companies, especially SMEs don't have big marketing budgets and need to be even more focused. Keep it simple.

Try to make the message memorable. This could be due to the copy or the words, or the images used, or the idea. Great messages often have a rational component (fastest, best, cheapest, secure) and an emotional component (satisfaction, achievement, prestige, sadness, guilt)

Call to action
What is the objective of your message? You may have different objectives for different messages. You might want to generate awareness or develop specific images statements for your brand in your consumers' mind.

You may want a specific call to action such as someone to call you, or to visit your web site or shop, or to buy now. Whatever the objective is make sure you measure the response to find out what's working and what isn't.

If you would like individual help on developing compelling marketing messages that attract new and valuable customers, please contact me.

Peter Hawtin

This article was taken from the Brand New Way SME marketing newsletter which is published every 2 weeks.