The Seven Deadly Sins of Messaging

Marketing messages are literally what separate your business from your competitors.   Having a clear, distinct position, a customer-focused value proposition, and supporting proof-points make up the basic elements of any organization’s messaging.  Most everyone knows this, yet many fail to implement messaging well.  So how do companies fall short in developing their messages? 

There is usually not one answer.  There are many contributing factors that can make or break an organization’s ability to deliver a clear message.  What follows is an introduction to the seven most common mistakes companies make in developing and delivering their message.  Over the coming weeks, I will look at each of these sins in more detail, and ideas for overcoming them.

Sin #1: Target everyone, speak to no one
It is so much easier to just lump everyone together and hope that one of your messages sticks.  But they rarely do.  At least a simple level of targeting is needed to appeal to the distinct audiences you market to.

Sin #2: No customer insight
Organizations of any size or type must use customer data or research to help them shape their messages.  This one sin is responsible for all of the puzzled looks customers have when they don’t see how a company, product or service helps them solve their problem.

Sin #3: Marketing to yourself
Whenever you find conversations about your customers using words like “we” and “I,” then you should take a step back.  Chances are you are convincing yourselves that you have the right answers and avoiding engagement with your customers.

Sin #4: Complexity over clarity
A clear marketing message should catch your customer with a provocative, actionable statement, and then reveal the details of the product or service in layers.  Not all at once.   Complexity creates confusion, and confusion creates hesitancy. 

Sin #5: Here’s the solution, but what’s the problem?
Many organizations like to paint pictures of the perfect world their product or service will create if used.  But customers want to see organizations relate to them – understand their problem.  Customers want solutions to be presented in the context of their problem. 

Sin #6: Differentiate, the same as everyone else
“Only.”  “Award-winning.”  “Unique.”  These words carry little effect anymore.  Customers are skeptical.  Rule of thumb – if you find your differentiator claimed by a competitor, then it is not a differentiator.  It is confusing.

Sin #7: Inconsistent messages
Customers like consistency.  Brands are built on it.  While every company should alter their messages to target specific audiences, that does not change the core message, the core message needs remain intact across your tactics, whether printed, displayed or spoken.

Next time, I’ll talk a bit more about each of these sins and how you can combat them in your organization.