Why Messaging is so Important for Successful B2B Marketing
Branding is Lead Generation’s best-kept secret. And what is “Messaging” if not the public face of your brand?
When clients and prospects approach us about a lead generation campaign or website, they’re seeking a way to cut through the clutter of similar sounding competitors or the perception of market monotony. Sometimes, they have a target number of leads in mind, or some idea of a marketing campaign to achieve goals, and usually a tight time frame for achieving results.
In these situations, the success or failure of marketing campaigns and websites often comes down to one thing — Messaging —finding the right concept and meaning that will authentically express the value of their brand and engage with customers to make a lead convert.
Here are some compelling reasons for you to focus on your brand messaging before launching a marketing campaign or website:
The Right Messaging Will Capture Your Prospect’s Attention Faster
At a time when Hollywood movie titles, like “Need for Speed” capture current social, lifestyle and marketing trends, you’ve got to play the speed game if you want any attention. How quickly does a message need to capture one’s attention? Five seconds? Three? Taking a little bit of upfront time to craft a compelling set of messages will help you get noticed faster and will provide the hook your prospect’s and customers need to delve deeper into your content.
The Right Messaging Leads to Copy and Design that Transform Rational Language into Emotional Content that Resonates with Customers
Messaging is the raw material you need to create your authentic brand, and in the hand of a strong writer and designer, it is transformed into a textual and visual expression that breathes life into your marketing and website by connecting with your audience in the emotional manner that achieves differentiation, inspires action and ultimately leads to loyalty.
Lululemon Athletica, a fashion althletic brand is well on the road to rebuilding their brand by employing distinct messaging and simple, powerful graphics to appeal to men and women who like a hard workout but don’t want to smell like it. Their “Science of Stink” campaign touts the benefits of the brand, couched in the sexy lifestyle that resonates with their audience. Their brand is now resurgent in the market.
The Right Messaging Draws its Power from Consistent Application
The power and influence of your messaging grows exponentially when your entire team speaks the same language with a common voice and your marketing, website, collateral, advertising, event graphics and presentations do likewise. Do these things and your customers, prospects, employees and competitors will quickly understand that unique messaging is a formidable competitive weapon.
For our client, AirStrip. a leader in the mobile healthcare technology space, we’ve built a brand around the concept “Healthcare Transformation is in the Air.” This overarching theme suggests that the company seeks to transform the way healthcare is practiced through mobility. It provides the high level underpinnings of the brand and enables myriad sub messages about “how” this is achieved. What makes the brand powerful is its consistent application across media. Here are event and advertising examples.
The Right Messaging Leads to the Right Marketing Offers
When your messaging is solid, you can more easily build a market nurturing campaign, which is essentially a progressive set of content offers, which enable customers and prospects to dive deeper into your solutions in steps. Having a cohesive message underlying your content nurturing program provides the foundation upon which they will convert.
For our client, The Jim Stengel Company, we built a large, versatile Call-to-Action (CTA) library of offers based upon his strong messaging foundation about “business growth through brand ideals.” Because of this solid messaging, the possibilities for marketing offers are bountiful.
Are you ready to move beyond the noise? Have you looked at your messaging lately?
