Every successful business makes a clear promise to its customers. That commitment is the heart of the business’s value, the core of its brand, the guiding principle by which it’s profitable products and services are developed and distributed.
Smart entrepreneurs express this commitment every time they talk to customers, strategic business partners, employees and the press. It is incorporated explicitly, or implicitly, into every blog post, every tweet and every advertisement.
This statement will become the “brand message” you release on search engines, social media, mass media, blogs, display networks, social networks, etc. You express it in spoken words, audio, video, blogs, websites and still images. It defines your business identity.
This message must be clear, short and emotionally important to your customers.
- School for Startups, we teach entrepreneurs how to start and run more profitable businesses.
- Fedex . . . when it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight.
- M&Ms . . . melt in your mouth, not in your hands.
Why is a short message critical?
People hear thousands of messages from friends, family and the rest of the world every single day. Meanwhile, they have their own emotional, physical and professional needs to address. They don’t have time to figure out what possible value your business might be able to provide to them.
Being able to fit your message into a single short, clear statement your message very easy to carry worldwide. People can send it to one another in just a few clicks . . .
How do you define your promise to your customers?
- If you are already in business and you have customers you like to work with who very much like you, ask them why they work with you. They may use words like local, fast, smart, thorough, easy. They may talk about your value in terms of time, money or a sense of security. Your best customers are the best folks to get your language from. If a printing company hears, “You’re the one London printer who gets every order right every time…” from its best customers, then it knows this is its unique sales proposition.
- If you are not in business, you have to become familiar enough with those you want to have as customers that you know what they truly want from a business like yours. Try using websites like www.meetup.com, business networking groups on www.linkedin.com, and approaching people in your target industry directly through email or Twitter. When you understand your target customers, and their needs, you’ll be able to frame your promise to them.
- If your business delivers products and services locally, you may find great benefit in incorporating your location into to your marketing message. If your business delivers products or services worldwide, your value statement should be very tightly defined by target market or some other property. For example “The Best Minestrone in Scotland” sells better than “Fine Italian Dining” as a marketing message.
Starting to market a business you have not clearly defined is a waste of both time and money. In fact, if you are very successful at marketing a nebulously defined business online you simply insure that people will sense that confusion for years to come.
Many enterprises that market a business before it’s unique marketing message is defined have to discard the business name and website that have been marketed broadly, effectively and badly.
Q & A
Question: I’ve tried a hundred times to come up with a single simple statement that defines my business to my customers. I can’t do it. Our business can’t be pigeon-holed that way.
Answer: If you can’t be that clear about your business because it is too “big” for that, you need to cut back on what you do… or you need to start slicing things up to create multiple brands, with websites that do have a message that is clear, short, easy to understand and quick to deliver.
For example, a florist may serve several markets.
- They might create arrangements for family events like weddings and funerals,
- They may provide flowers for business events like conferences and courses,
- They may deliver training to in how to arrange flowers to people in their community.
If they wish to create a clear identity and strong branding for all these endeavours they may want to present each of these activities as a separate business. In effect they will “trade as” three separate entities running under a single business name. Each undertaking will then have its own identity.
Question: The business statement I like isn’t the one everyone else likes.
Answer: Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is a problem you must resolve before you start marketing your business. Both you and your customers have to find your business statement compelling before you engage in a marketing campaign.
Here’s what to do . . .
First, remember you are NOT a customer for your product or service. If you are selling “Space-aged tutoring for kids that prepares them to be the first lunar colonists”… this may not be your brand message, because parents may want “Tutoring that gets your child up to speed fast on English and Arithmetic” rather. Since the parents are buying, and what they like describes what you do, why not let them pick the brand message. You can keep your lunar colony motivation in the background.
Second, create multiple brand messages and test them in the marketplace to see which one gives you the leads you can sell to best.
Joost de Valk, Mark Boyd and Andrew Davis have all occasionally created Pay Per Click ads on Google Adwords or elsewhere to test the efficacy of sales messages before building a whole SEO campaign around them. You can too.
Google Adwords makes it particularly easy and cheap to show a slogan to thousands over a couple of days and to gauge customer response in clicks.
Just remember to set a campaign budget that you can afford and choose the keywords your customers are most likely to use. The slogans that work best in pay per click will usually work best in all media.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?