INTRODUCTION MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT PERSONA DEMAND GENERATION MESSAGING DEPLOYMENT Click to read MESSAGING DELIVERY SUCCESS PROBLEM SOLVING WIN CONTENT CONVERSION STRATEGY BREAKTHROUGH INSIGHT SALES MESSAGING CUSTOMER STORIES SELLINGMarketing ENABLEMENT Messenger RESPONSE MARKETING18 exclusive insights from CMO.com MESSAGES that every marketer should know ALIGNMENT WHITEBOARD VS POWERPOINT PERFORMANCE ATTITUDE BUYERby Tim Riesterer for: MESSAGING CUSTOMER STORIES INTRODUCTION MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT MESSAGING DEPLOYMENT MESSAGING DELIVERY Dear Readers, CMO.com is an online publication dedicated to delivering marketing insights, expertise, and inspiration for and by marketing leaders – all aimed at helping CMOs and senior marketers lead their brands in the new digital world. Since 2012, we have been featuring Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for Corporate Visions, Inc., on CMO.com as an ongoing contributing thought leader. With more than 20 years of executive experience in the marketing and sales arena, Tim’s columns offer readers best practices for sales and marketing management; tools for effective messaging and communication development and deployment; and tips on how to build and lead an efficient and productive sales team. Marketing Messenger is a compilation of 18 CMO.com exclusive insights authored by Tim. This collection is a go-to resource for marketing and sales leaders. Read on to learn more about Tim’s exclusive insights that every marketer should know. Regards, Tim Moran Editor in Chief, CMO.com MARKETING MESSENGER 2 INTRODUCTION MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT Why You? Why Change? Do You Want to Be a Malcolm or a Morton? 3 Tips for Creating Million-Dollar Messaging We Need to Talk – Your Persona Is Lying Don’t Let Your Marketing Messages Swing and Miss Your Buyers Are Saying One Thing and Doing Another Problem Finding vs. Problem Solving: Messaging Development Your Messaging Needs to Get in Front of Your Customers Are you passionate about your solution’s superiority? So is your competition. Too many Create Insight Without Merely Delivering Factoids marketers make the critical mistake of focusing their message on “Why You” – what your company does, your fantastic features, and why you’re different and better than the MESSAGING DEPLOYMENT competition. Here’s the problem: your prospects are still trying to figure out why they should even change from their status quo. Check out these articles to learn how to develop MESSAGING DELIVERY compelling and provocative “Why Change” messages that challenge your prospects’ status quo and get them to consider doing something different. Articles: – Do You Want to Be a Malcolm or Morton? 3 Tips for Creating Million-Dollar Messaging – We Need to Talk – Your Persona Is Lying – Don’t Let Your Marketing Messages Swing and Miss – Your Buyers Are Saying One Thing and Doing Another – Problem Finding vs. Problem Solving: Your Messaging Needs to Get in Front of Your Customers – Create Insight Without Merely Delivering Factoids MARKETING MESSENGER 3 INTRODUCTION MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT Do You Want to Be a Malcolm or a Morton? 3 Tips for Creating Million-Dollar Messaging We Need to Talk – Your Persona Is Lying Don’t Let Your Marketing Messages Swing and Miss Do You Want to Be a Your Buyers Are Saying One Thing and Doing Another Problem Finding vs. Problem Solving: Malcolm or a Morton? Your Messaging Needs to Get in Front of Your Customers 3 Tips for Creating Million-Dollar Messaging Create Insight Without Merely Delivering Factoids Are you familiar with the concept of messaged it best. He understood how to take very technical and academic concepts and put them in terms MESSAGING DEPLOYMENT “the tipping point”? If so, who do you think coined the concept? that everyone could appreciate. Messaging that So what can you, as a marketer, learn from Gladwell? makes concepts MESSAGING DELIVERY a) Benjamin Franklin Messaging that makes concepts relatable for the masses relatable for the b) Morton Grodzins will help you rise above your competition and appeal c) Malcolm Gladwell directly, unchallenged, to your prospects and customers. masses will help Once you have determined your company’s distinct you rise above your If you said C, then you’d be incorrect. Gladwell is the strengths – buried in your company are ideas, offerings, author of the best-selling novel The Tipping Point, which competition and concepts, and capabilities that are of great value to your explores this concept, but the first person to develop the appeal directly, customers, but need to be messaged properly – follow idea – according to written record – is Morton Grodzins, an these three tips to create your own million- unchallenged, to unknown political science professor. Grodzins developed dollar messaging: this concept more than 40 years before Gladwell even your prospects and published his book. 1. Live in your customers’ world: customers. The single greatest differentiator between a successful You might be wondering to yourself, How did Gladwell company and an unsuccessful one is the story it tells make millions of dollars from this concept, while Grodzins during the buying cycle. All too often, when talking with remains unknown? The answer is simple: Gladwell customers, you want to dive in and tell them why your (continued) MARKETING MESSENGER 4 INTRODUCTION product/solution is great. But the truth is, all they care You need to take advantage and tell them something MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT 3 Key Tips about is how it might improve their day-to-day lives. they don’t already know about a problem they might Do You Want to Be a Malcolm or An engaging story that will move your customers to not be aware they have. Don’t be afraid to a Morton? 3 Tips for Creating a purchase decision is one that lives in their world, be provocative. Million-Dollar Messaging speaking to their pains, challenges, and fears – not your • Change burden: How much do customers hate We Need to Talk – Your Persona Is Lying product/solution and why it is exceptional. change? So much that they’re often willing to live Don’t Let Your Marketing Messages 2. Avoid content overload: with their less-than-ideal solutions because they Swing and Miss To help your customers make a decision, you need see the pain of changing as being worse. To break through the status-quo barrier, you’ll need to show Your Buyers Are Saying One Thing to do more than overload them with data sheets and Doing Another Live in your and other information. Create distinct and engaging how the pain of not changing is worse than the pain content that appeals to the decision-making part of of doing things differently. Problem Finding vs. Problem Solving: customers’ world Your Messaging Needs to Get in the brain to help move customers off of the status quo. • Risk aversion: It’s a fact that people respond better Front of Your Customers Your story must show them the impact that current and faster to threats than to the potential for gain. Create Insight Without Merely trends, issues, challenges, and changes will have on This is why your stories about your solution’s features/ Delivering Factoids their businesses and desired outcomes. It also needs benefits and your ROI calculations fail to break to illustrate how you can help them avoid the risks and through the status-quo barrier. Instead, show your make the most of their opportunities. customers where their current solution is leading MESSAGING DEPLOYMENT them: down the wrong path. They must see their Look at Gladwell: He didn’t just report on Grodzins’ status quo as “unsafe” before they will move away MESSAGING DELIVERY discovery. No, he looked at the tipping point from every from it. Avoid content angle, and then made it relatable to you and me. He took an esoteric concept and made it pragmatic and • Entrenched competition: Sure, incumbency has overload applicable for our lives – and that’s precisely why he its advantages. Established solutions are safe and was so successful. comfortable. But you can uproot them if your messaging clearly shows the contrast between your 3. Aim at the right target: approach and the status quo. Your fiercest competitor isn’t another company – it’s the status quo. So as you’re building your messaging At the end of the day, the difference between the best content, keep in mind that it needs to defeat these root messaging and ho-hum messaging is the difference causes of the status-quo barrier: between making millions of dollars and toiling in obscurity, as evidenced by Malcolm Gladwell and • Attention economy: As they say, time is money. Today, Morton Grodzins. So before you create your next time is more valuable than ever, and getting people’s Aim at the right campaign, or before you create another piece of attention can sometimes be near impossible. When content, ask yourself this: target you do get face time with a customer, you can’t afford to be timid or to play the 20-questions game. Do you want to be a Malcolm or a Morton? n MARKETING MESSENGER 5 INTRODUCTION MESSAGING DEVELOPMENT Do You Want to Be a Malcolm or Typical Buyer Persona a Morton? 3 Tips for Creating Million-Dollar Messaging Key business Income and issues lifestyle We Need to Talk – Your Persona Is Lying Don’t Let Your Marketing Messages Demographics Personality Swing and Miss We Need to Talk – Your Buyers Are Saying One Thing and Doing Another Problem Finding vs. Problem Solving: Your Persona Is Lying Your Messaging Needs to Get in Front of Your Customers For years marketers have created Know Thy Prospect Create Insight Without Merely To ensure your messages are on-point, I recommend Delivering Factoids personas – fictional characters that using a “status-quo profile” as the starting point. By embody all the traits of their prospects.