You’ve just birdied your second consecutive hole and you’re walking off the fourth green, feeling awfully good about your golf game, when one of your foursome brings you up short with, “Say, what do you do for a living?” You break out in a sweat. Can’t find the right words. Your lips get parched. Gulp. If you have to struggle for words to succinctly describe your business, it’s a good bet you should spend some time on your message design.
Establishing a message design is extremely important. After all, your messages drive your brand and your business. So, think about what your messaging should be, then put your thoughts in a document that spells out how you should be communicating in all aspects of your business. Here are some suggestions:
It all starts with positioning – that clear and competitively differentiated place you want to occupy in your customer’s mind. Your positioning should be reflected in everything you do. For example: We’re ABC Lawn & Garden. Our positioning is “the reliable company.”
Core message. From positioning comes your core message. Actually, your core message is the embodiment of your positioning. For clarity, it’s helpful to use “because” in your core message. For example: Because we expertly engineered our products, make only lawn equipment and back everything with a rock-solid guarantee, ABC Lawn & Garden delivers day-in and day-out reliability to customers who take pride in their yards.
Support messages. Support messages are addendums to the core message and serve to round out the profile of who you are. Three support messages is a good number to shoot for. For example: 1) From tractors to hedge clippers, ABC offers a complete line of lawn care products. 2) ABC is on the cutting edge of technology. 3) ABC offers friendly, 24/7 customer support.
Key messages by audience. In most cases, there are at least several audiences to communicate to. These can be vastly different in makeup and have distinct roles, needs and motivations. Designing proper key messages by audience can be tricky: despite the differences, each should link to positioning. For example: 1) Consumer: “The lawn mower your grandchildren will still have.” 2) Investors: “Depend on steady and reliable earnings.” 3) Dealers: “Count on us to help build your business.”
Business description. It’s always important to develop and commit to a general description of your business. Consider having business descriptions of various lengths for diverse applications – public relations, advertising, editorial – directed to varied audiences. For example: Recognized for reliable performance worldwide, ABC Lawn & Garden manufactures and markets equipment exclusively for lawn and garden and distributes it primarily through specialty lawn and garden stores.
Elevator message. In the end, your message design distills into the elevator message, the audience benefits-driven description of who you (and your company) are and what you (and your company) do. Descriptive and with clearly understood benefits, your elevator message should always be consistent with positioning. For example: “I’m a marketing communications specialist for ABC Lawn & Garden, the reliability leader in lawn tools and equipment. If you’re looking for lawn products that will never let you down, we’re the place to go.”