Whether you are a marketer or business owner, your main goal is to generate more customers and more sales for the business.
If you are a marketer, you probably have various goals you are trying to hit such as leads, website visits, and so on, but what your boss really wants is more customer and more sales.
What most people assume is that the only way to achieve this goal is to increase the amount invested in marketing and advertising.
What I’m going to share with you in this article is contrary to this commonly held belief.
In fact, if you implement the strategy laid out in this article, you might find that you can achieve your goal by spending far less on advertising.
Sound crazy?
Let’s find out just how simple this could be.
Before we get into the strategy, I want you to consider something.
There is a common saying about marketing: Half of my marketing is working, I just don’t know which half.
Most people think that the form of marketing or advertising, or should I say channel, is what’s not working.
People try different channels, adjust spend, adjust targeting, all in the hopes of figuring out which half of their marketing isn’t working.
There are two common beliefs:
- The ad is good, I just need to figure out the trick of how to put it in the right place.
- The is good enough. A better ad won’t improve the results. Having the ad period is better than not having it.
Here’s what I want you to consider: what if all along, it wasn’t the place that was wrong but the ad itself?
What if the message was wrong the entire time?
Think about it.
If the message is wrong, it doesn’t matter where you place it—It will not work.
The more money you put behind the ad, the worse it gets because your spend goes up exponentially versus the results.
And this is typically the challenge we find most marketers and business owners facing.
The results and spend are decoupled, and they cannot figure out what’s going wrong.
Many times, this can even lead to people swearing off advertising altogether and going back to growing their business on word-of-mouth advertising. This is a HUGE problem for another article.
Today, we are going to stay focused on how to make your marketing work for you 100% (even while you sleep).
So we have established that maybe (just maybe) the message has been wrong this whole time. That’s the good news because that means that all those channels you tried previously may actually be viable if we can get the message right.
What are some signs that the message is the problem?
- You have been active on social media but you aren’t getting engagement and your following isn’t growing
- You run ads but don’t get conversions (impressions and clicks don’t count as success)
- People are not reading your emails or clicking through
- Your marketing spend isn’t generated 10x in value
- You aren’t showing up in search engine results
- Your website traffic isn’t growing
The short answer: you are doing a lot of work and not getting engagement, followers, or people coming to your business.
Here is the REAL problem
Most people don’t know what the problem is with their message. In fact, I struggled with this for years before I fully understood what I was doing wrong.
Once I realized what needed to be changed, it was a night and day difference.
People started following my accounts, engagement shot through the roof, and red-hot leads started coming through the door (without ANY paid ads).
When I tell you what the problem is, even then you may not fully understand, despite how simple of a concept it really is.
Not because it’s over your head (you’re already doing WAY more complex things) but because the way we are used to crafting our marketing and what your boss(es) want you to say is simply incorrect.
It’s not your fault, it’s just not the way we all think about putting together our marketing message.
So here is the problem.
The message within the marketing is not relevant to the target audience.
To clarify, they don’t see what’s in it for them.
Your customers only care about one thing and that is themselves.
They want to know what is in it for them.
I told you, it would sound like you’ve been doing this all along.
But I promise you, if you had been doing this, you wouldn’t be wondering which half of your marketing isn’t working.
Let me explain
Here is a quick rule of thumb. If your message starts with I, us, or we, then you know it is not right.
Your message should only be focused on the customer.
The message should either start with you/your or imply an action or benefit the customer will experience.
This alone will not do the trick, but it gives you a quick way to tell if your message is right or wrong.
One of the most famous examples of this is when Steve Jobs unveiled of the Apple iPod.
The line he used was “1,000 songs in your pocket”.
As they say, the devil is in the details.
The reason this was so impactful is that it implied the benefit to the customer. You could relate to having 1,000 songs in your pocket.
Had the headline been “Our mobile music device holds up to 1,000 songs” it would not have been as powerful.
Why?
Because first of all it starts with the device and the reader doesn’t care about your device.
Second, it states the device holds 1,000 songs. It’s not real clear why that matters to me. Especially if I don’t have 1,000 songs. I don’t have a problem with storing 1,000 songs.
Third, the difference between the 1,000 songs being on the device versus in my pocket gives context to the benefit. Now I understand that the reason 1,000 being on the device matters is because I can take it with me. I can SEE myself playing music.
Again, this sounds simple, but people miss the mark every day, and it is easy to fall into the trap.
How you can make sure your message is right every time
The first step to ensuring your message is relevant to the target audience is to understand what they want. You have to know what words they use and how they say what they want—Not how you say it and not packed full of buzzwords.
You really only need to know three things:
- Who is your ideal customer
- What do they want
- What pain are they experiencing
Did you know
One of the best ways to improve the conversion rate of a Google search ad is to have both the ad headline and the landing page headline match what the user search for?
Why is that?
Because you are delivering exactly what the user is looking for. You are using their words. They want what they are looking for, not something else.
The best way to get clarity on what your customer wants is to develop persona profiles and then use very specific brand messaging exercises, such as our Perfect Pitch Workshop.
This will help you outline what your customers want, what their fears and frustrations are, and how that makes them feel.
The objective of every piece of marketing should be to answer the question “what’s in it for me” and avoid talking about any features of your products or services.
Only answer questions the customer has and guide them one step closer to your solution.
This applies to every aspect of your marketing and advertising. Every piece of content you produce should follow this same rule.
What you will find is that your audience is more attracted to your marketing. It will seem as though you are magnetic, gaining followers, leads, and interactions while you sleep.
I recommend going back and reviewing your website to ensure that it follows this same structure. Web designers are notorious for falling into this trap and since most websites are just digital brochures, I guarantee you there is an opportunity to improve the user experience of your website.
What you should do next
All of your messaging (all of it) should be focused on your ideal customer and address the two things mentioned above:
- What do they want
- What pain are they experiencing
It’s that simple.
If you stick to this model, you will create a magnetic brand that attracts new customers and sales while you sleep.
If you can get on board with that approach, then you are ready for the two messaging frameworks.
1. Magnetic Messaging Framework
Being able to communicate your message in an engaging way is critical to getting people to pay attention to what you have to say. When you frame up a problem or idea in a different way, it makes it more interesting and helps people think on a deeper level.
Our Magnetic Messaging Framework contains 21 messages that you can use to communicate your knowledge and expertise in a way that will engage your audience.
These messages will help you focus your messaging and position yourself as an expert in your field.
You can use these messages for video content, email marketing, or blog content. As you begin to come up with ideas for each, you will realize that you can think of various topics to cover for each message.
This messaging framework alone will help you create months worth of content that makes your brand magnetic.
2. Content Flywheel
One of the toughest parts of creating content is knowing what to talk about.
Typically, when we get started creating content, we cover a very broad subject in one piece of content and then we run out of ideas.
The reality is that one subject can be broken down into numerous types of content and formats.
The Content Flywheel helps you turn one topic into 18 pieces of content simply by focusing on one aspect of the topic at a time.
This allows you to create a lot of content on one subject which in turn positions you as the expert.
Make your marketing convert
If you are struggling to get results from you social media content, ads, and marketing, it could be a problem with your messaging.
Get instant access to our two most powerful messaging frameworks to help you start converting more prospects into follower, leads, and customers.⚡