Don’t be like the rest of them! Create a captivating brand message with these five methods...
Surveys.
Interviews.
Customer Reviews.
As a business owner or marketer, these are just some of the avenues where you can gather information that could help grow your business.
What if you’re just starting up a business and you have no customers yet to conduct surveys or interviews with?
If you’re setting up a website for your new business, how will you get an idea of the type of content that online visitors are expecting to see on your site?
How can you convert these online visitors into loyal customers?
As stated in Joanna Wiebe’s CopyHackers Book 1 titled, “Where Stellar Messages Come From,” your business’ best marketing message can come from your visitors, customers, and prospects.
This is the message that your brand wants your target market to know and remember.
Whether you’re using it as a promotion for an app, website, brochure, or any other channel, your marketing message should be able to differentiate your business from the rest of your competitors.
This message must convey to your target market that aside from solving their existing pains and problems, your business could offer them something new―something that your competitors couldn’t.
How do you come up with your marketing message and connect with your target market when their awareness of your brand or business is low?
If you’re just in the beginning phase of building your brand, don’t worry! Here are five methods you can apply for customer-free message-finding, as stated in Wiebe’s book:
- Eavesdrop on conversations.
Go to a cafe or a restaurant and sit near the groups of people who represent your target market.
Listen to their conversations; keep an ear out for topics that are relevant to the problem your business is trying to solve for them.
Ideally, it’s best if you have a notebook and pen with you so you can take note of these “swipe-worthy, sticky messages” that could be beneficial to your business.
It’s very important that when you’re listening in on people’s conversations, you aren’t a creep about it.
Unless you have their consent, DON’T record their conversations or video tape them with your smartphone. You’d get in trouble if you do that.
Remember: You’re listening to their conversations only because you want to have an idea on how your business can address their demands.
No matter how interesting these people’s conversations are, you should never publish it on your website or include it in other business materials without their permission.
If you’re trying to set up an app that aims to simplify the ordering processes in restaurants, go to a few restaurants, observe, and take note of the ordering experiences of the people around you.
Listen to conversations between the servers and the guests. That way, you’ll be able to identify the appropriate tone and words to use for your app, as well as the depth of the problem you’re trying to solve for your target market.
- Chat with people one-on-one.
For example, your business is building an app that would help hair stylists remember their clients’ preferences and increase their engagements.
Why not book an appointment with a stylist and take that opportunity to chat with her about her and her co-stylists’ problems in recalling client details?
Listen closely to what she has to say. You can inform her about the app you’re developing for hair salons too.
You may also ask your stylist and the salon owner for a sit down conversation to discuss your app and their salon needs.
Surely, you’ll get swipe-worthy messages from them…and a fresh new hairdo!
- Immerse yourself in your target market’s environment.
Interacting with your target market in their native environment will give you a better understanding of how your business can be helpful to them.
For example, if your business aims to help teachers and other education professionals with their teaching needs, you can ask for their permission if you could sit in on one of their classes to observe their interactions with students.
You may also look for other things that your business could help them with such as school supplies, equipment, facilities, etc.
In some instances, you may also ask if you could conduct an interview with your target market in order to get a more hands-on grasp of relevant issues and how your business could solve that for them.
- Conduct a review mining.
Review mining is the practice of going through online reviews that people leave for your products and for products similar to yours.
For instance, you’re optimizing the home page of your therapy business’ website.
In order to understand your target market’s expectations, you can start by reading the online reviews for your website as well as other therapy businesses’ websites.
While this could take a lot of time, at the end of the day, it’s worth it!You may also review books that tackle topics about therapy, psychology, and other related subjects.
You’ll find messages that could stick to your target market’s mind every time they encounter your brand.
Aside from that, you could also pull out interesting insights about your target market’s objections, anxieties, suggestions, expectations, and more.
- Do a content audit on the home pages of your competitors’ websites.
As a startup business, you need to know who your competitors are in the industry, what they are saying, the expectations they set, and the claims they are making.
One way to achieve this is by doing a simple content audit on their websites’ home pages.
Make a list of your primary business competitors and check the kind of messages they are publishing on their websites.
The goal of the content audit is to help you understand existing messages about solutions similar to what your business provides.
Here are five things you should analyze when you’re doing a content audit on your competitors’ home pages:
- The headline
- The primary message(s) they are trying to communicate to the target market
- The call(s) to action
- Special reasons why customers and prospects may want to avail their products or services
- Other cool stuff that could “wow” the target market
Analyzing these things will give you an idea of what online visitors may expect to see on your site―white noises, messaging gaps, and tones and styles your competitors are or are not using on their website.
No doubt it’s challenging to find your business’ best marketing message and branding, and it could take a lot of time. Using the correct approach will help you identify the message that fits you best.
Interact with your target market.
A simple conversation with them could go a long way for your business.
Give these five methods a try!
Whether your business is just new or has been around for a while, these methods will help you find the best message your business can offer your target market in order to grow.
Hope you found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
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