In today’s noisy marketplace, it is more important than ever to create brand messaging that breaks through that noise and attracts your ideal client. Creating messaging that breaks through the noise of the marketplace and sets your business apart is an absolutely crucial part of growing your business, and growing your business more easily. This does not just apply to your website or your emails, but everywhere that you are creating messaging – social media, presentations you are giving, one-on-one conversations with people.
If you have known me or worked with me, you have heard me drive home the point of outcome based language, outcome based language, outcome based language. And that is still absolutely true. I am not changing that you absolutely must learn to figure out how to talk about what you do. And not only talk about what you do, but talk about it in a way that lets people know what they would receive if they worked with you.
People buy outcomes, they do not buy processes. That is still true. Today I want to go further than that, and go way deeper into this idea about what has to be included in your messaging to really help you cut through the noise. In this article we will discuss what it means to create a brand message that is consistent, pervasive, specific, and beneficial to your audience.
Creating a Brand Message That is Consistent
Whether you are posting on social media, writing a blog, giving a talk, on a Connect Call, on a sales call, or even just having a one-on-one conversation about your business, your message needs to be consistent with the rest of your brand. If you read our most recent article, Creating Brand Consistency for Your Business, you will remember that language and word choice are part of having a consistent brand.
Using my business as an example, my persona is pretty direct. If I were to use fluffy language, it would feel inconsistent with the rest of my brand. If I were to use words like flow and ease and grace, it would feel inconsistent with the rest of my brand. And it’s not that I don’t believe in those things. And it’s not that I don’t want those things. But those aren’t exactly the things you think of when you think of Conquer Your Business, with a tiger as the logo, and my overall personality.
Those words and things are all wonderful. I follow many other coaches who do use those words seamlessly as part of their brands. But for me, it would be inconsistent with the rest of my brand because your messaging has to be consistent with the rest of what you’re doing.
Consistency in your messaging also means saying what you say over and over and over and over and over again and having it be consistent each and every time. So what do I mean by that? I get a lot of pushback from people who tell me that they don’t worry about how they’re going to introduce themselves when they talk about their business, so it’s different every time.
Unfortunately, if every time you walk into a room, you introduce yourself in a completely different way, nobody gets the chance to remember what it is that you do. They might remember that they like you. They might remember you as the funny, capable, nice, generous, gregarious person. But they’re not going to remember what you do, because you didn’t give them a chance to remember what you do.
For people to remember what you do, you need to be consistent. This does not mean saying the same thing every single time, but it is important to have a tagline or something about your messaging that is consistent every time you say it so that people have a chance to remember it. This goes beyond using a label like Financial Planner or Real Estate Agent. This is where outcome based language comes into your messaging.
What is the outcome that you provide? What can you say consistently, over and over again, that lets listeners know the results of working with you? You might have heard me talk about helping driven entrepreneurs create an in-demand brand, and achieving financial freedom in their business. I say that over and over and over again so that people have a chance to remember what it is that I do.
So in terms of consistency, is your messaging and the word choice consistent with all the other pieces of your brand? Are you saying things consistently enough that your message becomes one with your brand?
The other piece of consistency is consistency in your activity. Are you being consistent in how you show up? Are you posting regularly, or whatever regularly means to you? By regularly, I’ll give you an example. I met a woman at an event that I went to, and we really hit it off. We were going to trade resources, and then we had a connect call.
But when I went to follow up with her, the email bounced. I tried again, and it bounced again so I went on Facebook to look her up on Facebook, but she hadn’t posted in three months. And then I went on LinkedIn to find her on LinkedIn but I could not find her there. And then I went on Instagram to find her on Instagram, but she hadn’t posted in two months. And then when I went on her website, all it had was the email that had bounced back to me. I’m thinking that between the time I talked to her and several days later sent the resource we agreed on that she wanted, she went out of business.
If you are not showing up consistently, these days, people think you are out of business. Does it mean you have to post every single day? Not necessarily. But your social media is a credential. That is how that works right now. people meet you in real life, and then they go back to their office and they look you up on LinkedIn to make sure you’re who you said you were. So the consistency in which you show up, matters.
Creating a Brand Message That is Pervasive
The second part of creating messaging that attracts is to be pervasive in terms of sharing your message. In order to create the know, like, and trust feeling, people need to become familiar with you.
This does not mean you have to be on every single social media platform, especially if your target audience is not there. Not every business needs to be on Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. But whatever channel you choose, go deep with it. While you do not have to be everywhere in terms of every platform, you have to be everywhere on the platforms you choose.
If you’re going to be involved in a networking group, consistency and pervasiveness show up, so get involved and go deep with it. Staying at the surface is another thing that prevents people from really understanding who you are and what you do, and hinders you getting your message out.
Business owners severely underestimate the amount of activity it takes at the top of the funnel in growing your audience, to trickle down through a client journey process and into who is your actual potential clientele. If you’re not pervasive, it just elongates how long it takes for people to get through that process.
Creating a Brand Message That is Specific
Creating a brand message that is specific means clearly stating the outcome that you will provide to a potential client. People need to know exactly what they’re going to receive from you, in order to be interested in talking to you about that.
Using my own business as an example again, I used to work with a keynote speaking coach who would review videos of my presentations. Now, remember, I have very thick skin and I love this guy. We had a great rapport with each other, and I was not offended by his approach to how he offered feedback. I remember giving him a video of a 15-minute presentation that I had done. We watched it, and he said, “15 minutes, 32 points, kill me now!” And I laugh because that was just the relationship we had, but he wasn’t wrong.
Giving everybody so much information all at once just overwhelms them. What I know now is that when people do this, it’s coming from a place of insecurity, which is where I was at the time. It’s, “No, really, I promise I know what I’m talking about, see? Here’s all of my information!” Conversely, it can also come from a drive to serve but without understanding how to serve.
People cannot receive that much information from you all at once. It is important to remember that you are the expert in your field, and they are interested in it. But they don’t know half of what you are talking about, so all you are doing is overwhelming them. Instead, you can be specific and break it down into bite-sized pieces.
If you have listened to my live show or attended a workshop, I talk about one topic. I usually use a list to help you organize what I’m talking about. And I try to go deep on just a couple of things at a time so that you can receive the information and listen for your nugget of information.
The other thing about being specific in your messaging is to make sure that your ideal client can absolutely visualize the outcome that they receive. In the current marketplace, it is better to be specific with the exact outcome that you will provide when explaining how you can help somebody. With the noise in the marketplace, and the economy being a little wonky, people need to know exactly what they are going to receive from you in order to be interested in talking to you about that.
Creating a Brand Message That is Beneficial
Is what you are talking about in your message beneficial to your audience? People want tangible takeaways. Fluffy just isn’t enough anymore. It has to be beneficial, meaning it is relevant from a timing perspective.
Think about what you do and the problems you solve. Think about how it fits into today’s overall marketplace. In my own business, I am talking about what I do a little differently than I used to because of the specificity I need to have. I am going deeper into the topic of creating in-demand brands, which used to be what I did for my top-level private clients. But now it is exactly what everyone needs in order to grow their businesses. So it’s what I’m bringing to the marketplace to help people understand how I can help them more specifically, and in a way that’s beneficial.
Think about what your version of that is right now. Take a look at how you talk about what you’re doing, and adjust it for what people need right now. If you are not exactly sure what people need right now, you can make it easy and just go and ask them. They will tell you, and then you will know how to dial in your messaging.
Putting it All Together into Messaging That Attracts
These pieces all go together. If you are consistent with your messaging but it is not beneficial to your audience, it is not messaging that attracts. If you’re pervasive, but you’re not specific, it is not messaging that attracts. In all of your content – posts, blogs, talks, conversations – it is important to make sure all four boxes are checked all the time, so that your content is consistent, pervasive, specific, and beneficial.
