messaging strategy - why this is the single best marketing investment
Last week, I defined Brand Guidelines and the importance of investing in them. I also shared a valuable lesson that I learned when I failed to require a client to establish them. Trust me; you want to learn from my mistakes! This week I will talk about Messaging strategy - the what and the why- and in future blogs, I’ll get into how.
What is Messaging Strategy?
A messaging strategy, like brand guidelines, is a set of professionally written and thoughtfully constructed statements that clearly and concisely describe what your company does and the unique value it brings to your industry. More like guardrails than a handbook, a good messaging strategy equips you, your leadership team, and the marketing and sales teams with simple and easy-to-understand definitions for:
what your company does
the unique problem that it solves for your customers
how your products or services improve the lives and/or outcomes for your customers.
You and your leadership teams can use the strategy as a starting point to formulate your statements in your style.
Why you need messaging strategy:
Why is it essential to spend time defining and agreeing on this “messaging?” Because, for the same reason, brand guidelines create consistency and efficiency and reduce costs, your messaging strategy allows you and your team to quickly and easily generate consistent marketing and sales collateral that will resonate with your audience every time.
A thorough and well-thought-through messaging strategy will provide significant value to your organization in the long run. Your internal marketing, sales, HR, and leadership teams can leverage your investment to:
Never start with a blank page - every time you or your team is asked to create a sales follow-up email, a one-sheet overview of your services, a brochure, sales presentation, a digital ad, or a print advertisement- there will be a starting point and a bank of professionally written copy-blocks to choose from.
Manage marketing costs - with a faster and more efficient path towards producing marketing assets, your overall cost to create collateral should decrease while keeping productivity high.
Create clear, consistent marketing collateral across all channels - when your team uses your messaging guide to create new content, the result is that across all channels, your brand is saying the same thing to your audience. This repetition and consistency improve people’s ability to remember what you do, the unique problem that you solve, and how you can make their lives better.
Here’s a great example of how a messaging guide can help me, years later, to improve upon a client’s messaging. Over the last few months, a legacy client returned to update their website copy. Like anyone else working on this project, I retrieved their original messaging guide from 2021 to refresh my memory and give me a starting point. When I finished their project, I updated their messaging guide with the new copy I wrote so that they continue to benefit from their investment for years.
What a messaging strategy typically costs:
It typically costs anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000, depending on the type of strategist you work with and the deliverables included in your final strategy document.
For example, I am a Storybrand Certified Guide, and we have been trained in a specific type of messaging strategy. With five years of experience as a guide, I combine theirStorybrand training with years of in-house marketing experience to bring clients a robust messaging strategy that includes a deep dive into the overall business model, services, and rich business messaging. This is essential for the long term development of good copy for things such as the website, sales presentations, investor materials, etc.
To find a bevvy of contractors, you can search the database of guides certified in the Storybrand framework. And if that’s not your thing, many contractors on Upwork do similar work without the Storybrand “narrative” marketing component.
Typically, years of experience in a copywriting or marketing role define the contractor’s rates.
How a messaging strategy is developed and written:
To get started, most strategists hold anywhere from 3-hour to 3-day strategy sessions with their clients. Depending on the size and complexity of your business, the amount of time needed to uncover the gold in your company’s brand narrative varies.
In the strategy session, you can expect your strategist to work hard at understanding your business. He or she will get curious about your service offerings, the competitive landscape, revenue streams, audience demographics, customer journey, customer satisfaction levels, current sales and marketing processes, and more.
The goal in the strategy session is to be able to use the discussion to begin helping your leadership better understand and articulate the unique value you bring to your customers, revolving around the problem that you solve for them and how it makes their lives and business results better.
What’s great is that most leaders realize they haven’t spent much time celebrating the good in their business. I receive comments like “that was really fun! I hadn’t thought about what we do in a long time, it feels good to focus on our customer again!”
What the final deliverable should include:
The deliverables typically include a PDF with a professionally written set of messaging blocks. The messaging strategy should include resources such as:
The Storybrand Messaging Guide:
Storybrand brandscript
One Liner
Company Narrative (Brandscript Script)
Additional Business Messaging:
company overview (about us statement)
value proposition
target audience definition
why to choose us statements (key differentiators)
core values
top objections to doing business with you and how to overcome them
website header ideas
multiple elevator pitches in different lengths
tagline ideas
unique words and/or statements specific to the brand
bio recommendations for social platforms
messaging nuggets- powerful statements from the strategy session
To see an example of a messaging guide we deliver to our clients. Click here.
What you can do with your branded messaging guide
Once completed and approved, your company should be able to pull from your strategy whenever you create marketing material such as website copy, brochures, email nurture sequences, landing pages, and more. What’s more, your messaging strategy should make it easier, faster, and cheaper to get your marketing projects over the finish line. Whether you have an internal team or external contractors, when you give them a starting point as well as agreed upon copy points, they are more likely to be successful in less time.
Finally, messaging strategy, when used effectively, ensures your audience is receiving a clear and consistent message across your marketing channels. When this happens, they can easily remember the problem you solve for them and how you improve their lives, making it more likely for them to choose you when they are ready to buy.
I often get asked if it’s possible to DIY your messaging strategy? The honest answer, is yes. And I have a few resources for you to make this easier. First and foremost, the best and most simple approach is to read Donald Miller’s “Building a Storybrand” and following his framework for writing a simple and clear “brandscript” using the basic elements of story. You can also use Miller’s free tools on his website. If you want to get a little more involved, his online courses in Business Made Simple are invaluable resources to a business owner willing to do the hard work.
Learn how my client leveraged their messaging investment to drive 40% growth in sales:
A restaurant supply company that serves hotel, independent, and chain restaurants via direct sales and its e-commerce business had a small marketing budget of just <1% of its annual revenue. They hired me, an independent consultant then, to build a messaging and marketing strategy for their e-commerce division. As we designed the messaging strategy, we developed content for the website, email sequences, lead generators, and direct mail. As the economic consequences of the pandemic hit, the client took the resources developed in their messaging strategy project and continued to use it to create new and different content, such as automated email sequences, sales scripts for customer service agents, and even digital catalogs to showcase products. More than 2 years later, the continual use of the messaging strategy, persistent marketing strategy, and accompanying marketing and messaging resources has driven over 40% growth in their revenue. What’s most impressive is that this client didn’t continue to pay me to execute its material. It leveraged its messaging investment to continue developing compelling collateral on its own, DIY style. Their message, when consistently delivered, resonated with their audience and drove sales. What a great success story.
