Messaging

Once you know your positioning in the market, it’s time to establish your messaging guidelines. These guidelines will help all content sound on-brand, no matter which team member is creating them.

First, narrow your audience into segments, as narrow as possible. Then, determine what those audience segments need. Some needs may overlap based on your business, but there will likely be differences.

Based on these needs, similar and different, determine the best practices for promoting your positioning to each audience segment and how you should communicate with your audience overall. This will depend on your audience, your positioning, and how your business wants to sound. If you need ideas, look up “tone of voice adjectives.” From there, use those adjectives to develop your content tone and style. Provide your team with the do’s and don’ts for your messaging guidelines accordingly.

Because your customers likely experience a short sales cycle, you need to build trust with your prospects and build a desire for your services quickly. You can do this by being concise in your messaging; add tactics on how to be concise in your messaging guidelines. For example, “Use short, concise sentences. Avoid creating long pieces of content for prospects, but increase content length for customers when appropriate.”

Modern consumers care about brand values. Part of creating your messaging guidelines is determining how to promote your shared values (between your brand and your customers) with your customers. What is important to your customers? Why? How can you make a difference? Answers to these questions can relate directly to your services, to charitable organizations you support, or how your business is run. This is where promoting your company culture can often come in if it relates to how you serve your customers.

Remember: Avoid using industry jargon in your messaging. Your audience likely doesn’t understand or want to learn your industry’s jargon, so use simple, easy to understand language for all content.