Messaging

Years ago a sales rep. won a meeting with a hard-to-reach, C-level decision-maker at a prospective customer. When asked how the rep’s solution differed from his current vendor by adding value the incumbent may not provide, the rep replied, “Oh, ours is just like theirs.””

Quite reasonably, the prospect said, “Well, let’s not waste any more of our time.” With that, the meeting was over.

Messaging isn’t crafting catch-phrases, taglines or elevator pitches. It’s a disciplined process based on a proven protocol with one goal: a core message platform that clearly articulates value and differentiation. Knowing both would have helped the sales rep. keep the sales conversation moving forward instead of shutting it down.

Connectsm can help companies develop integrated core message platforms for their brands as well as their products and services. These, in turn, become the foundation of consistent and well-aligned communications to various audiences — customers, prospects, industry influencers, journalists, employees and shareholders.

Simply put, defining your messaging begins with answers to these questions:

  1. What need drives customers to seek your company’s solution?
  2. What market drivers are making this need more acute as time passes?
  3. What are the alternative ways to meet this need today?
  4. What are the shortcomings with these alternatives?
  5. How does your solution overcome these shortcomings?

Regardless of media, a core message platform ensures that all communications will contain the same key messages, perhaps told in different ways to suit a particular audience. If a key message is left out, it’s deliberate. If a message isn’t part of the platform, it isn’t part of the communications.

This way every communication — whether an interview, a brochure, a bylined article, a keynote speech or a sales pitch, among others — will help amplify your key messages. Your audience and markets will understand much better the differentiated value of your company and its solutions than if they suffered a haphazard and undoubtedly confusing array of “me-too” statements.

Over the decades, Connectsm has conducted intensive message development sessions with more than 400 clients to build core message platforms. Our messaging work with these clients has resulted in more efficient and effective communications, helping sales open more doors, shorten sales cycles and close more sales. After all, isn’t that what marketing’s all about?

Client Experience

When Connect Marketingsm met with Nokia Siemens Networks for a message platform development session, the questions above provided the basis for the workshop. In it, we discussed the changes happening in the consumer electronics market. We learned that the consumer’s mentality was changing, driven by an Internet-inspired model of paying per service purchased, rather that traditional subscription-based models. With a more precise customer definition, plus a better understanding of market drivers and the competition, we helped the Nokia Siemens Networks team improve its marketing strategy by including key differentiators in their marketing communications.