Whether you’re running a small business or a political campaign, your message is everything. It determines the goals of your campaign and how you come across to the general public. That’s why marketers are so keen to craft the perfect message. In this article, you will learn how to create effective messages.
State your business goals
First things first, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve. Why is your business running a marketing campaign? What exactly do you want people to do? Defining the results that you aim for will give you an idea of what message would be best and where it should be placed. Then, you can use digital channels like social media to get people to take the desired action, such as buying your product or sharing your content.
Know your audience
You wouldn’t use the same messaging to market a push-up bra as you would for ammo, right? You have to know who you are targeting so that you can appeal directly to them. The key audience demographics will be things like age, income, education level, and interests. Understanding the general mindset of your target audience is just as important. If you’re using digital channels to reach them, look at where they spend time online and what language they use when communicating.
State your communications objective
To what end are you creating a message? What do you aim to achieve with it? Is it about increasing brand awareness, growing your customer base, or driving conversions? These are the questions that you need to answer before you can create an effective marketing campaign. You should also take into account how much money and time you have to spend on communicating your message.
Define three core messages
What are the three biggest messages you want to get across? It could be related to your product or service, and engaging way of presenting it, or something about yourself as a company. Make them short and punchy so that you can repeat the key messages regularly throughout the campaign to keep people interested.
Get some inspiration
Where do you get your messaging ideas from? If you’re struggling, try looking at what other brands are doing. Then, search the internet for campaigns that grabbed your attention and find out what they were trying to achieve. You can also look at people in your industry or political campaigns. Finally, check out these political campaign message samples to get you started.
Develop proof points for each message
Once you’ve got your messages in place, make them hard-hitting and memorable by developing proof points. These are the individual pieces of information that back up your messaging, such as price or testimonials from happy customers. Remember that people can get overwhelmed when they hear too much information at once, so stick to one message per ad.
Prioritize your messages
In some cases, you may have multiple overlapping goals. For example, if you’re a beauty company looking to increase sales while also promoting new products, aim for a balance between the two. Select the message that is most important and stick with it when creating ads and other marketing materials.
Keep it simple and clear
Your message needs to be easy to understand and concise. If your audience can’t tell what your business does after reading the headline, then you’re not communicating effectively. Keep messages short and sweet so that people don’t feel like they’re being overloaded with information. Make sure you get the main point of your message across in the first few words so that they don’t lose interest.
