Five Reasons Your Marketing Messages Aren't Hitting the Spot, and How to Make Sure They Do

Five Reasons Your Marketing Messages Aren't Hitting the Spot, and How to Make Sure They Do

A lot of marketing directors are constantly tweaking their messaging.

Sure, it's easy to get jammed up. Especially when you've got so many moving parts to consider. But there are a few common issues that show up in the messaging of all kinds of businesses, whether they're brand new or three decades established.

In most cases, your best bet is to pause and look at things from a fresh perspective.

Like sandwiches...

Explaining what is meant by that, and giving you five reasons your marketing messages aren't hitting the spot—yet.

1. You have too many ingredients

Admit it. You're cramming your website and marketing materials with every feature and benefit you can think of.

You're trying to persuade leads your option is the best. And you don't want them to miss a thing.

But that's like asking 372 people what their favorite sandwich is, then shoving every one of those fillings into a giant baguette.

Total flavor overload.

Worse, it's like putting that baguette in a blender. Your features and benefits become an unappetizing sludge, disguising the ingredients your prospects actually want.

Consider this image from a homepage:

Can you tell what makes the company special? And what's in it for you?

Too many messages choke up the page, making it impossible for people to digest what you're selling.

Your customers want powerful, singular flavors—the messaging equivalent of BLTs, Veggie New Yorkers, and PB&Js.

Look how Box.com does that by picking out a few flavorsome nuggets:

Wistia.com also does a great job of boiling things down:

So keep your messaging as simple as the label on a packet sandwich.

• Focus on three core propositions
• Get to the point fast
• Make it super clear what you're offering

Doing that will help deliver your messages in a strong, relevant, and memorable way.

2. You're selling only the melted cheese

Why do we love sandwiches? Because they're tasty and they're convenient.

The problem with a lot of marketing messages is that they focus only on the tasty bit, the ingredients:

Take this example:

These are just dull, nondescript services, so vague they leave the reader's mind bulging with questions.

And if I can't picture it, I can't understand it, as Einstein once said.

That company later evolved its messaging to this:

See how they've flipped the messaging into the benefit of using those services?

Now you can picture what's in for you.

You already know that features tell and benefits sell. But saying it one more time: Don't sell just the melted cheese, sell the convenience.

3. You're not adding enough mayo

You could argue that benefits alone are fairly run-of-the-mill fare, fairly pedestrian. And if your leads are weighing you up against the competition, benefits are probably not enough to give you that winning edge.

Don't miss the chance to squirt extra mayonnaise on your messages using emotion and imagery. That makes everything taste better.

Take my lunch, today. It's wasn't just an egg salad sandwich:

It was a British egg salad sandwich with farmhouse Cheddar on soft rye bread.

Those paint pictures that subtly draw us closer to a purchase.

In this case, that's rolling green fields with happy hens and a ruddy-cheeked farmer churning the milk for my cheddar. Plus bread so fresh, it's beautifully soft.

Now, let's have a look at the B2B example of a mobile technology business:

Sure, you can see some nice benefits here: saved costs, improved efficiency. But it sounds kinda boring, don't you think?

Now compare it with this copy from another mobile technology business, Qualcomm:

Woah!

Life-changing technology... Changing how business gets done... Redefining industries... Making the impossible, possible... It reads like a blockbuster thriller.

So you see, adding extra mayo can turn the drabbest sandwich into something irresistibly delicious. And you can do the same for your marketing messages.

Here is another test of this theory on a website email capture form, and this is what happened.

Here's the signup box before:

And here's the punched up, extra mayo version:

Result: newsletter signup rates increased from 2% to 9%.

That's a four-fold uplift for the mailing list. Just by reframing a few words.

Rigorously scientific, sure you'll agree... But the point is that adding emotion and imagery to your messages can really rev-up your conversions.

In a nutshell? Don't be boring. Add extra mayo.

4. You're not loitering in Pret A Manger enough

If you're guessing which messages to prioritize, here's the thing: You're too close to make that call accurately.

You might be excited by new flavors and functionalities. But your leads? Just because you love baconaise, doesn't mean they will. You're better off chucking your messages into a brown paper bag and picking the first three that come to hand.

Instead, start loitering in the places your customers hang out...

Cruise online groups, forums, YouTube comments, Facebook posts, hashtags, Reddit and Quora discussions, Amazon feedback...

Become a bloodhound for what your prospects are talking about. Sniff out common niggles, challenges, dreams, and goals.