MarketSense

Product Messaging Techniques - Why should I care?

Over the past month, I have been blogging about the basic elements necessary in product messaging. A lot of what I have discussed is pretty cut and dried. In this post, I am going to talk about the technique that separates average product messages from the ones that truly connect with the buyer.

Today we will focus on persuading the buyer why they should care about your product.

In just about every purchase (even business purchases), emotion plays an important role in the final decision. The answer to the question "why should the buyer care" is about creating that emotional connection with the buyer.

To do this, the marketer must understand 3 things:

1. Benefits the product offers

We always talk about those benefits from the customer's perspective.
2. Value the product offers

Not all benefits are of equal merit. Values assign worth to each benefit.
3. Buyer motivations

This is the total buyer context that drives their need and interest in your product.

Now, benefits and value aren't just pulled out of thin air. They are developed using a disciplined approach. In this approach, we seek to understand how the product delivers quantifiable benefit experiences for the buyer. That approach is built into something called the customer value proposition. (If you are new to value propositions or just want a quick refresher, read my new eBook The Customer Value Proposition.)

The third component - buyer motivations - is developed in your buyer persona.

What we want to do in our messaging is to convince the buyer both logically and emotionally that many of their voiced and unvoiced motivations will be addressed by purchasing and using our product. We need to observe, consider, and integrate like great sales reps. Because buyer motivations are so key, let's spend some time exploring what makes a buyer motivation.

Motivations come in a number of forms.

• Needs - something the buyer feels is necessary to improve a situation


• Pains - underlying issue that causes the buyer discomfort


• Challenges - realities that stretch the buyer without causing pain


• Goals - tactical and strategic milestones the buyer wants to achieve


• Ideals - moral, career, personal characteristics buyer wants to attain

Buyers will look for products that satisfy their existing needs and eliminate their current pains. Sales reps often talk about this as "identifying the buyer's pain points". The higher the degree of pain, the more motivated the buyer will be to find a solution to it. It is fairly easy to get a buyer to talk about their needs and their pains.

Challenges, goals, and ideals tend to be unspoken motivations. Take the IT Manager who must decide between an IBM product and a product from a start-up company. The saying goes, "No one was ever fired for choosing IBM." For that new IT manager whose challenge is to impress his boss and whose goal is to become CIO, these motivations will play an important part in the company and product selection. He/she may be willing to take more risk and go with an unproven company with a superior offering.

But for the IT manager who has a family of 4 with a baby on the way, his/her challenges and goals may lean more towards a safer, proven, turn-key solution. He/she can't afford to spend long hours overseeing an incomplete product. A poor product selection could cause him/her to be fired.

You can see the emotional power in each of these different motivations. For this reason, when the marketer crafts the "why care" product messaging, he/she needs to go beyond the easy-to-read surface pains and needs. This isn't just about words, though. The product experience must support these more motivational claims.

In marketing messaging, the most persuasive message is that combination of logical matchmaking and emotional persuasion. Product messages that connect and persuade will carry the buyer much farther along in their buying process with you.

So, take the time to build those buyer personas and develop those value propositions. They provide everything you need to craft the product messaging that convinces the buyer why he/she should care about your product.

Product Messaging Techniques - Feature versus Benefit

My last product messaging post discussed how a product marketer introduces his/her product to the prospective buyer. In that post, I discussed the role of product features in the product messaging.

In doing so, I avoided an important discussion: the distinction between a product feature and a product benefit. It is critical that product marketers understand this distinction because it affects the effectiveness of their messaging.

Let's start by defining some terms in the context of product messaging.

A product feature is a "prominent part or characteristic" of a product (taken from Webster's dictionary).

A product capability is a "facility or potential for an indicated use or deployment" of a product (taken from Webster's dictionary).

A product benefit is an advantage or value a buyer will realize for a product.

Product features describe intentions or capabilities of the product. For example,

1. The jacket is brown, hooded, and water repellent.

Here the features are: brown and hooded. The capability is water repellent. (The feature for water repellency might be the specification of a coating or fiber weave that enables this capability).

2. The car comes with leather seats, a moon roof, alloyed wheels, and GPS.

Here the features are: leather seats, moon roof, alloyed wheels, and GPS. If we described GPS as a navigation system, this term would better identify the system's capability.

3. The easy-to-install software enables you to read and edit Microsoft documents on your handheld device.

Here the features are: for your handheld device. The capabilities are easy-to-install, and read and edit Microsoft documents.

Because they are product-oriented, features tend to be written in the jargon of the company. To be more effective, they should be written in the language of the buyer.

Product benefits, on the other hand, present the value and advantage the product (and its features) offer to the buyer or user. They should always be written from the buyer or user's point of view. They are never written from the company's (which makes the product) point of view.

When a buyer or user looks at the product benefits, they should immediately understand how the product can enhance their life. Let's relate the benefits to our products from above.

1. Our jacket provides a higher degree of protection from poor weather conditions.

The higher degree of protection is the benefit from the hood and the water repellency.

2. The car surrounds you in style while practically helping you get to where you need to go.

Here the first benefit is "surrounded in style" based on the features: leather seats, moon roof and allowed wheels. The second benefit is "practically helping you get to where you need to go" based on the features: it is a car and it has GPS.

3. The software allows you to remain productive when your personal computer is not immediately accessible.

The productivity benefit comes from being able to work with Microsoft documents from your handheld device.

Now that we understand the difference between features and benefits, let me ask you a question. As a buyer, which of the two is going to connect with you first?

For the vast majority of buyers, it is the benefit. Why? Because the benefit speaks your language. The benefit is about you and your experience with the product. The benefit directly relates to your motivations for purchase. Features can only do this indirectly.

That doesn't mean that features have no role in our messaging. To the contrary, they are also essential. As I mentioned in my last post, features provide supporting proof points. They make the benefits believable. In addition, later in the buying process, features become an important factor in selection. They help the buyer find the closest fit for their problem.

Let's summarize.

1. Know the difference between features and benefits.


2. Support the benefits with features that enable them.


3. Lead with benefits for buyers early in the buying process.


4. Follow-up with feature details to support buyer selection later in the buying process.

Product Messaging Techniques - What does it do?

When creating product messaging that describes your product, there are three approaches the product marketer can take. One of these approaches is by far the predominant one in use today. Curious about which one you are using? Before I bias you, how would you respond to the following question:

When we describe our product, we
a) mostly discuss the capabilities of the product
b) mostly define the problems the product can solve
c) tie product capabilities to problems the product solves

As a sanity check, you may want to take a glance at your company web site and see whether the product content there supports your response.

Today we are talking about the product messaging component that answers the question - "what does your product do". If you have properly set the stage in the earlier "what is it" messaging element, your prospect will arrive at this level in your messaging ready for more detail.

The "capabilities" approach maps to choice "a". We tell our prospects what our product does by describing its capabilities. We present the different features of the product. (i.e. It slices. It dices. It butters bread.) This approach is very "us" focused. It is about how we (the company) perceive our offering. It relies on the buyer to relate those capabilities to his/her specific problem.

The second approach maps to the "problems" response (choice b). We demonstrate what our product is useful for by describing the problems it can solve. (i.e. It cuts thinner slices more consistently than can be done by hand. It saves time in ingredient preparation. It minimizes food waste.) This approach is very buyer-focused. It demonstrates how our product delivers value to the buyer. Unlike the pure "capabilities" approach, it does not require the buyer to relate our product's features to their needs.

The third approach marries the two approaches. It maps specific product "capabilities" to each of the buyer's "problems" that can be solved by the product. When this approach is used, the capabilities serve as proof points in the solution the product offers. This gives them a strength and purpose that is much more compelling.

So which approach is predominantly used by marketers today? I believe it is the pure "capabilities" approach. We see product spec sheets in a variety of forms on product pages. We also see them as the primary mechanism for describing products in on-line stores. Their value is to provide succinct details about the product for the buyer. There is a time and place to provide product specifications. However, it is usually much later in the buying process.

In most buying situations, the buyer starts with a problem that needs a solution. They will do some discovery to try to understand what type of products (i.e. our "what is it" messaging element) might solve their problem. The easier the product marketer makes it for the buyer to match their problem with a type of product and then reinforce that with their specific product, the better their chance in engaging the buyer.

If the buyer starts with the problem, doesn't it make sense that our product messaging must tackle that first too?

What is the chance that the buyer will dig through all of our product's features and be able to find and recognize the solution to their problem?

However, solo "problem"-oriented messaging isn't the best approach either. A statement that your product solves a problem without corroborating evidence (think features as proof points) leaves the buyer skeptical.

Both problem-oriented messaging as well as capability-defining messaging is critical to your marketing and sales efforts.

When your capabilities are used as proof points to your problem-based messaging, you get the best of both worlds.

So, why then do marketers hesitate to specify the problems their products solve? I believe that one reason is because marketers fear that messaging "problems" limits their product's full potential use. The marketer thinks, "what if I miss a problem? Then a buyer won't consider our product." This is like the flip side of a capabilities-only approach.

The truth is that your product is probably only really good at a few things. Your product solves a few problems best. This has to be your messaging focus. Don't dilute your messaging with a bunch of things your product could do in a mediocre or acceptable manner. Buyers don't want to settle for mediocre. They want to feel like they are buying the best.

Answer the "what does it do" question by opening with the problems your product solves best. Support that discussion with the evidence of features that they will use to solve their problem. By doing this, you differentiate your product from the competition and create a persuasive argument for purchase.

Product Messaging Techniques - Who is it for?

In my product messaging entry two techniques ago I talked about the importance of developing personas. A persona encapsulates insight into your audience. If you have more than one audience, you will need more than one persona. If you have created that persona, you know who your product's audience is.

In the previous product messaging technique, I discussed how you identify your product for maximum memorability. The result is a short, categorized sentence or two that answers the question "What is it?"

The next step in your product messaging is to answer the question "Who is it for?" In this step you make it clear who is the intended audience for your product.

I often find product messaging missing this important ingredient. I am not sure whether it is a simple omission or a decided choice. Unfortunately, the result is the same. Whoever reads the product messaging doesn't know who the product is for.

Let's understand why not knowing who the product is for is detrimental to your goals. If you do not specify the audience for your product, your audience cannot include themselves in the group.

Why?

Because they don't know what that group is. If your audience doesn't see themselves in the group, that means they see themselves outside the group. And if they are outside the group, they aren't an interested party. This is probably not the effect that you want.

Let's talk about the "everyone who is interested" audience. To be honest, I wish I didn't have to talk about this topic. However, I have seen it used quite widely in the start-up world. If you are in marketing and hear this phrase, you should be running in the other direction... or gearing up for battle.

There is no such audience as "everyone who is interested". You cannot effectively design a product for "everyone who is interested". You cannot effectively message your product to "everyone who is interested". (Review technique #1).

In my experience, "everyone who is interested" equates to "we don't have a clue". If that is the case, product messaging is the least of your problems.

So, if you have done your persona work, do call out who the intended audience is for your product very early in your product messaging. You can even incorporate it into your "what is it" definition.

If you haven't done your persona work, in Monopoly game speak: go back to "Go" and do not collect $200.