MarketSense

The 8 Key Components of Effective Product Messaging

Over the past 2 months, we have delved into the different components of effective product messaging. This blog entry is going to help put all of the components together into a product messaging checklist that should help guide you in your work.

A similar checklist appears in my eBook Killer Messaging - 9 Mistakes that Kill your Marketing Messages

Your Checklist for Effective Product Messaging

1. Know your audience - buyer personas are a valuable tool for getting those important audience details into a usable form


2. Identify What is it? - define the category for your product so your audience can remember it


3. Identify Who is it for? - tell your audience who is expected to use your product


4. Describe What does it do - describe what problems your product solves, then the product's features


5. Support Benefits with Features - benefits are the reason one buys, features are the proof points


6. Verbalize Why should I care? - understanding your audience's intellectual and emotional motivations are key


7. Demonstrate How is it different - value propositions help you find your product's compelling differentiation


8. Write the right copy - use plain, correct language and easily readable format to clearly communicate your messages

Good marketing messagers are NOT a dime a dozen. It always pays off to take the time to do your homework, build your skills, and continually believe that you can improve.

Good luck. Let me know how you do.

Product Messaging Techniques - How is it different?

A buyer's job is to find the best solution to their problem. They will often research a variety of alternatives. As part of the way they process information, their brains will immediately start recognizing similarities and differences between offerings. Your product messaging should help the buyer quickly understand what makes your offering stand out.

In other words, how is your product different? And how does that difference make your product better than the alternatives.

Have you noticed that these days feature lists and benefit claims are all starting to sound the same? It is fairly obvious that similar products would deliver similar benefits to the buyer. Yet, marketers are hesitant to quantify those benefits, so all claims start sounding the same. For this reason, it is imperative that your product messages call out how your product is different.

Does your product use a different approach? Is your product sold with a different business model? Is there a specific feature that delivers a benefit of greater value? Is it about capabilities, service, or relationship? Whatever it is, your product messaging must draw attention to your difference.

This means that you must understand how your product compares with the competition - point by point.

Who is the competition?

Is it a product?

Is it a service?

Is it a internal organization?

Or is it simply doing nothing?

Sometimes the competition is more than one of these options. In that case, you must offer product differentiation for each alternative.

Your success hangs on your differentiation's fit and impact. By "fit" I mean how well the differentiator fits with the buyer's problem. By "impact" I mean the value the differentiation delivers.

Importance of Objectivity

When you work for a great company which has a great product, it is easy to be subjective in your evaluation of your differentiation. However, subjectivity creates blind spots. Your business cannot afford blind spots.

Sometimes your buyer has totally bought into your brand (like Apple or Sony). In those situations, your blind spots could also be the buyer's blind spots.

However, it is more likely that your buyer is going to take an objective approach. The Internet makes it easy for them to find and lift up rocks - those rocks under which you think you have hid your company secrets.

You need to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly about your product. You need to make sure that the value of the good outweighs the cost of the bad and the ugly. And you need to make sure that somewhere in that value is enough differentiation to separate your product from the competition in the buyer's mind.

The customer value proposition is a disciplined approach that helps you identify your value differentiation objectively. Learn more about value propositions in my free eBook The Customer Value Proposition.

Draw Attention to your Differentiation

Once you understand your offering's positive differentiation, you need to call it out early in your product messaging. This isn't something you should make your buyer dig for. It should not be buried in lists of benefits, values, and features.

Tell a story about it. Make it stand out. Place it prominently on your marketing copy and on your web site home page.

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.

The Flip Side to Value

The other day a good friend asked me whether I knew anything about top loading washing machines.   She recently had twin boys and found that her old machines were not up to the extreme use they were now receiving.  She needed to replace hers and had been out shopping.

I am very interested in buying one when my current top loading machine (of 20 years) finally kicks the bucket.   I had seen them on television shows like “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” and liked the fact that they seemed to be more energy and water efficient.    However, like my existing front loading drier, I would definitely require the pedestal that raises the machine off of the ground to save wear and tear on my back.   

She really liked the idea of the pedestal for both raising the machine and providing additional storage.   But because she had large windows in her laundry room, the additional height of the pedestals would make it impossible to open and shut her windows.   

Then she mentioned the killer feature.   “But a biggest consideration for me is that a wash cycle is 60 minutes long!”   

“You’re kidding,” I replied.   “The longest cycle on my top loader is 25 minutes.   That is more than double the time.   What are you supposed to do, sit at home and babysit the washing machine?   It would take me twice as long to do laundry, and laundry is not my favorite chore around the house.  And I am only one person.   You do laundry for four!”

It turns out that the longer wash cycle is a well-kept secret.   I searched on-line, sorted through specs, and rarely was the length of the wash cycle mentioned.   I thought that this was a perfect example for showcasing the discipline of the “value proposition.”   

Value propositions compare your product with its best marketplace alternative.    Most marketers focus on the benefits (positive value) that there product delivers.   But if they stop there, they are not creating a true view of the competitive reality their product will face.  There are two other important parts of the value proposition.   One is the statement of equivalencies - areas where your product is of equal value to the alternative.   The other is the statement of trade-offs – areas where you product is of less value than the alternative.   

For a little fun, I put together the following value proposition to illustrate a fully formed value proposition.

Front Loading Washing Machine value versus Top Loading Washing Machine

Benefits:

·         Can wash larger items at home (no more trips to the Laundromat)

·         Does that pesky hand washing for you

·         Easier on your clothes (gentler washing motion)

·         Uses less detergent for washing

·         Uses less water for washing

·         Uses less energy for washing (average households would break even cost-wise after 7-9 years of use)

·         Enables quicker drying times (because they extract more water from clothes)

Equivalencies:

·         Cleans as effectively as top loaders

·         Generally the same size as top loaders

Trade-offs:

·         Significantly higher up-front cost (average households would break even cost-wise after 7-9 years of use)

·         Significantly longer wash cycles (up to twice as long)

·         Utilize space differently (which may not make them appropriate for older homes)

·         Require bending and twisting action to load and unload

What a value proposition shows is that the flip side to value isn’t “no value”.   The flip side to value is negative value.  And in that negative value can be some mighty important deal breakers. That is why it is important to create and understand your product's full value proposition.