How to Fix Your Messaging Problem
We often hear from organizations that are having trouble with their messaging.
Sometimes, it’s because their offerings are diverse or complex. Other times, it’s because they don’t fully understand who they are speaking to and the messages that are likely to resonate. And sometimes they simply haven’t dialled into the true (and distinctive) value they’re offering.
These all can impact your messaging. But what we often find when we “get under the hood” is that these challenges actually stem from a bigger problem: ineffective brand positioning.
Messages That Stick
When we talk about messaging, we’re usually referring to the things audiences need to hear to take action, whether the action is purchasing, donating, or simply taking the time to learn more about your organization and/or your offer.
Many of these actions require information. But before audiences are willing even to “Learn More,” they need some basic understanding of your offer and its value that doesn’t require them to dial in and pay attention.
Peppering new audiences with a bunch of disconnected messages may expose them to a lot of information, but without an established position in audiences’ minds, those messages have no place to stick. Rather than building on one another, they wind up competing for space.
Before you can educate audiences about your brand, you have to invite them in. And the best way to do that is by establishing a strong position in audiences’ minds.
Establishing a Brand Position
Establishing a strong position requires two things:
A marketing plan that gets your brand in front of the right people at the right times
Making sure everything you put in front of them is focused and supports your desired brand perception
Studies show it takes 4-6 repetitions for most audiences to retain a message, so focus and consistency are key.
And that’s really the difference between positioning and messaging: positioning gives you focus, while messaging ensures consistency.
Positioning vs Messaging
Positioning creates focus by strategically defining the space you want to occupy in audiences’ minds. It helps you answer which audience to focus on, which benefits to feature, and what even is your offer when it comes down to it?
Any one of these questions could have multiple answers, and when you put them all together, there are dozens—perhaps hundreds—of combinations. Positioning helps you locate the most strategically effective path forward and mark it for easy access.
Meanwhile, messaging establishes a platform for communicating consistently about all these things (and more) in a way that supports your brand positioning goals.
Our messaging service, for example, includes things like:
Messaging Objectives
Audience Profiles
Key Messages
Talking Points
Taglines
And More
Both positioning and messaging are critical for strategic communications. But to be effective, they have to work together
Which Should You Prioritize?
It can be difficult to know the answer to this without speaking with a professional, but here are a few questions to help begin your diagnosis:
“Is our main problem focus or consistency?”
If you answered focus, you should probably prioritize positioning. If it’s consistency, you may be able to go straight to messaging.
When we describe our problem, is “message” singular or plural?
If you use phrases like “our message,” you’re probably looking for that one unifying idea that both expresses who you are and differentiates you from others. If this is the case, you should prioritize positioning.
Who does the problem impact?
If your MarCom department are the only ones sounding the alarm it could be a messaging problem (although they’re also often the first to recognize brand strategy problems).
On the other hand, if all of your departments have a different sense of what your brand means and where you’re headed, it’s almost certainly a positioning problem (the Stakeholder Survey in our Free Brand Kit can help you get to the bottom of this).
What’s Your Position?
We certainly can’t speak for everyone, but in our experience, the vast majority of messaging challenges are the result of insufficient positioning.
This is because, no matter how simple it may sound, positioning can be extremely difficult for organizations to think through themselves. Members of your organization are so well versed in the nuances of what you do and/or your offer, it can be hard to blur their eyes and see the bigger picture.
It’s hard to read the message from inside the bottle, after all.
But every case is different. So if you’d like some help thinking through your messaging challenge and which steps need to be taken to fix it, please drop us a line. We’d love to chat.
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