When you mention “branding” people tend to picture an organization’s logo or color scheme—its graphic identity. However, your messaging standards or messaging platform is just as important when it comes to helping your products and services stand out from the crowd. In today’s chaotic digital world, if your message isn’t clear and consistent, you run the risk that your time-strapped target audience either won’t see it or will actively filter it out.
While your visual branding is how customers and prospects “see” you, your verbal branding is how they “hear” you. And what they hear plays a major role in whether they choose to interact with you. Created thoughtfully and used consistently, your verbal branding will:
- Help flesh out your overall brand
- Form a strong bond with members of your target audience
- Encourage communication with your brand
- Ensure people understand your offerings
- Streamline the communication process
- Simplify new customer acquisition and onboarding
Is Your Messaging Hitting the Mark?
Your messaging platform—like your content marketing strategy in general—should not be a static “thing.” It should be a living, breathing entity. As such, you should review it regularly to ensure it is still on point. Some of the scenarios that may require you to revisit and update your messaging include:
- Your message is not unified across channels
- There is inconsistency when people within your organization talk about your offerings
- A website redesign is planned or underway
- You are targeting new markets
- You are releasing new offerings in existing markets
- Your business strategy or focus is changing
If any of these conditions exist, you should take a hard look at the verbiage you are using.
The Pillars of a Strong Messaging Platform
In order to effectively communicate your company’s value proposition, your messaging should include the following:
- Clear, concise answers to the questions “Who are you?” and “What do you do?” both in the form of a boiler plate for press releases and an “elevator pitch” that you can share in 30 seconds or less
- Accurate and easily understood descriptions of your products and/or services
- Compelling verbiage about why your offerings are ideal for each of the markets you serve
- Detailed information on how your solutions benefit the different user groups that rely on them
- A vision of where your organization will be in the years ahead
And, just to be clear, folks, you need all of the above! Any gaps in your messaging will reflect poorly on your organization.
How to Ensure Adoption
Consistency in your messaging is very important to your inbound marketing efforts. So, how do you ensure that everyone in your organization is “singing from the same hymnal” in all their interactions with your target market?
Get executive buy-in. If your leaders all use messaging that is clearly cut from the same cloth, it makes it easier to convince others in the organization to do the same.
Explain the benefits of unified messaging. Tell people why it is important that everyone uses the same messaging.
Provide training and resources. Help others fully understand the messaging standards by providing educational sessions. Then, make resources like a “communication style guide” easily accessible so they can refer to it as needed. Note that a centralized information source is ideal. This will ensure that when changes to it are adopted people aren’t working from an outdated version they keep in their own files.
Be persistent. It takes time to change an organization’s “dialect” and make it stick. Gently but firmly correct your coworkers when they stray too far outside the framework.
Get More from your Messaging
As a leading Colorado Springs content marketing agency, we work with clients in Colorado and around the U.S. helping them to craft messaging that resonates with and engages their target audience. Wondering how you could ensure that your corporate voice is heard? Give us a call and let’s talk about it.
