Crafting Your Marketing Message Strategy

Author: Madison Deckert Category: B2B, B2C, E-commerce & Retail, Healthcare & Life Science, Industry, Marketing, Membership Marketing, Nonprofit, Technology & SAAS Date: November 8, 2023

Is your marketing message strategy compelling enough to capture the attention of your audience in less than 8 seconds? Research suggests that the average person has an attention span of only eight seconds, which is less than the attention span of a goldfish (which clocks in at approximately nine seconds). (1)

The world of modern business is complex – businesses are vying for sales in a crowded marketplace and audiences are bombarded with a massive amount of information every day, with estimates suggesting that the average American is exposed to as many as 4,000-10,000 ads every day. (2) To achieve sustainable success and business growth in a competitive landscape, perfecting your message strategy in your marketing communications is crucial.

What is Marketing Message Strategy?

Marketing messaging strategy is a fundamental element that defines your brand’s essence. It creates a unique voice that not only communicates your brand’s value but also forges authentic connections with customers, setting your business apart in a crowded marketplace. Strategic brand messaging is a set of statements that serve as the basis for all your organization’s communications, both internal and external.

Too often, organizations undervalue the role strategic messaging plays in reaching their business goals. However, a 20% improvement in your messaging has a more profound impact on ROI than a 20% improvement in your product, according to the Product Marketing Alliance. (3) Without an effective message strategy, you could be targeting the wrong audience, or worse, no audience at all. Additionally, research from Bergische University indicates that when consumers like a brand, it produces similar feelings to when we like another person, underscoring the importance of building a marketing message strategy that forges a relationship with your customer. (4)

Best Practices for Brand Messaging Strategy

Effective marketing message strategy is more than putting words on paper. Developing a message strategy involves a meticulous process of crafting compelling narratives that resonate with your target audience. It requires the significant foundational work of research, insight gathering, and decision-making before a single phrase is written. Once you have put in the work, here are some things to keep in mind as your creative juices flow.

Set a tone. Writing your messages will be easier if you first decide how you want your audience to feel about you. What do you want your tone to be? Authoritative? Funny? Casual? Comforting? Relatable?

Tailor your messages to your audience. Your organization’s messaging should tap into the needs and wants of your audience, emphasize your unique value, and offer them a solution to their challenges. It is essential for you to meet them where they are – how they think, feel, and act as well as what they know – not where you want them to be. Just because you want them to care about something, doesn’t mean they do, or will. Your marketing message strategy is the vehicle to help them get there. If your audience has multiple segments with varying needs, wants, and pain points, you may need to develop separate, but complimentary, sets of messaging for each group.

Identify key concepts and words. The success of your message will rest on the ability of your team to use and implement it. Your marketing message strategy should have flexibility for your spokespeople to make it their own, but there should be some words, phrases, and ideas that are constant to ensure your messages are consistent, salient, and impactful.

Be intentional. When you are potentially facing the eight-second attention span of your consumer, every single word, syllable, and second counts. Edit until your messages are:

• Concise
• Simple
• Relevant
• Persuasive
• Meaningful
• Enduring
• Bringing you closer to your business goals

Incorporate storytelling. Humans are wired to remember communication better through storytelling. When you craft your message strategy, be sure to use the components of storytelling – characters, telling details, conflict, and resolution.

Test your messages and refine. Share your messages with internal and external stakeholders and consider a small roll-out to see how they perform with your target audience before launching them throughout your channels. Use the feedback to polish your messages.

Infuse your messages throughout your communications. Consistency is incredibly important in a marketing message strategy, so once your messages are finalized, integrate them everywhere.

Creating your brand message is a highly individualized activity that requires a thorough understanding of your audience, your competitors, and the intrinsic value your business offers. But with the right marketing message strategy, you can cut through the clutter to get through to your audience and inspire action to power marketing success and sustainable business growth.

At Paradigm, we provide a range of marketing and design services to business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and non-profit organizations. Specializing in “wraparound” services, where each marketing initiative supports the overall strategic plan to produce a long-term return on investment, we are poised to help you create captivating marketing messages that align with your organizational branding. Contact us today to get started.

(1) https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/

(2) https://www.zippia.com/advice/advertising-statistics/

(3) https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/harness-power-message-market-fit/

(4) https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/brand-communication-strategy