HOW TO DEVELOP A CLEAR, CONCISE, COMPELLING MARKETING STORY (PART 2)
Whether you are a sole proprietorship or a fortune 500 company, you have the same job to do. You must develop a clear, concise, compelling marketing story that addresses your customers’ needs and concerns. And you must use the elements of your marketing story to help you create interest for your products, move business forward and close sales.
Customers rarely spend more than few minutes identifying companies that they would like to do business with. If your company’s marketing story is not clear, concise, and compelling, it will not attract customers’ interest, and it will not enable your customers understand why they should do business with your company. And if it is difficult to explain why customers should do business with your company, your company will be selling uphill.
When venture capitalists consider making an investment in a start-up company, the first question they usually ask is, “What’s the company’s story?’ The answer to this simple question can be as revealing about the potential success of a new business venture as an in-depth market analysis.
Step 6: Define the elements of your marketing story
When you create your marketing story, you should start with all the facts that a journalist would include if they were writing up a news event. You will need to describe how you are, what your mission is, where a customer can purchase your products, when your products will be available, why a customer should purchase your products, and how your products can help your customers save money, increase profits, or develop new business opportunities.
The specific elements of your marketing story that are emphasized during a sales call or in a specific marketing communication, such as an advertisement or a marketing brochure, will depend on your business objectives. But in many cases, your marketing story should provide all of the information about your company’s products that a prospective customer needs to know to make an informed purchase.
Be honest about your capabilities
Prospective customers will not ask for your help unless it is obvious who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. And customers will not ask for your recommendation unless they trust you and believe that you – and your company’s products – are capable of helping them solve their problems.
Scale your marketing story to fit the reality of your company’s capabilities.
If your company has an operating budget of N20 million, and has just hired its third employee, and sells cleaning products door-to-door to customers in Lagos, your marketing story should focus on the value that your company delivers to its customers in Lagos. But if your company has established a virtual store on the Internet and exports cleaning products to customers around the world, your company should create a marketing story that is compelling to all of its customers.
Be enthusiastic but eschew perfection
It is easy to be enthusiastic about your products when you are confident that they provide good quality and value. But there is no “perfect” marketing story, because there is no perfect product for every customer’s needs. For example, most customers must trade off some level of performance or quality against their desire to solve their problem as inexpensively as possible. The only “perfect” marketing story is one that addresses your customers’ needs and concern.
Evolve your marketing story as you gain market experience
It is very difficult to develop a compelling marketing story until you have had an opportunity to work with many different customers. In complex selling situations it can take many months of interaction with your customers to fully understand their needs and concerns. And in high-tech markets, customers’ product choices and expectations may change on a monthly basis.
Step 7: Map the elements of your marketing story to your customers’ needs and concerns.
No matter how compelling your marketing story is, it can only provide the framework for the information that is presented to a specific customer. And, depending on the logistics of a specific selling situation, it may only be possible for you to present a few elements of your marketing story.
One of the most difficult decisions for a company to make is deciding which elements of its marketing story to communicate to its customers. For example, if your company manufactures a product and is trying to recruit new resellers, it might focus on its leadership position in the industry (who) and the fact that its products offer a significant competitive advantage over other suppliers (how). If your company’s primary objective is the announcement of a new product, your marketing story might focus on the availability of your product (when), and your product’s features and benefits (why).
In any case, your sales force must position and present the elements of your marketing story in a way that is in in sync with your customers’ purchase process. If customers do not have the background to understand the value of your products, or if they have not moved far enough through their purchase process to be able to evaluate your marketing story in the context of their needs and concerns, your communication will not be effective.
Companies that achieve total market domination do not overwhelm their customers with product information before they are ready to use that information to move their purchase process forward.
Let your customers help you understand the value of your products
In the music business, it is not uncommon for “B” sides to rise to the top of the charts. If the people in the music business really knew everything about their customers’ preferences, this would never happen. Listen to your customers. When they get excited about a specific component of your marketing story, use that information as a data point to help you re-evaluate the value that your product provide.
The Bottom Line: Have you developed a clear, concise, compelling marketing story?
Salespeople are storytellers. So it is easy to see why creating your marketing story is such an important step on the path to total marketing domination
The reward for developing a compelling marketing story can be great, but the risks of presenting a less-than-compelling story are also great. It your marketing story is not clear, your customers will not understand it; if your marketing story is not concise, it will very expensive to communicate; and if your story is not compelling, it will not motivate your customers to do business with your company.
After you have developed a compelling marketing story, and mapped the elements of your marketing story to your customers’ needs and concerns, you will find yourself selling “downhill” in every selling situation. And that builds sales momentum and makes selling fun.
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