Marketing Message, Power Pitch, Elevator Speech

Your Marketing Message

Words that Work Wonders

Do you have a clear Marketing Message? Is it on you website?

Before I launched my business that helps small business owners successfully market their small businesses effectively and affordably, I invested a lot of time and money in small business marketing research, and I continue to do so.

One of the things that I did was purchase mailing lists of small businesses. I have sent hundreds of thousands of mailers to small business owners over the past several years as both a small business marketing and research method.

Early on, several different mailers were created offering free consultation to small businesses. The "catch" was simply that they had to complete my small business owner questionnaire and return it to me (with BRM postage paid) or visit a website and complete the small business help questionnaire online.

Why did I do this? Because it was my determination to create a business that would owe its success to supporting small business owners, especially the "mom and pop" small businesses that are such a critical component to the economy of the U.S.A.

So I had to do the small business research before I began to custom-craft a business that would support them. All small businesses exist simply because they solve someone else's problem. I had to first discover the kinds of problems that small business owners faced before I could be of any use to them. Thus the direct-mailed questionnaires. Tens of thousands of them!

Answered in various terms, "effective and affordable marketing" was always - and still is, in the top three of the problems faced by small business owners.

Marketing is NOT just paying for advertising! It is everything that you do as a small business owner! Small business marketing in the traditional or conventional sense (paid advertising) is expensive, - and most often too expensive for small business owners to take advantage of, so I knew I was going to have to find a way to help small businesses utilize affordable small business marketing techniques.

This Vital Small Business Marketing Technique Costs Nothing but is worth Thousands!

It is just going to take your time. Small Business Owners miss regular golden opportunities to gain new prospects because they have not developed a marketing message that they use routinely.

A Marketing Message has also been called "an elevator speech". Why has a marketing message has been commonly dubbed an "elevator speech"? Because the example has been used that you meet someone while riding on a elevator and you have only a few moments for a brief exchange before one of you exits the elevator.

What are you going to say to try and win an additional audience with this person later?

When you are hoping to engage a potential client, you’ve often only got a few seconds to engage the mind of your prospects with the hope of turning them into clients. A few seconds means just a few words, so you want them to be powerful. You need to successfully arouse their interest and arrest their attention. This is why you must create and hone your marketing message!

This is never more true than when someone lands on your website. I know that it just doesn't seem fair, but you've got about 8 seconds to captivate their attention, and you need a clear marketing message that greets them when they land.

Your goal is to either get them to continue to read your marketing material or start asking you questions about your products or services.

How do you do this?

1. Forget about yourself.

Your potential clients are not really interested in your business. They are interested in themselves. You are interested in your business, the features of your products or services or the processes that you use.

If you love what you do, (and you should, or you should do something else) you may even be excited about the details of why and how you do what you do. Your prospects don’t care so much about this. It may even bore them.

Your prospects really care about themselves.

So, the first step in getting their attention is to talk about them. What do you do for them?

Instead of "My company is an 20 year old local marketing company." -which is about ME, I say this: "I can help YOU attract more clients, increase their level of satisfaction and make more money."

Your marketing message MUST focus upon what you do for your CLIENTS. Using the words "you", "your" and "yours" in your message indicate that you are focused upon your prospects and interested in them, and it will help you to get the focus off of yourself.

2. Identify your target(s).

Who is your target? You are in business because you solve problems. What are those problems and who is it that has them?

Asking the above questions should generate some specific words, and these words should be in your marketing message.

My company solves some of the problems that face small business owners.

Instead of “My company does websites” -which focuses upon my company, I say this: "I help small business owners with websites that work." — This way, I am telling them specifically what I do, but I am including THEM in my marketing message.

Keep your TARGET in the center of your marketing efforts.

Most business owners are ignorantly more concerned about their brand visibility or corporate identity than they are their target audience. This is not to say that a consistent business image is not important, but it will not generate new leads, it takes a message to do that.

My corporate identities are all simple.

They identify my companies properly, but it is the words “Helping Small Business Owners” that gets the attention of my target audience.

3. Match and exceed client's wants or needs.

A need or want (a problem) is at the root of every buying decision.

When is the worst time for you to go grocery shopping? When you are hungry! Why?Because you have a hunger problem that is likely to move you to buy things that your really should not buy! We are MOTIVATED by our problems.

PROBLEMS take various forms. A problem can be a crisis. A problem can be a desire. A problem can be a necessity.

You want to identify the basic problems, needs or wants of your target and then tell them the RESULT that you provide through your products or services.

Your Formula for Small Business Success:

Your Client's Problem: Crisis
+ Your Solution to that Crisis

= Your Small Business Success
Your Client's Problem: Desire
+ Your Fulfillment of that Desire

= Your Small Business Success
Your Client's Problem: Need
+ Your Meeting of that Need

= Your Small Business Success