2 Must-Haves for Brand Messaging that Attracts your Ideal Customer and Increases Revenue

Marketing TipsVisibility

Dec 2

Written By brandmerry

2 Must-Haves for Brand Messaging that Attracts your Ideal Customer and Increases Revenue

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Back in 2016, when I wasn't making any money in my business, I worked for about eight months to build my business; the website, the backend, the tech, the systems, all the things. And I didn't have any clients.

That's when I realized that the approach to branding was completely backward and that we really needed to focus on, as entrepreneurs are the different pieces in order to build the foundation of our brand. And then, once the foundation is set we can create things like the website, the offers, and sign clients.

It’s one of the reasons I created my signature course, You! Branded to encompass all of this.

In my quest to build a better brand, I began to learn more about the power of strong brand messaging.

I quickly discovered it was the missing piece so many entrepreneurs weren’t giving enough attention to. We find ourselves wondering, “Why isn't my stuff converting? Why are people going to my sales page and not buying? Why are people opening my emails and not clicking?"

And it always comes back to messaging, which of course is part of the branding process.

Understanding how to message is key if you plan on running any sort of business, but especially if you have an online business. Because the content that you're creating, the emails that you're sending, the sales pages, that's how you're communicating. That's kind of it.

So, you need to make sure that what you're saying is doing what you want it to do. What you're saying is actually leading to the sale.

In this blog, I’m going to clear the air and remove the overwhelm that comes with Brand Messaging and give you my top 2 must-haves when crafting brand messaging that works!

If you prefer to watch the video training, just scroll down to watch!

WHAT IS BRAND MESSAGING

Brand messaging is how you communicate the purpose of your brand, the problem that it solves, what you do, the work that you do, and the products that you have in a magnetic way.

It's not only about attracting the right people, it's also leading them, and converting them to the offer. It's about bundling it all up in a clear, specific and concise way.

People are always telling me, "I want a better way to communicate what it is I do to my audience so that they want to do it."

And I'm like, "That is brand messaging." It's all about communication.

The mistake people make with their brand messaging is just focusing on what they do. They craft messages that say, "This is what I do. This is what I create. This is how many modules there are," and they don't focus on why those things are important.

Their focus is, “Well, this is how I'll help you, and this is what I'll do with x, y and z”, and not focused on why their audience cares about those things in the first place.

What your audience really wants to know is how what you say you're going to do will benefit them. Because when we're going into buying something, yes, we might be looking for specific things, but we want to know it's going to solve our problem and it's going to help us get to the end result that we want.

I know that might seem like a lot to include, you might be thinking, "How do I communicate all of that?" but it truly is quite simple.

WHERE TO USE BRAND MESSAGING

Brand messaging can be and should be designed for your brand as a whole. This is something that I teach inside of my programs and referred to as Core Brand Messages.

It's this idea that your brand as a whole solves a very specific problem for your ideal customer, and you need to understand why solving that problem is important to your ideal customer.

But then, you can also create different variations of that or even more specific messages for a particular offer, for a landing page, for a webinar, for a sales page, in an email, etc...

For instance, I have core brand messages for Brandmerry as a whole. But then, my program, Brandmerry Academy, which focuses specifically on marketing and teaching people how to market their business, has very specific messages on marketing. I don't talk about the basics of starting a business because we're focused on marketing.

I reserve those types of messages for my program Roadmap to Freedom.

Strong messaging is used everywhere and anywhere you want to sell something, and following this brand messaging framework will make your life way easier.

BRAND MESSAGING FRAMEWORK

Excellent messaging always comes back to knowing your audience. So, even though I’m going to share with you a framework for your messages, I want you to remember the language you’ll use will come from what you know about your ideal customer.

We can't craft messages that convert, sales pages that sell, email campaigns that email, we can't do any of that if we don't know how to communicate to our audience.

I think copywriting is such an art. And so many people are like, "Well, I'll just hire a copywriter. I'll just get to a place when I hire a copywriter." But you're never going to get there if you don't know how to do it now yourself.

There are people who are incredibly skilled at writing copy, and they freaking own that. They're just masters at it. But, everyone at the bare minimum needs to just understand how to communicate to their audience. And that's really what messaging is. And as you can see, so much of your messaging working is reliant on understanding who you're talking to and then letting them tell you what they want and the language that they use and plugging that into your copy.

The framework, once you have the market research, is actually quite simple.

The brand messaging framework includes what you do, the problem you solve and why it’s important.

PART ONE: WHAT YOU PROVIDE

You need to note that it’s not just one thing, otherwise you’d have one brand message. What you do needs to be broken down into pieces. Think about your framework, modules you offer, modalities, techniques or just the flow you lead your client through.

PART TWO: WHAT PROBLEM DOES IT SOLVE

Taking it back to the ideal client work, understanding the struggles/ pains of your ideal customer is huge. When you know what they want to avoid or what they are working towards you can use that to share how what you do will help them achieve that.

This is the second stage of messaging to say, “This is what I do so you can…”

PART THREE: ADDING THE REAL BENEFIT AND URGENCY

This is all about why your audience should care and why it’s important. This is the sweet spot of brand messaging and the difference between someone working with you and someone not working with you, someone buying your course and not buying your course, someone buying your product and not buying your product.

If they aren’t clear on how investing in this will serve them, they won’t do it!

BRAND MESSAGING EXAMPLES

These are examples of messages I’ve been using since 2016 when positioning my brand and various products.

I want you to pay attention to how the framework is presented in each of them.

Example 1: Follow my signature uncover-your-story framework so that you can identify the most impactful stories for your brand as a whole and how to showcase them as part of your brand experience.

So much of what my audience struggles with is storytelling. I know that that's a pain point, so I'm solving the problem with that. I'm letting them know how they can choose their stories, which is a huge pain point for my audience. Then, I'm telling them that the benefit is that they're going to be able to use storytelling in their branding experience. And of course, they're learning my brand framework.

Example 2: Create your core brand messages by tapping into your story and purpose so that you can remain consistent and build trust, making selling about connection and not being pushy.

If you're reading my sales page, you're like, "What's a core brand message? I'm so interested in that." I'm going to tell you how you're going to do it. It's all about storytelling and purpose, which is part of my superpower. That's what differentiates me from other people who teach messaging. And specifically, we're going to talk about building trust, which is important to my audience. And the biggest pain point that they want to avoid is sounding sleazy or salesy or pushy when it comes to selling. I know that y'all hate this, and so I'm using that in my marketing.

Example 3: Create a program that delivers on your goal of helping your ideal client reach their desire and learn how to structure and price your offering in a way that speaks directly to your clients so that they are eager to invest again and again.

They're going to learn how to create a program, specifically in alignment with their desire. A program that helps their ideal customer. My audience, people who buy my products are mission-driven, purpose-driven. So they want not just an offer to sell, but something that's really going to serve their ideal customer. And they struggle with structuring their offer, pricing their offer, and their end goal is to consistently sign clients that invest again and again.

These are three messages that are part of my brand as a whole. Three of them are used on my You! Branded sales page. And I think I have some of them on my Roadmap to Freedom sales page and various places in my business.

BRAND MESSAGING GUIDELINES

2 Must-Haves in Your Brand Messaging

Let’s talk about two brand messaging guidelines.

1. SOLVE A PROBLEM

Every single message that you create has to talk about the problem. It has to address the problem. People pay to eliminate a problem and since you're in business you want to make sure you understand the problem of your ideal customer. No matter what you sell your customer has a bunch of problems that you solve with your product or service.

Your brand as a whole solves one main problem, and that's your niche, but then you've got all these other problems that your audience is experiencing that you want to address in your messaging.

Not only are you letting them know that you get them and you know what they're experiencing, but you also are very blatantly like, "Hey, I know you have this problem, and I'm going to help you solve it."

2. THE BENEFIT

The benefit is telling your audience specifically what solving the problem will get them. You'll see a lot of that so-that-you-can messaging in marketing, and the reason is it works like a freaking charm.

This is the extension to brand messaging that so many people forget. When thinking of this piece you want to consider the end goal for your ideal customer, how solving the problem will benefit them and the desires they are wanting to achieve.

That's what you want to make sure is crystal clear. That is what leads people to actually buying your product, your service, your offer.

Your audience really wants to know what's going to make their life easier, what's going to get them closer to their end goal or their desire, how is fixing this going to manifest itself in their everyday life.

Let's say you teach meditation and you're like, "You're going to learn my 15-minute meditation to handle any stressful situation that comes up at work."

Okay, fine. But if they handle that stressful situation at work, what does that give them?
Is it so they can go about their day and not bite their coworker's head off?
Is it so they don't go home completely stressed out and then take it out on their family?
Is it so they can be more productive and get more work done?

What is the end result? It can't just be stress-free. What does stress-free look like in your ideal customer's life?

CONCLUSION

Brand messaging is so important, and you really need to make it a top priority for your business.

Remember, brand messaging is how you communicate what you do, but more specifically, why it's important to your ideal customer and how it's going to benefit them.

And most importantly, you want to make sure that every single message that you create, one, talks about the problem that they're experiencing so that they know that you're going to help them solve that problem…

...and two, the benefit.

It's not just, "I'm going to help you solve this problem." It's that by solving this problem, you will be able to...

Really focus on this extension!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. A great place to gain clarity on your Brand Messaging and how to market it is inside of The Brandmerry Academy. Learn more and sign up before the end of 2020 here >>

Want to watch the full training? Watch below. This video was recorded as part of Mondays With Michelle which airs every Monday at 4 pm CST.