Grow Your Business With Clear Messaging

Jan 21, 2022 | Listen

Grow Your Business With Clear Messaging

In today’s fast-paced digital world, the average person is bombarded by hundreds of ads and other marketing materials on any given day. For businesses, it’s even harder for our messages to break through the blur of everyone else’s content. So how do you rise above the marketing noise? How can you connect with your desired audience? What’s the key to success? The answer lies in clear messaging.

In this episode of Help! My Business Is Growing, our guest Orly Zeewy breaks down why (and how) clear messaging can help grow your business.



Timestamps for this week’s episode

  • 02:12 Why do businesses struggle with crafting clear messaging to get their marketing right?

  • 07:21 What are the main differences between traditional and “Lean marketing”?

  • 13:07 How to define your ideal customer beyond customer personas

  • 25:24 Building relationships with potential strategic partners

  • 36:02 Actionable step to take to you closer to delivering clear messaging to your audience

“The reality is, you really don’t want to talk to everybody, because you don’t have enough marketing bandwidth to market to the whole world. So the first step is really figuring out who you want to talk to.” – Orly Zeewy

Why businesses struggle with crafting clear messaging to get their marketing right

  • The lack of understanding about what the offer/service/product really is, including its benefits to customers or how it can address their needs, makes it more difficult to get someone to buy it.
  • The need to develop the correct branding to gain a deeper understanding of the product. Branding informs marketing, which then acts as the engine to power sales.
  • Not knowing who their target market is, what their needs and expectations are, and what message will resonate with them.
  • Having the wrong marketing mindset:
    • Marketing should be strategic and not “we’ll figure this out somehow.”
    • It’s also an investment that needs time to bear fruit and deliver results, so patience is critical.

What are the main differences between traditional and “Lean marketing”?

Traditional Marketing:

  • Dependent on advertising, such as Superbowl ads or buying social media ads
  • Works well for established companies or franchises that people know about
  • Aims to remind everyone “We are here and we’re still great!”
  • Expensive!

Lean Marketing:

  • For companies that need to build brand awareness, loyalty and equity as fast as possible
  • Generates customer-needs-focused content and other marketing initiatives.
  • Establishes a presence where customers hang out and get their information
  • Engage, have conversations, build relationships with your ideal customers – and present solutions

“You do not want to be a solution looking for a problem. You want to identify the problem that your ideal customer has and you want to be that solution.”– Orly Zeewy

How to define your ideal customer beyond customer personas

  • If your company is just starting out, it might be difficult to identify your target audience because you might not have met them yet.
  • Go through an “empathy map” exercise; get into the shoes of your ideal customer, get a sense of who they are, and determine the following:
  • Their pain points
  • How you can specifically assist them,
  • The value they gain when working with you
  • Once you have this information, you can find them, join their communities, show up, and engage with them. The icing on the cake is to also share with them the knowledge you have that can help them.
The more you share with people, the easier it is for them to start to see who you are - and to understand whether or not you could be a fit for what they need.

Building relationships with potential strategic partners

1. Find them.

Identify a brand that’s been around for a long time – that already has the trust factor – and determine if your goals align

2. Study them.

  • Do they provide clear messaging?
  • What is their value proposition?
  • How are they showing up?
  • What is the voice of their brand?
  • Are they working with people that can be potential clients?
  • How do they work? (Are they creative, entrepreneurial, process-oriented etc.)

3. Let clarity rule.

  • Set clear expectations
  • Be honest and transparent about your objectives

“How do you know if a strategic partner is a good partner if you haven’t done your work to figure out who you are?” – Orly Zeewy

Actionable step to take to delivering clear messaging to your audience

Create a simple survey, with three questions and send it to your clients.

Question 1: What do you get from working with us?

Question 2: How can we improve?

Question 3: How has working with us changed your life or your business?

You’ll get valuable insights that can lead you to deliver clear messaging regarding your products and services in the future.


Summary

  • Many businesses get their marketing wrong because of:
    • Lack of correct branding
    • Lack of knowledge about the customer/target market
    • Lack of strategic marketing planning
    • Lack of patience for marketing initiative results
    • Lack of clear messaging
  • The differences between “traditional” and “lean marketing” are:
    • Traditional marketing works well with older, well-known brands, is generally expensive, is advertising heavy, and serves to revitalize brand awareness.
    • Lean marketing is agile, customer-centric, and perfect for companies that want to fast-track brand awareness, loyalty, and equity gains via building relationships and offering solutions to their customer problems through clear messaging.
  • Empathy Map exercise is an effective way to discover your ideal customer persona.
  • Find an ideal strategic partner candidate that is trusted, established, and has similar goals and customers. Build relationships with them by sticking to the principles of clarity, honesty, and transparency when setting expectations when dealing with customers.
  • To ensure clear messaging to your audience, send them a simple, three-question survey that will give you an idea of how you make customers feel, the value they receive from you, and the impact you have had on them as well.

Transcript

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About guest – Orly Zeewy, MBA

Brand Architect, Author of “Ready, Launch, Brand: The Lean Marketing Guide for Startups”

Orly Zeewy, is an author, keynote speaker, educator, and brand architect. She builds the DNA of startup brands and creates messaging that helps founders cut through the noise and scale in months, not years.

Orly has lectured at Wharton and taught in The Close School of Entrepreneurship at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

She is also a frequent podcast guest and writes extensively on topics related to entrepreneurship. Her articles have been published in national publications such as The Marketing Journal, Smart Hustle, and Lioness Magazine. Her book: Ready, Launch, Brand: The Lean Marketing Guide for Startups was the #1 new business book released on Amazon in April 2021.

Website: https://zeewy.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlyzeewy

Orly’s PDF gift “How to Turn Your Brand Into a Customer Magnet” – available here.

Orly’s book | Ready, Launch, Brand: The Lean Marketing Guide for Startups

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

David Aaker | Building Strong Brands


About host – Kathy Svetina

Kathy Svetina is a Fractional CFO for growing small businesses with $10M+ in annual revenue.

Clients hire her when they’re unsure about what’s going on in their finances, are stressed out by making financial decisions, or need to structure their finances to keep up with their growth.

She solves their nagging money mysteries and builds a financial structure with a tailored financial strategy. That way they can grow in a financially healthy and sustainable way.

Kathy is based in Chicago, IL and works with clients all over the US.

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