3 Signs a Messaging Workshop is Right for You
June 2020
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Your messaging fuels your marketing. And your marketing fuels your business. So, are you getting the most out of your messaging? Here are three telltale signs that a messaging workshop is right for you, right now.
The world of b2b marketing changes fast—new tactics, tools, technologies all the time. What doesn’t change is the crucial role of your messaging—how your company talks about itself and the value you provide to customers. Done right, your messaging is a powerful narrative that embodies brand, and captures the emotion and imagination of the customer at the deepest level. Done poorly, it’s detached from brand, from your target audience’s frame-of-reference, and ultimately fails to produce the results you want. So how do you know a messaging workshop is right for you?
“We’ve got a great product—how do we talk about it?”
Messaging is part art, part science. I’ve found that many tech and bio-tech companies, steeped with engineering and scientific prowess, often struggle to communicate in simple and elegant term just what exactly they do or why they do it.
A marketing messaging workshop will pivot your company from cataloguing your engineering or scientific achievements to structuring a narrative that tells your story in a compelling way to your audience(s). Learn the basic elements of sound marketing messaging, build a messaging framework for your company or product line, start developing a content map linking your newly created messages to results-driven customer-facing campaigns and content elements.
“We have the marketing engine, but not enough fuel”
I see this quite often in smaller companies, and especially startups, where emphasis in the early days is on demand generation. Here teams often fall victim to their own marketing tech stack. Teams unintentionally over-index on the marketing machinery and automation techniques themselves and lose sight of what they’re actually saying or how they’re actually saying it. No time to think, just go, go, go.
For your prospects and customers this is a recipe for disaster—your outreaches and communication fall on deaf ears, received as insincere, void of anything that feels genuine or authentic. We’ve all been on the receiving end of this. Swipe left or drag to trash–take your pick. Your precious outreach is gone, along with the opportunity to engage with your audience. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s time for a marketing messaging workshop.
As you ramp up your next outreach or campaign, take the time, half-day, full-day, or however much time you can carve out, to develop a compelling messaging framework and content map. Spend the time to dial-in what you want to say and exactly how you want to say it. Get the message right and you’ll find that it is not only the rocket fuel for your marketing engine but it’s also what ultimately moves the needle in the minds and hearts of your customers.
“Times have changed, our messaging needs to change too”
If your messaging hasn’t moved forward, prospects and customers can receive outreaches at entirely the wrong time with messages that feel tone-deaf. Now is the time to take stock of your current messaging framework. Does it need some fine-tuning, or perhaps a more significant course correction?
Small companies and startups typically have poured all their energy into getting something down on paper to feed the marketing engine and have little time (energy or desire) to course correct. Medium and large companies are equally susceptible, falling victim to inertia, with a stale set of messages. A little bit of glass-breaking can be good, to challenge and pressure-test the prevailing thinking, message set and direction. And often an outside, impartial thought process is exactly what’s needed to unlock your team’s creative thinking and propel things forward in a new direction.
Let's take the next step together!
If your messaging hasn’t moved forward, prospects and customers can receive outreaches at entirely the wrong time with messages that feel tone-deaf. Now is the time to take stock of your current messaging framework. Does it need some fine-tuning, or perhaps a more significant course correction?
Small companies and startups typically have poured all their energy into getting something down on paper to feed the marketing engine and have little time (energy or desire) to course correct. Medium and large companies are equally susceptible, falling victim to inertia, with a stale set of messages. A little bit of glass-breaking can be good, to challenge and pressure-test the prevailing thinking, message set and direction. And often an outside, impartial thought process is exactly what’s needed to unlock your team’s creative thinking and propel things forward in a new direction.