If your marketing isn’t working, there are two likely culprits: your target audience is wrong or your messaging. Most often, it’s your messaging.

If you want your marketing to get a good return on investment, you need a compelling message. One that clearly explains what problem you solve, who you help, and what action they need to take next.

My 7-step magnetic messaging framework will help you clarify your message so it cuts through a crowded marketplace like a hot knife through butter.

Step 1: Make your messaging about your prospect. Not you.

The number one mistake that business owners make is crafting messaging that serves their ego. It’s not about you. No one cares how many years you’ve been in business, or how many awards you’ve won.

Your prospect cares about what’s in it for them. They want to know how quickly you can make their problems go away.

So if you want your marketing messaging to stand out from every other advertising campaign, you need to take the focus off you and shine the light on your prospect.

I’ll give you an example of good verse bad messaging.

Bad Messaging Example

WELCOME TO THE HOME OF SELF-PUBLISHING.

With over 20 years of experience helping authors self-publish their novel, you’re in good hands.

Why is this messaging bad?

1. There’s nothing compelling about this messaging. It’s stock, standard, and boring.
2. It focuses on you, and not on the person wanting to get self published.
3. It’s forgettable.

Good Messaging Example

GET SELF-PUBLISHED IN 90 DAYS

The easiest way to get your manuscript formatted for printing, distributed on Amazon, and hitting bestseller lists.

Why this messaging works?

1. It’s compelling. For someone who has probably sent their manuscript to every major publishing house and heard no, this is the dream.
2. It tells the prospect exactly what they can expect from you.
3. It gives the prospect a vision to buy into.

Step 2: Make your message easily understood.

Can a 12-year-old understand what you do, how it makes their life better, and what step to take next?

So many businesses think their marketing needs to sound professional or academic. This is a huge mistake. Even if your ideal prospect is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, they are far more likely to respond to a message that’s full of personality than one that’s inflated with industry jargon.  

When we try to be clever or verbose, we create confusion, and a confused mind says no.

If your prospect can’t quickly understand what you do, they’re not going to spend hours trying to figure it out. They aren’t going to set up a meeting, so you can give them more information. They’re going to click away and go to a competitor.

• Keep your messaging simple.
• Use words and concepts that are easy to understand.
• Run your marketing writing through Hemingways App to check that a 12-year-old could understand it.

Simplify your messaging, and the marketplace will reward you.

Step 3: Make your message believable.

So many businesses claim to be the leader in their market place. They’ll use words like number 1, award-winning, leading provider, best of breed, blah, blah, blah.

Your prospects don’t buy it. You have to make them believe it. And you can only do that by proving you’re the real deal.

• What awards have you won? Industry awards legitimize your services.
• What recognition have you received? Have you been featured in the press? If Forbes Magazine or the New York Times has featured you, that’s pretty compelling to a customer.
• What do your customers have to say? Can you use customer testimonials, whether written and video, to back up what you’re saying?

You’ll know your message is believable when you’ve got low friction in the sales process.

If you get a lot of objections or people asking question after question that’s usually a sign they don’t believe you can deliver what you say or implement what you’re offering.

So let’s look at a few examples of good vs bad messaging.

Bad Messaging

From Startup to Six Figures in 3 Months

Million Dollar Side Hustle in 30 Days

Launch & Grow Your Podcast to 2 Million Downloads in 2 Weeks

Why don’t I believe these offers?

• I know how long it takes to build to six figures. It’s rare to hit six figures in 3 months. So I have doubts.
• If hitting six figures felt like a pipe dream, launching a million dollar side hustle in 30 days sounds like a fairy tale. Firstly, what type of side hustle are we talking about? eCommerce, maybe. But for most businesses, this isn’t achievable.
• Unless you’re a well-known personality with a massive social and email following, launching and hitting 2 Million downloads feels unrealistic. As a relatively unknown person, I just don’t see this happening.

Good Messaging

5 Simple Systems To Organise and Scale Your Business

From $1K Months to $30K Months: How to Scale your Side Hustle

How to Start a Dropshipping Business in 6 Simple Steps

Why this offer works?

• The promise is more believable.
• There is no time limit to achieving my goal.
• It’s specific and offers a proven process to growing your business.

So ask yourself, does my messaging feel believable?

Step 4: Make your messaging interesting and unique.

Why should I buy from you instead of your direct competitor?

That’s the question on your prospect’s mind. If you sell an apple and your competitor sells an apple they’re going to choose the company that gives them the best deal. You don’t want your prospect making decisions based on pricing. That’s a losing game.

You want to give them an apples to oranges comparison. Find a proposition that makes you stand out from the competition.

For example, someone who is dropshipping has to compete with major distributors like eBay, Amazon, etc. You need to find a way to get a prospect to choose you over old faithful.

It could be that you deliver outstanding customer service. Or you give a considered, honest opinion of the product. There’s no trying to bulls$$t your audience. They know they can trust you to steer them in the right direction.

For example, let’s look at the Make My Shave brand.

It’s a razor subscription specifically for women. We had DollarShave.com for men, and now MakeMyShave.com.au for women.

• It’s uniqueness lies in the fact that it’s a subscription model.
• 5% of every sale goes to reforestation projects in Australia.
• The razor handle is reusable, and used razor heads are sustainable disposed of.
• They prioritize sustainable packaging.

They’re targeting a female audience that wants the convenience of having their razorblades delivered monthly without them having to think about it, but also knowing that their contribution is going towards a good cause.

Remember, specificity sells.

So how can you make your messaging interesting and unique?

Step 5: Deal with their wants and needs

Getting in shape is a really good example of dealing with a prospects’ wants and needs. Most will tell you they want to feel good about themselves. Maybe they want to drop a size or two.

You know what they want. Now what do they need to achieve those results. Chances are, they have to make pretty serious lifestyle changes like exercising more regularly, and watching what they eat.

This is the part that a lot of people don’t enjoy. They want the good thing (a beach ready body) without the bad thing (hard, sweaty workout sessions at the gym, achey muscles, and a meal plan that misses all the foods they love).

Your message needs to demonstrate to prospects that you can deliver the good and limit the bad.

If you make promises you can’t deliver on, that will damage your brand reputation. It takes years to build a good opinion of your business, and it can be destroyed over night.

I’ll give you another example.

Say your company creates an app that makes retail in-store execution easier for sales reps and their office-bound managers.

The Managers want to be able to track their sales reps to make sure they’re doing their rounds.

What they need, is greater shelf presence, and the ability to action in-store orders immediately so they can increase sales.

Your marketing messaging would need to answer their wants and needs. You app helps limit no-shows, and increase in-bound orders.

So look at your message and ask yourself, what are the wants and needs I have to address in my message to compel prospects to reach out to me?

Step 6: Be clear about who you help.

This is something that so many businesses get wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I hear a client say things like, “we help everyone. ” And maybe you do. But you can’t afford to target everyone. You don’t have a big enough marketing budget.

A prospect should see your message and think it’s made just for them.

But it can’t happen if you’re all things to all people.

Here’s how to know if your messaging is to general.

• Your listing a laundry list of products and services like, we do in-bound marketing, we do SEO, we do Pay-Per-Click, we do strategy, we do PR.
• You’re appealing to a wide audience, rather than a tight niche. For example, We help authors get self-published. But what field do you specialize in? Children’s books, business books, romantic books, STEM books? As a published author of a marketing & business book, I don’t want a generalist helping me to launch my second book. I want someone who specializes in my area of expertise, and knows how to turn my book into a bestseller.

To recap.

Your prospects will actively seek out a specialist. If you’re everything to everyone, you’re a generalist, and you won’t attract high-value, well-paying customers.

Step 7: Tell your prospect what to do next.

What physical visible action do we want your prospect to take?

When it comes to creating a call to action, don’t overcomplicate things. Make sure you have one, clear call to action.

That could be opting into your newsletter, downloading your lead magnet, trialing your software, booking a demo or a free strategy call, buying a product, whatever.

One message, one call to action.

If you have multiple calls to action, create separate campaigns or you run the risk of your prospect doing nothing.

Here’s an example of a poor CTA.

In this case, there is no call to action. Sure, it’s a pretty picture, but what is the next step I should take.

There’s no phone number. No email address. I had to keep scrolling to the bottom of the website before I found contact details.

So if your next step is for a customer to book a consult, make it easy for them to do that.

If you don’t give them an easy way to connect, they will do nothing.

Now here’s an example of a site with a clear call to action.

Not only do I know who this offer is targeted at, but I know exactly what step to take next to start building operating systems that scale my business.

Don’t make your prospects waste precious time figuring out how to get in touch with you.

Tell them what to do next.

Apply the 7-Step Messaging Framework to your business

When it comes to messaging, clarity is king. Always choose clarity over cleverness.

Start by reviewing and refining your marketing messages. Pull up your website and ask yourself:

• Is it clear what I do?
• Do I clearly demonstrate how my services or product will improve my prospects’ lives?
• What is the step I want them to take next? Is that clear?

Take a look at your social media posts, emails, SEO articles, pay-per-click ads, billboards, whatever. Is it clear to the reader what step you want them to take next?

If not, review and refine.