Your audience/target market will pay attention to you when you speak directly to them and evoke some sort of an emotional connection. The emotional connection starts when you persuade them to listen long enough for them to develop a brand image which you hope is in the positive. Some may have been pre-exposed to your brand though products themselves via listening stations of online chatter or from friends. While this could be shed in a positive light, it is being provided to them from the brand image that has been developed by the people they are listening to. We know if it is our kids, it is the best thing ever and the must have. If all marketing were only that easy.
Purpose of Your Message
The purpose of your message is to create that emotional connection through a positive brand image to compel them to act. The act is to buy, donate, refer or vote. In communicating your message, you answer what you want them to know and also what you want them to do. This is not always rainbows and unicorns as we saw in the mid-term elections, especially in Nevada, where the negativity that surrounded a high profile campaign turned people off and instead of acting, they retracted. The key is knowing your audience/target market, how they listen to what you want them to know with the understanding that they can accept or not accept and can act or react by not acting at all.
What Do You Want Your Audience to Know?
Identifying what you want them to know is probably most easily answered with that you are their only option/choice as you provide the best offering, best customer service, best customer relations (customers are treated like family) and have the best value. We see with a lot of small businesses where they are trying to tell their audience everything about them by cramming as much copy as possible so that the audience knows every thing that they are offering. This is a whole lot of information to convey when you are trying to connect emotionally. Their brand image will be one of confusion as they were asked to process and accept multiple messages.
You want them to know your one thing. What makes you so much better than the competition? What is the one thing that makes you/your offering so great? What do you do best? I talked about this as it relates to blogging in defining the purpose of your blog as there are thousands upon thousands of blogs and why should yours be chosen? Now there are not thousands upon thousands of same/similar typed products so communicating the one thing, the single message to your audience has to be clearly defined, believable, trustworthy and fit the way your audience speaks and also fit into their lifestyle. If not, the message will bypass them.
What do you want your audience to do?
You want your audience to react positively to your message and take action. Here we see why what you want them to know is so important. How is your message being received, perceived, accepted and acted upon? Are you telling them exactly what you want them to do in your call to action or are they left wondering? We saw how retailers were telling us what they wanted us to do on Black Friday. They told us what time they were opening, they told us what times the door busters would be available – they were telling us to come and shop their store for the items they wanted us to buy. As we see here we do not always have to say BUY from me in a direct way.
What are you saying to your audience? Are you conveying a single message of what you do best?