Killer Messaging

In certain markets, customers need the detail to make an informed decision. While attempting to provide all that detail, writing Marketing messaging can become like writing an encyclopedia. This is especially true in organisations that are democratic, where everyone's opinion counts. Everything that is part of the proposition has to be said. If we’re not careful the result is nebulous, cluttered, unhelpful and frankly boring Marketing.

So what’s the solution? It’s what I call Pyramid Messaging.

The Pyramid Principle

Barbara Minto, an ex McKinsey consultant and Harvard MBA, has published a great book called the “Pyramid Principle”. While the approach has been targeted at management consultants and executives in organisation to better write presentations and emails, a lot can be learned from it for Marketing purposes.

It simply explains how our thoughts tend to work horizontally, eg I was hungry, I went around town to find a place to eat, I found this new burger restaurant, it’s near the lake, it’s very easy to find, and they do the best burgers I’ve ever tasted.

Minto recommends that effective communicators communicate vertically, from the top. They start with the key point they want to get across to captivate their audience, eg there’s a new restaurant in town that makes the best burgers ever, and then work their way down adding the necessary details.

So how does the Pyramid help Marketing?

Marketing messages need to be developed bearing in mind the Pyramid Principle: messaging vertically from the top, rather than horizontally from the bottom.

While feeding the bottom of the pyramid with all the key elements that will allow Marketers to develop messaging, we simply need to be careful not to use this as the starting point to develop our messaging.

Use the simple following process to develop killer messaging:

1. Fill the bottom of the pyramid with all the product features that are fed to you by the product development teams. This includes all areas that are considered normal features and USP’s: technical features, support, superior experience, slick design, etc. Write them down in no particular order, absorbing the essence of the proposition and its key features.
2. Gather competitor messaging as context. You need to make sure that if your competitor did a great job in messaging themselves, that you don’t end up repeating the same words they use!
3. Most importantly, understand customer insights. And by insights I don’t just mean “observations”, ie what customers tell you they want. I mean the deeper emotional drivers that provide the answer to the “why?” question. Why is this thing important? How do they really feel? What's the real issue here? A deep insight remains the best way to differentiate. So identify what really matters to your customers.
4. With the 3 elements of context above, exit the pyramid, and go about messaging vertically, from the top. Use the customer insights as the main filter and come up with the strapline (also known as “shout”) for your campaign. At this stage you may want to identify several options for straplines, and test them in a panel to determine the exact language that will resonate most with your customers.
5. Determine what your discreet set of top line messages will be, to support your shout. This is the second layer of the pyramid. It can be three, four, five or six key messages. They should be written concisely and be as specific as possible. For example rather than saying “Comprehensive service for all your needs”, be specific with the feature that makes this a USP saying “1,000 highly trained support staff available 24/7”.
6. Check your top line messages don’t overlap, but also cover the whole of the proposition. Use MECE as a principle to achieve this. Your messages should be Mutually Exclusive, but Commonly Exhaustive.
7. Finally, for each of your top line message, provide some additional details, and a set of very specific proof points. This is essential for credible messaging, and will come in handy in richer media channels. Marketing is not just about saying messages that will inspire purchase, it has to be rooted in product truth. This process can be useful in having the right debates back with the Product Development teams. If through the messaging exercise you nail down what needs to be said to appeal to customers, but that the number of proof points is not quite sufficient for the message to be credible, push the team to develop what’s needed for a winning strategy.

Once you have your killer messaging, all that’s left to do is to apply it consistently across channels. Make sure your strapline, or campaign "shout”, gets heard over and over, in a consistent way. Brief all teams to start from the top. This will build frequency and will increase your campaign success.

Jean-Michel Maltais is a marketing professional, focused on putting the customer at the centre of company strategy and making marketing a commercial function.https://twitter.com/jmmaltais

Picture from StockMonkeys.com