Is Your Brand Message Aligned To Your Key Audiences?
Reflections from facilitating an interactive roundtable discussion at the 2018 TMSA (Transportation Marketing and Sales Association) annual conference.
Companies and brands do a lot. They often have many products, services, business lines, geographies and audiences to represent. With so many dimensions to embody, how do you communicate a consistent, successful brand to the marketplace?
Your brand message plays a critical role in delivering the foundation, value and essence of brands. Aligning key messages to audiences makes all the difference in degrees of brand engagement and response. Because audiences are just that unique, having strong and aligned messaging will drive clarity, consistency and a compelling preference to your brand.
Here are some perspectives from TMSA marketing members on aligning key brand messages to target audiences:
- Avoid a “whack-a-mole” messaging approach. Be deliberate about messaging and use it as a strategic weapon for your brand. Carefully plan and build your messaging with purpose, and specifically tune it for relevance to your audience.
- Develop and use a key messaging document. Don’t confuse your customers with broad-sweeping, irrelevant messaging. Detail and record your brand messaging foundation, and use it for all aspects of customer communications. Define your category, marketplace, competitive landscape, positioning, value proposition, brand attributes, customer language, pain points, buyers journey, personas and words used to describe your brand. Most importantly, document and consistently drive deep your primary and secondary key messages.
- Focus messaging on the customer. Too often marketers and business professionals focus internally on themselves and what they believe the customer wants. Talk to customers directly and find out what they care about, what their world is like, what problems they are trying to solve, and what language and words they use. Let their voice lead the messaging of your brand.
See the Words At Work Blog for the remaining ideas on how to successfully align your brand messaging to your key audiences.
Make sure to also check out and attend the 2019 TMSA annual event for more great transportation marketing and sales content.
3PL Executive | Supply Chain Innovator | Freight Tech Enthusiast | Organizational Integrator | Results-Focused Leader
5 年Mark, some very strong messages for both marketing and sales to consider when they engage a customer. This one especially resonates. Avoid?#EGOMESSAGING "Focus messaging on the customer. Too often marketers and business professionals focus internally on themselves and what they believe the customer wants."
Collecting Wall Street Equity Options Premiums for Clients on a Daily Basis
5 年I'm suppose to have a brand message?? Great article!? Thanks!
Vice President, Sales & Marketing - Accomplished marketing executive with a track record for building and leading teams that generate demand and extraordinary growth
5 年Great insights, Mark! I always enjoy these TMSA Lunch Roundtable Discussions. We've got some great topics and facilitators lined up for 2019. I'm looking forward to seeing you in JAX!