Marketing is an inevitable aspect of every business. In fact, it’s inevitable in any venture that requires a person to engage with an audience at some point.
And to market oneself properly, one of the first things a brand should think about is how to construct its marketing message. Marketing messages are basically the manner in which an organization presents itself and its work to a target audience. In essence, a marketing message is like an elevator pitch.
There are plenty of tips out there when it comes to putting out an effective marketing message. For one, a marketing message has to be clear and concise. You can’t use jargon your customers won’t understand. Instead, translate words like, “Our search engine optimization services will help increase traffic to our clients’ websites,” to: “We’ll help put your website on everybody’s radar.”
It’s a simple example, but you get the gist.
There are plenty of other tips given out by various experts, but one thing customers and marketers alike are beginning to really focus on is authenticity. Marketing tactics have been pushed around for so long, people are beginning to get tired of the same old formulas. Most people are able to tell when a business tries to sell its products just for the sake of sales. Most people know when a business doesn’t care.
And it’s really impacting the way marketing works these days.
Applying Your Values in a Business
Steve Jobs once said: “Marketing is about values. It’s a complicated and noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.”
In essence, one must know what they’re worth.
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it,” author Simon Sinek once said in a TED talk. And he’s right. If a company can’t really configure its own motivations behind attempting to create innovative goods and services, then how is it going to sell its product?
These days, consumers have become more sensitive towards a brand’s values. People want to buy products that align with their own values. For instance, cosmetics brands like Milk Makeup and Fenty Beauty are gaining traction with consumers because they sell cruelty-free products.
Before this, marketing used to work in such a way as to convince people to believe in what they buy. But now, things have changed. People buy what they believe in.
Kristin Thomas, the founder of the Health & Wellness Business School which is a company dedicated to educating health and wellness coaches on how to build profitable and sustainable businesses, followed her own ‘why’ when establishing her business. As someone who was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that quite severely disrupts one’s lifestyle, she found it difficult to slip back into remission even after seeing doctor after doctor. Eventually, her solution came in the form of a health coach.
“I was so inspired by this work (because I went into remission so quickly) that I felt a deep desire to become a health coach myself. I wanted to give back and reach people earlier on in their journey than I was by the time I even found out that health coaching was a thing.”
For Thomas, all her marketing strategies came from a place of authenticity. She’d ‘been there and done that’, so to speak. Channeling her experience as someone who walks the long road of health and wellness daily, her business goals stemmed from genuine ideals. And her audience could feel that. That’s why the Health & Wellness Business School was able to scale so quickly — because it met an untapped need in the health coaching sector to help more health coaches, like Kristin once was, to build their business from a place of authenticity.
Balancing Authenticity with What Sells
It’s important to note that genuineness doesn’t mean the same thing as being likable. Some brands are genuine about what they sell and how they project themselves. The problem is, nobody’s buying their vision.
Such are the pains entrepreneurs must be prepared to endure. While authenticity is key in a marketing message, it must appeal to the right kind of people.
A marketing message is always broadcasted to a targeted audience. So a brand must have a firm grasp on who these people are, and what would appeal to them. Why are smartphones getting slimmer and sleeker? It’s to address the issues of comfort, style, and convenience for consumers.
This doesn’t just apply to technology; every industry could use some innovation. Kristin Thomas, for example, recognized an increasing need for health coaches after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. People were getting more and more concerned about their physical and mental health. As such, it was important to address these concerns.
“With so many more people looking for health coaches, it caused a massive increase in demand for business training from health coaches so they could meet the need. In response to that, we doubled our expert coaching staff and doubled our curriculum regarding calls to support coaches as they grew their businesses — even in the midst of the pandemic. We witnessed our clients have their biggest revenue and growth months to date during COVID,” she said in an interview.
In planning a brand’s marketing message, it’s important to note that whatever product they’re selling, they’re tailoring it to meet the consumers’ demands. In essence, the focus is on the consumer’s demands.
“In your marketing, the superhero is always your customer,” advised Douglas Karr of Highbridge. “Your product or service is the tool that enables them to achieve the superior results they’re seeking.”
Dawn of a New Age: Out With All Things Phony
These days, with the influx of so much information, it’s important for consumers to be able to differentiate between what is genuine and what isn’t. As such, there is a higher demand for authenticity in marketing. This doesn’t just grab attention; it promotes a brand’s values to the mass public.
Yes, establishments do change their marketing methods to keep their consumers engaged. And, yes, sometimes brands might even change their entire modus operandi. Even if a brand sells products or services that are entirely different from what they’ve originally worked towards, the most important thing is that they’re being genuine about why they made this change.
“I was at a place where I had to decide: either I keep doing health coaching and help the number of people whom I could serve, or I could magnify that impact and help to elevate and teach all these other health coaches on how to reach the levels of success I did, and make a much bigger impact where we could reach millions of people. And to me, that was more meaningful.”
In essence, people care about what a brand cares about. Entrepreneurs just need to be confident in what they’re selling – based on rock-solid research, of course – and believe in their own values. And then, they’ll be ready to put out a meaningful marketing message.
