March 29, 2024

Mistake #5 – A Market Message for Everyone is No Message at All

One of the challenges a company of any size (but especially start-ups and early stage companies) faces as they launch  a new product is to communicate a clear consistent message to the market.   The following are a couple of scenarios that I have seen where companies fail to do this.

  • As a start-up, you are trying to close those early sales and your desperate to find anyone that will listen to you and so you change your story based upon what you think they want to hear, so that each person has a unique perspective of what your company does and nobody in the market really knows what you do.
  • You know that your product can meet the needs of multiple markets, so to make things simple, you create a story and messages that you think apply to all markets.   When you do this, you end up with a message that doesn’t resonate with anyone.
  • Senior level executives have not been properly briefed on the right story and message (or they have been briefed, but they’re the founder and can say what they want), so when speaking in the market, they might make statements the that imply that your products do things they really don’t do or can be sold into markets for which they are not ready, and then the marketing team has to play spin-master to cleanup the mess.

So the end result is that your try to be everything to everyone, but in reality, you have no message at all.

The starting point for correcting this problem is defining a clear messaging platform.

  1. Target Markets & Positioning:  The number one set of decisions is choosing your target market segments and determining how you will position your product in each market segment.  As a start-up, you have limited resources and you can not afford to pursue all market segments, so you must focus on the 1 or 2 market segments that give you the best chance of success.   As your grow, you can expand into additional market segments, but you must still proactively choose those market segments.
  2. Buyers & Influencers:  The second set of decisions is clearly defining the buyer and influencer roles in each target market.  Define who is the economic buyer, technical buyer, influencers and users.
  3. Targeted Messages:  Finally, you want to create messages that are specific to each buyer role in each target market.  This is important because it is much more powerful when you communicate a message that is specific to your target buyer v. trying to communicate a generic message that might fit all (which it doesn’t).   You market messages must support and defend your positioning in the market (Point #1).
  4. Consistency of Message:  Make sure that all market facing personnel understand these messages and their target audiences to that they use them appropriately and consistently.

For more on creating compelling messages, please see my presentation below.


 

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