Recently, I wrote about 5 secret sauce ingredients for your brand messaging makeover. In that article, I focused on strategies for tapping into your customers’ brains to find brand messaging golden nuggets. Today, we’re heading back into the marketing lab to show you how to USE that information to implement your brand messaging. After all, the way you talk about your business isn’t a series of catchy phrases. It’s how you connect with the humans in your audience and create a consistent customer experience.
For a moment, let’s assume that you have the critical elements of brand messaging. (If not you can grab my Brand Messaging Makeover mini-course, or schedule a call with me.)
Once you have that info, what do you do with it?
You start building a messaging platform. Simply put, your messaging codifies the way you talk about your business so you and your team can talk about it consistently at every stage of the customer journey. With your messaging platform, you’ll know which messages people need at different touchpoints so you can start working them into marketing, sales, and operations, so everyone on your team talks about things consistently. (If you are your team, you’ll have the tools to confidently grow, pivot, or scale.) And, that’s where the magic happens.
6 Tips for Implementing Your Brand Messaging into Your Business
Knowing what to do with your messaging platform is important so that you can actively work your messaging into every aspect of your business. I shared a lot of this in a recent video, so if you prefer to read content, keep going. If you prefer to watch on a video, check it out here:
Or, watch and read 🙂
Create “Say This, Not That” Cheat Sheets
Brand messaging platforms are frequently long documents that offer detailed buyer personas, service overviews, and share benefits to your audience. And, while they’re packed with value, your team may get overwhelmed quickly. Consider working with your messaging expert to come up with a “Cliff Notes” version for quick and easy reference as you makeover your brand messaging. In addition to showing phrases you’re retiring and alternative options, you can include key messaging points and differentiators, key themes, and any high-level notes you want them to understand about your company. These cheat sheets also make a powerful onboarding tool as you grow.
Update or Rebrand Your Website
You’ve probably heard me talk about your website as your 24/7 salesperson. And because it’s vital to your funnel, it’s imperative that your website reflects your updated brand strategy and messaging. So auditing your site is absolutely worthwhile to identify:
- How your website speaks to your audience
- How well it communicates your value prop and converts visitors
- If it reflects the brand image you want the world to see
- Opportunities to improve the way you show up
- Any existing pages that don’t serve the direction you’re taking your business
If you’re not sure where to start and want to DIY your web copy audit, you can grab my 10-point website copy checklist with 30 quick fixes you can employ right now. Or if you want my help, there are a few options. Feel free to send me a note with your URL and I can tell you if an audit will do the trick or if you need a full-fledged website makeover with brand messaging support.
Revamp Your Funnel Emails
Heck, why stop at your funnel emails? A brand messaging makeover presents a great opportunity to revisit your entire funnel. How are people coming in the door? What nurtures them to your upsell or to become customers? What is your offer like? Does your funnel copy work with your new brand messaging? Is it converting your audience? If not, take some time to dive in. And if you want my help here, schedule a time to chat and I’ll help you find the best options for your business.
Update Any Critical Assets
Maybe with your website and funnel, you’ve covered your critical assets. Maybe not. Perform a marketing audit to:
- List all of your blog posts
- Review your social channel descriptions
- Identify any downloads, lead magnets, case studies, etc.
Now review them and ask:
- Do these assets work towards my goals?
- If they don’t work towards my goals, how can I update them?
Full disclosure — you may not need to update older content. If it’s dated, go ahead and bring it into line with current best practices. I recently did that with this SEO post from 2019. You’ll see how I updated the title and added a line at the bottom indicating it’s been updated. If it’s super old and doesn’t reflect the direction you’re taking your business, you can leave it especially if it’s generating traffic that converts. Otherwise, up to you if you want to keep it and redirect the URL or remove it.
Revamp Your 90-day Marketing Strategy + Plan
This is a big one, especially if your brand messaging makeover indicates new themes, levels of customer awareness, and ways to think about customer problems.
If you don’t have a 90-day content strategy or a 90-day marketing calendar, it’s a good idea to set aside some time to make one. We can do this in a one-day VIP Copy Dash workshop, where we sit down and identify the types of content you need to attract and nurture your audience.
If you do have a content strategy already, take some time to review it and make sure it fits your goals and audience needs.
Develop Thought Leadership Content
Your thought leadership content doesn’t have to be about anything new or groundbreaking. It’s about your approach and your perspective and sharing YOUR expertise with your audience.
There are three primary ways people consume content: audio, video, and reading. Your thought leadership content can be any of the three or even a blend.
The goal? Review your brand messaging and find some common problems or questions your audience has. Then it’s a matter of speaking to those challenges to create content that resonates with your audience and delivers insights they find valuable.
Need ideas outside of your brand messaging platform?
Check social media or forums like Quora or Reddit (if you’re still there after recent changes). Ask your audience what they need to know or what questions they have. Pay attention to questions you get on sales calls or coffee chats to see what themes come up a lot.
And, if actually creating the thought leadership content is challenging or you need help telling the story, this is something I often help clients with. I’d love to work with you to bring your story to life.
Brand Messaging Makeovers Put Your Audience First
The most important thing to remember as you makeover your brand messaging is that your audience should be your North Star. While your messaging is about how you want to show up in the world, it’s not just about what you like. It’s about what moves the needle for your customers and the message they need to see or hear. It’s all about making sure that you meet their needs by delivering a magically awesome experience with your business.
Ready to explore how we can work together to makeover and implement your brand messaging into your overall business operations and marketing strategy? Let’s chat. 🙂
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