Five Tips for Crafting Relevant, Engaging Marketing Messages

Any advertising professional will tell you that crafting an optimal message is about more than just stringing together some words or pictures and kicking a product out to the masses. More often than not even the best marketing messages fall flat, sometimes for the smallest of reasons, leaving entire marketing teams to head back to the drawing board.   If you’re a small business, creating relevant, engaging marketing messages might sound impossible as you don’t have an entire marketing department to fulfill your needs; it’s just you and your knowledge doing all of the work. But, while it might seem like an uphill battle, understand that being a small business doesn’t put you at any less of an advantage when it comes to understanding what goes into creating a good message.   Take a look at five things you can always fall back on when you’re brainstorming your next advertising campaign and why taking into account these five tips can pay off:   1 - Emphasize seasonal messages: You may or may not realize it, but the seasons have significant sway over the world of marketing and advertising. Certain products become available or emphasized during certain seasons; different tones and feelings are characterized by the time of year; and, most importantly, consumer mindsets shift with the seasons. Understanding and wielding seasonal power for the benefit of your marketing message is absolutely going to turn favor and give you a better chance at landing a message that’s effective.   2 - Evoke emotion: There’s nothing more ineffective than an advertising message that makes a person feel nothing! If someone feels nothing when they intake your message, they’ll have no motivation to act, meaning you’ve lost them right from the get-go. Instead, make sure your messages evoke some kind of emotion! Make a person laugh, pluck at their heartstrings or even make them angry—whatever it takes to provoke emotion and inspire action!   3 - Be transparent: We’ve all seen those advertisements that are too good to be true, that usually end up being a scam in the end, right? They’re not just annoying—they’re a great way to lose customers. People don’t like being tricked or taken advantage of: they prefer to be spoken to with a straightforward message and honestly. With this in mind, tailor your messages to be honest in their appeal—no asterisks with hidden messages or sneakily-worded jargon that tricks people. Your audience will appreciate transparency and know you for being honest, which will lead them to pay attention to what you have to say now and in the future. On the flip side of this, remember that it’s okay to talk things up and embellish a little—so long as the message is clearly understood and everyone has the same expectations!   4 - Showcase value: Benefits-driven content is the key here and it’s truly the cornerstone of any successful marketing message. People want to know what they’re getting and they need to fully appreciate the value of what you have to offer them. Whether you’re selling a product, advertising a service, offering a membership or creating awareness, the chief takeaway from your message for every customer should be the value.   5 - Talk the talk: Know how to talk to your customers! This can never be overstated. Knowing how to talk to your customers means knowing how to relate to them, which ultimately leads to better communication and a more engaged audience. This means using the right vocabulary, embracing the right values, speaking to the right “person,” showing the right images and communicating the right benefits. It may seem like a tall order, but if you know your audience and what it has to offer people, bridging the gap to create effective marketing messages becomes a whole lot easier than you might think.   Keep these five tips in mind the next time you’re sitting at a blank computer screen trying to come up with the next feel good marketing hit of the summer! Embracing as many of these tips as you can means raising the bar for your success when it comes to pushing out messaging that’s truly effective.