It’s the one thing that holds so many companies back, and it comes up time and time again. It seems obvious yet it ties people in knots. We’re talking about the question of clarity.

This month at Valuable Content we’ve been working on several projects distilling the messages of new clients, and working on masses of content creation for existing ones. We’ve been wrestling with the importance of getting those most basic messages clear, so we thought we’d share our thoughts with you.

Before you think about starting your marketing, get your story absolutely straight. If you want to get really good results out of marketing, put time and effort into making sure your proposition is crystal clear.

No amount money on your website, no amount of tweeting, blogging, or public speaking will get you the results you really want if people don’t really know what you do. Want to get more referrals and leads? Be clear on what you do and who you do it for. Let people know what you want to be famous for, and then spread the word.

We know it’s difficult. Many business owners fear closing the door on potential opportunities, and see being pigeonholed as a recipe for lost sales. The temptation is to want to be all things to all people, but this leads to nebulous positioning. Dilute your message and it becomes weaker. The result?  No one truly understands what you do (see our recent article: Narrow your niche for more leads).

So what can you do?

5 ways to get clear on your message

It’s all very well saying you need to get your offer clear, but how do you achieve this clarity? Here are 5 ways we help our clients to get to the heart of their business message:

1. Look at what you do from your clients’ perspective, not from your own. Your clients don’t care about your products or services, they want to know what’s in it for them. Put yourself in their shoes. Here are 5 questions to help you communicate what you do from their perspective – 5 questions to help you communicate what you do

2. Talk to your clients. Everyone talks about knowing what your customers want, and listening to them, but if you want real clarity you should ask them directly. Read our article on the power of asking your clients for direct feedback – Ask your clients for feedback

3. Think like a book author. We find that the clients we help to produce a business book have a blinding moment of clarity on their business proposition too. So, think like a book author. If you were going to distill all your knowledge into a book for your client base, what would it be about? What would it say? Some of these book planning questions will help -12 questions to plan your book with clarity

4. Get some emotion into your offer. People respond to emotion, not logic when they’re buying. read Jim O’Connor’s excellent article – Emotion, not logic will get your message across

5. Get some outside help. This is really, really hard to do by yourself.  Get a view from the outside. Hire a talented copywriter like Sharon to help you here.  Helping businesses get to the valuable heart of what they do, and creating the voice to tell their story, is what she likes to do most.

So what are you waiting for? Get thinking, asking, and talking. Cut out the waffle surrounding what it is you do, polish up the jewel at the centre, and shine!

Are you looking for clarity on what you do? Everyone talks about knowing what your customers want and putting their needs at the heart of your business, so how about talking to them directly?

Ask your clients why they engage your services, what problems you solve and the benefits you bring. Check what they like about your service and what they think you could improve on. What makes you different or special in their eyes?

And the most powerful question of all? Ask them how they would describe what you do.

5 reasons why asking clients for direct feedback makes sense

1. Clients like to be asked. Contrary to what you may think, most clients really welcome your request. They want to tell you how they feel about your work and what would make the process even better for them in the future. Simply asking them makes them feel valued.
2. Your clients are the best people to tell you what you do. There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than the ability to see your company through your customers’ eyes. Often what you think you’re good at is not where the real benefit lies. This will give you a whole new perspective on what you do.
3. They’ll tell you how to market your business. Your customers know how they want to be communicated with and what information they like to receive. Ask them, and they’ll tell you honestly. They’ll show you where to focus your marketing efforts in the coming year.
4. You’ll get testimonials for your website. Positive feedback means valuable testimonials for your website. Most clients are happy to give you a testimonial after a successful project, but they find it difficult and time consuming to craft one. This process will ensure you get meaningful quotes without too much effort on your clients’ behalf.
5. It will boost your confidence. I’ve conducted this process for many business owners this year and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Any criticism has been wholly constructive. It’s a hard slog running a business and glowing feedback is a welcome boost, particular in these uncertain times.

Don’t conjure up your value proposition in a vacuum. Involve your clients in the process.

Getting someone independent or unconnected with the project to conduct this research often works best. Clients tend to be more open and honest if they talk to someone who wasn’t involved (and it’s less uncomfortable for you).

Select five of your top clients or projects, structure your list of questions in advance, pick up the phone and record their answers verbatim.

You’ll be amazed at the value of the information you get back.

Further reading:

For a bit of enlightenment on the client perspective, have a look at Sonia Simone’s fantastic article ‘50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew’.

Struggling to position your company effectively and generate leads? Step back. Stick your stake in the sand and target your marketing efforts at a particular niche. This post looks at focused positioning and the benefits of ‘going niche’.

The subject of niche specialisation is a contentious one for many small consultancy companies. The fear is that if you focus too narrowly you’ll miss out on opportunities: seeking general appeal in large markets is seen as the safer option. You see large, successful companies that are broad-based so you assume your company must be too. The truth is that most successful companies don’t start out broad.

Former chief evangelist for Apple, Guy Kawasaki describes the niche dilemma well:

“The more precisely you can describe your customers the better. Many entrepreneurs are afraid of being ‘niched’ to death and then not achieving ubiquity. However most successful companies started off targeting specific markets and grew (often unexpectedly) to great size by addressing other segments. Few started off with grandiose goals and achieved them.” Guy Kawasaki in The Art of the Start

As a small company if you fail to specialise you run the risk of trying to be everything to everybody and failing to be remembered – your messages effectively disappear between the cracks. The more precisely you can describe your customers, address their issues and deepen your knowledge the more success you’ll get.

5 solid reasons why niche specialisation makes sense

1. It is far easier to market a specialist proposition – marketing starts to make sense. If you commit to an area of focus you have a very specific audience to market to and clear messages to communicate. The Internet makes this more of an opportunity for you than ever. Focus you efforts on a narrow niche, build targeted content and get found.
2. Clients like to know that you work for people just like them and understand their specific needs. Know what your customers really want and build services, messages and content just for them. You’ll deepen your knowledge and build a pool of expertise to refer to over time.
3. If you want to be seen as a leader in your field you need a field to lead – what do you want to be known for?
4. If your proposition is specialist and clear people you are easier to refer. Specialisation means more inbound leads through referrals.
5. Stating your niche doesn’t mean that you won’t get work outside your niche occasionally. As Charles H. Green says:

“You’re better off giving concrete examples of what you can do; people in other niches can abstract to what they do better than they can assume capability from a set of generalities.”

To make your life easier start by identifing a target market and develop your service to be ‘remarkable’ in that niche. Anchor your pitch by telling your chosen customers how you will solve their specific problem.

I’ll leave you with this from Guy Kawasaki:

“Put one niche in your basket, hatch it, put another niche in your basket, hatch it…and soon you’ll have a whole bunch of niches that add up to market domination.”

Examples of companies who benefit from niching themselves

Their knowledge, passion and focus is compelling:

• Hinge Marketing focus on branding and marketing for professional service firms: www.hingemarketing.com
• Conscious Solutions focus on marketing for law firms: www.conscious.co.uk
• And most niche of all: Mike Redwood is a consultant for the leather industry: www.mikeredwood.com
• Newfangled focus on websites for ad agencies: www.newfangled.com. I highly recommend their superb article on their niche approach > read: ‘For the love of agencies’

Valuable Content associate and message master Jim O’Connor shows you how to get your message not just heard, but accepted:

“When marketing your business, are you pushing on a door marked pull? I’ve done it. Then looked around to check who is watching. Embarrassing, or what?

Sadly I see a lot of small and medium sized businesses making the same mistake. Not just once. But repeatedly. They put a ton of effort into getting to the door of the audience’s consciousness with pay-per-click, SEO, contact lists, database management, email templates, Twitter, tracking systems, and a host of other technological tools. Only to find it shut in their face.

Why? Because most people are sick of being bombarded with sales and marketing messages – they just want to be left in peace. Getting prospects to open up requires a totally different approach.

How many geeks does it take to change someone’s mind? None!

A hi-tech approach will get the message delivered. But you need a hi-touch one to get it accepted. Hi-touch is all about seeing things from the audience’s perspective – understanding their feelings and emotions, hopes and fears, then tapping into them. That’s how the big successful brands do it – watch their TV commercials.

Take UPS. You can’t get more logical than logistics, and yet they succeed in making it sexy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRAHa_Po0Kg  

But what do most marketers do? They focus on themselves, listing as many features of their product and service as possible. They might throw in a few benefits, almost as an afterthought, but they tend to be logical (save time, save money, increase productivity, improved return on investment…).

All those benefits are in the UPS commercial (listen closely to the lyrics), but they are so skilfully wrapped up with positive emotions that it’s the heart which gets the message first. Here’s a hi-tech company that totally gets hi-touch!

Why the message must be hi-touch

People have incredibly short attention spans. If you don’t immediately focus on them, and plug straight into their heart, they hit the mental delete button.

People generally buy on emotion, then use logic to justify the decision they have just made. So the features, and the logical benefits can be in there – but you have to win their heart first. Look at the UPS commercial again. Note how the golden shield logo (logical benefit – protection) is repeatedly mirrored by golden hearts.

You are in a crowded marketplace. There’s little difference between what you and your competitors are offering. So listing features and benefits ensures you are not going to stand out – it’s marketing suicide! If you doubt this, read Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow”. Or read the precis at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/67/purplecow.html

Do something different. Focus on what your prospect wants, show you understand how they feel, and then offer a solution (ideally expressed with a little wit and elegance). Immediately you leap out from the crowd. And suddenly the prospect likes you.

It’s not rocket science (precisely my point). It’s simple awareness of basic human nature. And it makes all the difference.

Stop pushing! You’re just annoying people.

But what do most businesses do? They get to a closed door, and push up against it with features and benefits. They knock, they shout, they push some more, desperately trying to stick logic in the audience’s face.

Then, eventually, they accept something is not working. But do they question the message, and the way it is being expressed? No. They stick with hi-tech and fiddle with the mechanics – let’s look at triggered email, let’s change the engagement metrics, let’s do more tracking via email analytics, let’s try Twitter, let’s get some more virtual phone apps…

They are missing the point. It’s the message! Give your messaging a thorough review.”

Thanks Jim. That’s a really important reminder to get the message straight before you start creating and sharing your content.

Jim O’Connor started his career as an advertising copywriter. His skills in pinpointing and expressing clear marketing messages are as pertinent today as they have ever been. You can find him at Stories That Sell: http://www.storiesthatsell.co.uk/.

Your inbox (and head) is no doubt brimming with good advice & resolutions for the coming year. If you are still grappling for clarity on the marketing aspects, here are a few recommendations to build into your plan:

1. Make your web strategy bigger than your website

Your website is a vital marketing tool but it’s not the only place on the WWW that needs your focus. Most businesses put all their web energy into their company site and wonder why they don’t get much benefit from it in terms of leads.

“75% of your focus should be on what is happening outside your website,”

say Halligan and Shah in their brilliant new book ‘Inbound Marketing’. They recommend an increase in general web activity in order to draw people back to your website. Good advice. For 2010, consider social media, posting articles on affiliated websites, contributing to related forums, pay per click campaigns & email newsletters; all with links back to useful content on your site. For maximum exposure: ”make sure you and your company’s DNA shows everywhere, across hundreds of sites” (Seth Godin).

2. Produce useful, informative content

The purpose of marketing is to connect with potential customers. Marketing literature that simply screams ‘We’re the best!’ is no way to start a relationship and build trust. Instead of shouting at your customers, try connecting with them. Create useful, informative content that helps solve their business problems. Become a useful resource.

The attitude should be not ‘Look how great we are!’ but ‘Look how useful we are – we have the answer to your problem’.

In terms of content, there are many options open to you: articles, ‘How to…’ guides, whitepapers, case studies, webinars, videos, e-books – the list goes on. Whatever medium you chose, make the content valuable to your buyers: help them: educate them; prove your expertise and earn their trust until they are ready to buy. Valuable content sells.

3. Think niche

Struggling to position your company effectively and generate leads? Step back: stick your stake in the sand and target your marketing efforts at a particular niche. The more precisely you can describe your customers and address their issues the better. This is a contentious subject as Guy Kawasaki describes:

“Many entrepreneurs are afraid of being ‘niched’ to death and then not achieving ubiquity. However, most successful companies started off targeting specific markets and grew to great size by addressing other segments.”

If you want to sell successfully, you can’t be everything to everyone. What do you want to be known for? To make your life easier start by identifing a target market and develop your service to be ‘remarkable’ in that niche. Anchor your pitch by telling your chosen customers how you will solve their specific problem. Don’t be afraid to turn people away.

4. Get into social media

Face it – social media is now mainstream and for good reason too. Sites like LinkedIn and Twitter are immensely valuable business tools for professional businesses and consultants. Used effectively they’ll help you to build your community of contacts & extend your reach; they are easy-to-use broadcast channels for your ideas and content; they open up a dialogue with other experts, customers and contacts, refining your own expertise. Social media enables buyers to ’see who is talking sense’ in the sector they’re interested in, giving information to build knowledge and trust before entering the sales phase. NB: This route is most effective when combined with a business blog (to share your ideas) and a newsletter (to maintain contact).

5. Remember your existing customers and contacts

“Stay in touch. Too many businesses chase new businesses chase new business when existing customers and contacts are far more valuable.”

So says smart marketeer Mick Dickinson and he is right. If you want to make life easier and more enjoyable this year, don’t just focus on trying to wrestle strangers through the conversion process: devote more time and effort into communicating with your current contacts regularly, in ways they appreciate and find useful.

Keeping in contact in ways your customers find valuable is the most effective route to consistent sales. If you communicate regularly in ways they appreciate, they’ll reward you with referrals and new business. A monthly email newsletter is a very effective way to do this – Mel Lester, a US-based management consultant I follow on Twitter, produces the most valuable, targeted newsletter I’ve seen to date: see - http://tinyurl.com/yenvzqd.

I really hope these 5 suggestions help you. As ever, I’d be fascinated by your feedback: how are you going to promote your services this year? Anything important I’ve missed off the list?

Sonja

In December, most small business owners snatch some time in between signing Christmas cards to think back over the year and assess how the business has fared. You’ll check the figures – profitability, margin, new clients won – and compare these with previous years. Even if this year has been a good one, you’ll wonder how to improve your marketing to weather the storms that may lie ahead next year. But where do you start?

There’s one really simple thing you can do to kick off your marketing efforts in the New Year. Before you even think about calling in the designers to redo your website, starting a blog or recruiting a new sales person, get some feedback from your customers on the work you’ve done to date. 

If you devote some time and careful attention to this, you’ll be delighted by the results and your business will benefit in more ways than you think.

Five good reasons why asking your customers for feedback is a great idea:

1. Customers like to be asked. Contrary to what you may think, your customers will welcome your request.They want to tell you how they feel about your work and what would make the process even better for them in the future. Simply asking them makes them feel valued.
2. Your customers are the best people to tell you what you do. There’s nothing more powerful in marketing than the ability to see your company through your customers’ eyes. Ask them how they’d describe your company if they were recommending you to a colleague. You’ll be surprised by the results. Often what you think you’re good at is not where the real benefit lies. This will give you a whole new perspective on what you do.
3. They’ll tell you how to market your business. Your customers know how they want to be communicated with and what information they like to receive. Ask them, and they’ll tell you honestly. They’ll show you where to focus your marketing efforts in the coming year.
4. You’ll get testimonials for your website. Positive feedback means valuable testimonials for your website. Most clients are happy to give you a testimonial after a successful project, but they find it difficult and time consuming to craft one. This process will ensure you get meaningful quotes without too much effort on your clients’ behalf.
5. It will boost your confidence. I’ve conducted this process for many of my clients this year and all of the feedback has been positive. Any criticism has been wholly constructive. It’s a hard slog running a business and glowing feedback is a welcome boost, particular in these uncertain times.

It’s important to put some careful thought into this before you speak to your customers. Here are a few tips on how to approach the ‘ask your clients’ process to get the best results:

• Pick 5 key clients. Not just your most successful projects, but your most important projects. Don’t be afraid of negative feedback. Most clients know the value of constructive feedback, and you can learn valuable lessons from their comments.
• Ask your clients’ permission and brief them well. I’ve found that this process normally takes about 15 minutes of their time. It works best if you email them first and say that someone will contact them shortly to book a slot in their diary for a telephone conversation.
• Get someone independent to contact them. The process works best when someone unconnected with the project/client conducts this process. Clients tend to be more open and honest if they talk to someone they don’t know who was’t involved (and it’s less cringeworthy for you!).
• Structure your questions. Here are a few ideas:
  • “What were you expecting from Company X? What did you buy?”
  • “How have they helped you? What problems have they solved?”
  • “How do they compare to other approaches you have looked at?”
  • “What advice can you offer them for future projects?”
• Record their comments verbatim. This is far more powerful than somone’s interpretation of the feedback.
• Thank them personally for their help.

Start the New Year with a bang. Before you do anything else on your marketing for the coming year, try getting feedback from your customers. You’ll be amazed at what you get back.

Further reading: for some enlightenment on the client perspective, have a look at Sonia Simone’s fantastic article ‘50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew’.

Great businesses have a clear purpose; something bigger than just revenue or profit; certainly something better than what was there before. For me this is one of the things that separates the great from the run-of-the-mill.

I’ve been lucky enough to work for a couple of these ’super companies’ recently (see examples below). I know when I’ve found one because my job as a content writer becomes so easy:

Their enthusiam and passion is contagious; I get totally caught up in the company’s proposition; I can’t wait to start writing their web content and, what is more, I rave about them to anyone who stands still long enough to listen. Their fight is my fight; I’ve signed up to their crusade.

This might sound like an unachievable ambition for all but the blessed few, but in my view, if you dig deep enough and ask the right questions, most businesses can uncover their hidden crusade.

Some questions to help you

If you want to set your company apart and uncover your hidden crusade, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What inspired you to set up in business? What difference did you set out to achieve? What do you stand for?
• Why is this important to your clients?
• What bugs you about your industry? What are the burning issues you now look to solve for clients? What pain do these issues cause?
• What do you want to do about it? How do you solve these issues?
• What are the benefits of your fresh approach? How will it improve your customers’ lives?

A useful distinction

These questions will help you to work out what you are FOR and what you are AGAINST. You can see this distinction at work in the two business examples below; it’s immediately obvious what Jane and the guys at Footprint stand for.

This is a really useful distinction to make when you’re defining what you do. Try it.

What are you for and against?

Then communicate it to your customers, your contacts, on your website and face-to-face. Inspire them to join your crusade.

2 small businesses with missions that inspire:

Jane Northcote – making change happen in organisations:

Jane is a client of mine, a hyper-intelligent and immensely pragmatic and effective consultant, who I greatly admire. I’ve worked for her on and off for a number of  years now; it’s taken some time (and the writing of her first business book) to uncover her guiding mission. Here’s what she’s stands for:

Jane works with teams in the corporate world to implement change. Most approaches to change focus on the theory behind the process - on planning or strategy or consulting frameworks – what we ought to do, when and if we get round to it. Jane concentrates on action. When the analysis has been done, the strategy decided and the framework presented, somebody has to do something. Jane is for that moment.

Through her consulting work, books and training materials, she’ll show you what you actually need to do to make change happen. I recommend her highly. See www.janenorthcote.co.uk.

Footprint Building – creating beautiful, sustainable homes

Footprint is an ethically-minded building company in Bristol. They bring a fresh approach – sustainable building techniques and an ethical stance with absolutely no compromise on quality and craftsmanship.

The founders have been at their top end of the industry for a long time. They’d seen what a negative impact the building trade was having on the environment; they’d had enough of depositing huge amounts of waste to landfill, using toxic products and timber from unsustainable sources. It was time to make a difference.

They set up Footprint Building to help people create beautiful homes that are healthy, energy efficient and sustainable. Their excitement and drive is truly contagious. They launched last month and the orders are already piling in. They start on my house in the autumn! See www.footprintbuilding.co.uk.

How about your business? What do you stand for? What are you FOR and AGAINST? What’s your crusade?

I’d love to know what works for you.

• Another company on a mission: Yoke Design
  
• 5 questions to help you communicate what you do
• Make your offer crystal clear
• Emotion, not logic will get your message across
  

“SO, WHAT DO YOU DO?”

If a potential customer asks you to describe what you do, what do you say?

In my experience, the usual response is a literal one:

• “We’re IT developers. We build web-enabled retail systems.”
• “I’m a builder. I renovate old houses.”
• “We’re a recruitment company. We source contractors.”

This is all very well; it’s part of the answer, but it’s not actually what your potential customer wanted to hear when he or she asked what you do. I think there’s a better way to get your message across – verbally and on your website. It’s a case of understanding where your customer is coming from and answering the right question.

What customers are really asking

What customers ask and what they really want to hear are often two different things entirely. When they ask you what you do or look at your company website, what they’re really trying to ascertain is:

“Are you someone who can help me solve my particular problem?”

If you just give a factual explanation of your services, you’re not really answering their question. As David Meerman Scott says in his recent blog article on www.webinknow.com:

“Customers don’t care about you and your products or services. They care about themselves and their problems.”

You need to spell out what’s in it for them. You need to need to tell them what kind of issues you solve and for who. You need to show them that you solve problems for people just like them.

5 questions to help you

So, if you’re setting up a new business or redefining an existing one, here are 5 crucial questions you need to answer to get your customers’ full attention:

1. CUSTOMERS: Who do you work for? What kind of people benefit from your help? Where are they based?
2. ISSUES: What kind of issues or challenges do you solve for your customers? When should they pick up the phone to you?
3. SERVICES: How do you help them? What kind of services do you offer? What’s your process?
4. BENEFITS: What kind of results or outcome can they expect from working with you? How can you prove this?
5. MISSION: Why are you in business? What difference did you set out to make? What’s your crusade?

Whether you’re writing your company website or describing what you do in person, remember to answer these questions. Don’t just talk about what your products and services do. Tell your customers how you solve their problems. This is what they really want to hear.

A formula to work to

Further reading: Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing is particularly good on the subject of describing what you do. See www.actionplan.com. He calls this your ‘Audio Logo’. Here’s his formula:

What do you do?

We work with (this target market) ……….

Who (have this issue or challenge) ……….

How do you do that?

We help them get (ultimate outcome) ……….

Tell me more

A good example is (success story) ……….

• Make Your Offer Crystal Clear
• Emotion, Not Logic Will Get Your Message Across
• Narrow Your Niche For More Leads
• What is Your Crusade?