Make Marketing Suck Less

I love how the app Waze tells me exactly what to do. Now, if you're not familiar with Waze, it is a crowd-sourced directions app that tells you, like, how to avoid traffic jams, how to avoid potholes, where police are located, and all the information is provided by other drivers. I use this app all the time, especially when I'm going from Seattle to West Seattle.

What you should know about that trek is that the major bridge to get into West Seattle is closed until 2022, because it's on the verge of collapse. So that means I need to get creative when I get in my car, and Waze tells me how to get there faster.

Now, why am I telling you about Waze? Well, what if you could have an app that would tell you exactly what to say and write for your business?

It would tell you what content you would need to create for an upcoming marketing campaign or the launch of your group program, or just for general social media, like, you always know what to say. You never have to guess what's most efficient, and you would know how to bring people into your business.

Well, you can have this, but it is definitely not an app. It's called brand messaging platform, and your brand messaging platform documents how you write and speak about your business every single day. It explains exactly the unique value that your business brings to your clients, how your business is different from everyone else who does what you do, and how to persuade people and have them go from casual onlooker to wanting to be your client.

Here's the thing, every major brand has one of these, and most successful online business owners have one too, they're just not talking about it. So big brands like Microsoft have one for each of their products, I know even Frigidaire, yes, they make refrigerators, but they have a brand message platform for each of their refrigerators. How weird is that? And the reason they have one is because if you're creating a marketing campaign, you defer to the brand message platform. If you're writing copy, consult the brand message platform. If you're getting ready to do a huge sales presentation, ah, that's where the brand message platform comes in.

Unless you've gone to B-School and not the Marie Forleo variety, but the university kind, or worked in marketing in corporate America, you've probably not heard of this thing before, because we don't talk about it in online business and I am changing that today.

The great thing about having this as a small business, an online business owner, is that if you're over-thinking what to say on every blog post or podcast or social media or email you send, and you feel like you're always recreating the wheel, or you're just committing the random acts of marketing, and you're not really having a strategic message and people are confused about what you do because your message is muddled and scattered, then having a brand message platform could be the exact thing your online business needs to create, so you show up consistently and on message.

So let's talk about why your business needs a brand message platform, what goes into it? Like, what does this thing look like and how you can begin creating your own so that you can always powerfully communicate the value your business creates any time you send an email, create a social media post, or plan a launch. So let's do this.

So why do online businesses need a brand message platform? I believe there are four big reasons.

The first is consistency and repetition.

Online business owners, since we are a team of one or two, maybe five, we always are recreating the wheel when it comes to marketing, like creating new social media posts and new podcast content, and when you start to know exactly what to say to make sales happen in your business or to grow your audience, then what you get to do is become consistent so you are repeating your key messages over and over again, and you know that these key messages build relationships with your audience and help them make the decision to become your client or customer.

So when we have a brand message platform, that means there's no more random or erratic acts of marketing. We're always on message, the message has a purpose in your business to build your audience, find the right clients and generate more revenue.

The second reason, the process of creating a brand message platform brings radical clarity and confidence.

I see this with my clients all the time when they first come to me. Like, they're amazing at what they do, they are experts, they are multi-passionate, their clients love them, they get great results, and where their confidence really takes a hit is that they're not clear about how to communicate what it is they do in a compelling way that people can easily understand.

So when you go through the process of creating a brand message platform, you're going to have radical clarity about how you talk about your business, and then that's going to give you confidence, the confidence to sell, the confidence to show up and market, because you see the value in your own work. You know why it matters to people and you can communicate that well.

Number three, it saves a shit load of time.

Think about how much time you spend writing and creating content, on creating social media posts and emails for your list. Like, no one ever told us when we started our business that, "Wow. There's gonna be a lot of writing involved in this," but there is. And when you have a brand message platform, you can refer to that, and then it cuts down on how much time it takes you to create content. And you can even start repurposing content again and again and again, because you know it works.

Finally, the final reason is you can hand it off to a copywriter, a marketing team, a social media strategist, and they know exactly what to say and post for you.

Like, they don't have to do any of that work of helping you figure your message out because, I know a lot of copywriters and social media strategists, and if people don't have their message figured out, it makes it really hard for them to do their job. Because their job is not to define your message, their job is to, if they're a copywriter, to take your message and turn it into great copy, or to take your message and turn it into social media posts, right?

So now there's always this objection about the consistency and repurposing and saying the same thing over and over again. "Won't my audience know that I'm repeating myself?" And the answer is no. For the vast majority, no. They have no idea that you're repeating yourself, and so I have this favorite Instagram post that I have posted multiple times now that says, "I can't remember what I ate for dinner two nights ago. How do you think I'm gonna remember what you posted on Instagram two weeks ago?"

Every time I post this, people comment, they respond, they like it, all of those things. And you know what? It's some of the same people who've seen it before. They just don't remember. And even if they do remember, they tend not to care, because it's a good reminder for them.

I think Brené Brown is a great example of this. When she did her Netflix special, there was nothing new in it. Like, if you are a hardcore Brené Brown fan and you follow her work closely, you would have learned nothing new. But for her, it was important to stay on message to expose new people to her work. And you know what? I love that Brené Brown special, even though I heard it all before.

The final part of this is like, "Ugh, Michelle, what if I get bored?" First, you want to be bored with your message. Your message is not where your creativity should be going into. You should not be recreating the wheel. Like, this should be a system in your business, an automatic process. Yes, you will refine it. Yes, you will experiment. Yes, you will figure out what works and how to make that better, but you're not... it's not an outlet for your creativity.

So it's good that you get bored, because that means you are being consistent and people can know what you're about.

All right. So now that you know why your online business might need a brand messaging platform, and we got around some of the objections of having one, let's talk about the nitty gritty.

What goes into a brand messaging platform?

The type of brand message platform that I create in the 3 Word Rebellion Messaging Intensive looks a little bit different than what you would find in the corporate world, because for us solo business owners, or us with a small team, I really want to be focused on how we can persuade people. So what does it look like to become an engaged audience member? What's the journey we have to go on to become a client?

So in the brand message guide, we include, obviously, your 3 Word Rebellion. So this is the change you want to create. It is the message your audience communicates for you when you're not around. And it's the message that you want to be known for, so really this is your positioning, but it's so much more than the I-help-X-do-Y-so-that-they-can-Z positioning that we see on LinkedIn profiles all the time.

The second part of this is developing the audience deep dive, so all messaging begins with your clients, with your audience, with the people you want to reach. We wanna talk about what they are doing, what are they seeing, what are they saying, what are they hearing about your area of expertise. We wanna know what they're challenged by, what they struggle with, what's frustrating to them and what they're hoping for at the end of this. Like, what's the change they actually want to seek, and how do you know if they're ready for change?

So once we have that, we can move into what I call the client decision journey. And these are three to five key messages that your business consistently communicates. And underneath each of these messages, there's usually about 5 to 10 different conversation starters that you can then convert into social posts or emails, or use it in marketing campaigns, or a launch campaign, content comes from here. But we need to understand, like, what conversations do you have to create in order to help people decide if they wanna follow you, decide if they wanna sign up for your email community, decide if they wanna sign up for a consultation, or decide to work with you. So the decision journey is a bulky part of the brand message platform, but this is where a lot of your marketing and copy will come from.

We also will talk about your model, your methodology or framework, so how do you explain the work you do at a high level that people could easily understand? So this is something like I use in sales conversations all the time, when I'm talking to someone and I'm like, "All right. We go through a four-phase process and here are the phases." That is my framework. It makes it easy for me to communicate the work that I do.

Next are signature stories. I'm always about cultivating at least three of these, sometimes five, but it's important that people feel if you want them to act. This is how we build trust. This is how we build empathy for the people we want to help. We also create what Marty Neumeier calls a why buy statement, in your brand message guide. And this is the promise your business delivers. It's the most compelling reasons to buy from you, and it is something you will say over and over and over again [laughs], whether it's podcast interviews or sales conversations, um, my why buy statement is the headline on my page for the 3 World Rebellion Messaging and Marketing Intensive. We use it all the time. I've actually already used it in this show once. Mmm... interesting, huh?

And then finally, I always give people a marketing strategy. And this is not like a complex marketing strategy. It's very simple. It focused on, like, where are you showing up, what activities are you doing to grow your audience, to engage people, have them raise their hand and say "yes" and make your offers. Because this messaging does no one any good if it dies in a Google Doc. Like, if you get a brand message platform and you never look at it again, it's not going to help, so how do we create a marketing strategy that is simple and easy for you to get your message out into the world?

So this is the blueprint. This is where all of your marketing and sales efforts come from and are inspired by. And I have linked to a three-minute Loom video in the show notes to walk you through my brand message guide. You can also go to drmichellemazur.com/bmg and that will take you to the video to view it. So now you're thinking, "Okay, this sounds pretty good. I would love to have my messaging documented, but how are my... how are your clients, Michelle, using this?" Well, they use it all the time to create podcast c- pitches, to create speaker one sheets or podcasting one sheets, which are more popular, to create social media on a regular basis, create a launch campaign, keynote speeches.

This is still something I hel-help a few clients do is we take their brand message guide and then create a keynote speech from it. And oh my gosh, it makes creating a keynote speech so much easier, copywriting, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, basically, anywhere your business communicates. Because remember, words are the currency of business. Words create the awareness of your business. It communicates the value your business creates. Words help influence and inspire other people, so words matter. And how you speak about your business matters because it's what your clients remember.

And your brand message platform is how you stay on message in all of your marketing efforts. Now, a brand message platform might be hard to create on your own because of the curse of knowledge. What I see with my clients is that they are so close to their work, they don't understand what's really important to their audience and their clients about what they do. And sometimes they are so close to the work that they forget why their work matters. And I know when I'm on a sales conversation with someone, the number one thing I hear all the time is, "I feel like I should be able to do this myself. I do it for other people." And no, no you can't do it for yourself. Heck. I can't do it for myself, and this is all I do for clients all day long, because of that curse of knowledge, we're just too close.

If you want me to create your brand message platform for you, this is the deliverable that comes out of the 3 World Rebellion Messaging and Marketing Intensive. And this program helps you powerfully communicate the value your business creates, whether you're marketing to one person or a million, you'll leave with all of the parts of the brand message platform that we've discussed. And you'll know exactly what to say to convert strangers into clients, and you'll leave with a marketing strategy that makes implementing this message easy.

So to find out more, go to drmichellemazur.com/3WR. That's drmichellemazur.com/3WR, and request a consult with me to see if this is a fit, until next time, remember, your words matter. Your message matters. How consistent and clear we are can radically move our business forward, and then we are reaching more of the right people and impacting their lives.