Message-To-Market Match: 6 Key Elements That Skyrocket ROI

Have you heard of Dollar Shave Club?

They sold (without being the manufacturer) cheap plastic razors and grew in a market that was in decline capturing something like 10% of the US market, before Unilever forked out US $1 Billion Dollars to buy them in 2016.

You see Dollar Shave Club was not just selling razor blades…. They sold convenience – fresh razor blades arriving on your doorstep every month.

See one of their iconic ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI (1 minute 33 seconds)
Short news interview with Michael Dubin, Dollar Shave Club founder, talking about their strategy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WjriDkVIbw (2 minute 35 seconds)

They recognised that razor blades were a commodity that you could buy anywhere, so they decided they were going to take a unique selling angle that would set them apart in a market that was really quite generic and controlled by big, well established brands.

….. in fact they turned being a small, new brand into an advantage. They weren’t weighed down by big corporate expectations around how branding and advertising should be done, so they could:

1. Take a fresh, irreverent approach to their marketing.
2. Focus messaging around what they considered a need in the market that was not being addressed.

In years gone by this was referred to as guerrilla marketing, but with relatively cheap digital marketing options now available, this has become a mainstream approach for smaller businesses.

It’s easy now to target your ideal clients through targeted web-based campaigns that do not require >$10,000/month budgets.

And with highly targeted marketing campaigns you can achieve very tight message-to-market matches that drive a high return on investment. That means you are not running branding campaigns that yield results a year down the track – your returns are realised immediately or in the short term, which is more feasible for small businesses managing tighter cashflows.

So how do you take the Dollar Shave Club approach?

1. Identify who your market is

We’re talking getting focused – the 20% that drives 80% of your business. Identifying what/who that is and building your marketing message around that.

Now, we’re not necessarily talking about changing your business model overnight – it might be just identifying it for a single marketing campaign and driving traffic to a specific landing page that has that high message to market match (at least o start).

So who are you targeting in this market segment , what problem do you solve for them, why you’re the one for them, what the offer is and what the next step is

2. What problem are you solving?

There are the obvious problems you solve – the external, tangible parts of what you do. For example, a financial planner they sell advice and investment and insurance products, each that makes sense at different life stages, to secure an individual’s financial wellbeing in the present and the future. They have experience from dealing with different scenarios day-to-day that the regular person does not have.

Then there are the internal problems you solve….what keeps people up at night. For the financial planner, their clients are fearful that they won’t be able to put money away and invest it for a comfortable retirement without losing all their savings, and even the belief that they are not savvy enough to even use the online trading platforms that are now available. Even that they might be letting their spouse down because they don’t know how to make sure they are prepared for retirement.

This is taking the “consultative selling approach” where you surface the real issues that are at play for your clients and address them.

3. Why You?

This is where you establish empathy and authority.

1. Empathy in that you understand where they are at – either you have been through what they are experiencing, or have helped people just like them.
2. Authority in that you have the runs on the board – you’re qualified and have the expertise. This may be highlighted by the number of years you have been in business, the number of clients you have helped, volume of sales, clients you have worked with (particularly if they are recognised brands), your supply partners, qualifications and certifications, awards, testimonials, media exposure, etc.

4. How your ideal client will achieve a successful outcome (your plan/process)

This may not be as important for lower priced products and services, but as the product or service becomes more complex and/or expensive, or even less tangible. You want to show that get started is easy and low risk and that you are there to make the whole process of achieving a successful outcome simple.

Take, for example, business coaching. It’s a professional service that is not easily defined even for those that have niched down their target market. This is a situation where it makes sense to break down the process into something that could be understood

1. We’re going to start with a no obligation free discovery call where we identify the key issues holding you back to see if we’re a fit.
2. We schedule a half day or full day diagnostic session with key stakeholders in your business
3. We deliver full report with an implementation schedule for how we are going to work together.

There are different ways you can represent a process for your business, e.g. a diagrammatic representation such as this that we use for ourselves.

Having a diagram like this has a number of benefits:

1. Let’s clients know that we do more than maybe they realised.
2. Lets them know that we’re going to think big picture to make sure they have everything in place to ensure they are maximising their digital presence and campaigns.
3. Lets us explain that we need to review what they have in place because having some elements missing may result in an underperforming campaign. We sometimes offer a paid diagnostic based on this diagram.
4. Lets clients see that we offer potentially more than they originally thought – we actually have different funnels where the entry point focuses on one element but once they are in the funnel it highlights how that one element fits into a bigger picture.

The key is to simplify what may actually be a quite complex offering, and make it more tangible in the mind of your prospects. They may realise that each step has a lot of moving parts, but the idea that you have a “system for success” in place provides reassurance – a basic representation is only enough to give tangibility to your offer, something they can “understand”.

5. The offer and how to claim it

Craft an offer that drives action. Simply listing everything you can do is no different to your competitors, so what can you package that becomes an absolute no-brainer for your ideal clients, and then tell them what the next thing they need to do is.

Depending on your service or product it could be

• Discount – be careful about discounting if you are selling your time.
• Bundling – this might be 2-for-1 deals or multi-purchase discounts. If you’re selling your time, this is the better way to discount, e.g. if you’re a chiropractor and the numbers tell you people are more likely to stick for 10 visits if they do 3 visits then you might do an offer on 3 visits.
• Bonuses – add perceived value. For example, you might be able to add a bonus worth $100 that only costs you $20.
• Guaranteed results
• Just framing what you do for your particular target market in such a way that your competitors are not, e.g. you specialise in accounting for veterinary practices…. I don’t think I’ve seen a single accountant claiming that.

As far as your call-to-action is concerned, do not be afraid to repeat your call-to-action – buy, call, book, whatever it is. You might rephrase it, but make sure people do not have to look far to find it – include it in your header and footer, and it is not unusual to repeat it more than once in your copy.

6. What success/failure looks like

You have to be careful in the way you highlight failure – do it wrong and you’ll come across as heavy-handed and tacky. Some markets work well for highlighting failure – look at World Vision ads – they use the failure side of the equation to use guilt to push you to action, i.e. if you don’t donate then kids will continue to starve.

Most businesses will do better spending time focusing on what success looks like – painting a picture of a better tomorrow. People want to see themselves in a state where all of their problems are solved, the weight is off their shoulders and they can just enjoy life – show them the possibilities.

Going back to Dollar Shave Club, what was success for their target market…. Knowing that every month new blades would turn up so every week they could start with a new blade – sign up once and they would not have to worry about new razor blades again. Pretty simple problem but for a lot of people it just made sense.

These are the building blocks for every bit of marketing you put together

If you clearly define these 6 elements, these are the building blocks for marketing campaigns that convert. You know exactly what needs to go into every campaign, from your ads through to your landing pages, to your emails, and even your sales calls/presentations.

This approach focuses on the why, not the what, of what you sell. If you know what motivates your ideal clients, the benefits and outcomes they are seeking, then you’re going to achieve more success with your marketing.

Remember the saying, “People buy on emotion, and then justify their purchase with logic,” so stop selling the features and start selling the benefits.