One small question to change your marketing

Brands, messages, core values. We marketing types often get accused of throwing around buzzwords like these. We like them. We coin new ones all the time. And often, we expect our clients or those non-marketing folks in our offices to know what the heck we're talking about. But the reality is, you can throw away the fancy terms and focus on one thing that is simple to understand. And that one thing will help your business.

Guaranteed.

That thing is called a key message. And it's what separates "marketing" from "communicating."

What the heck is a "key message," anyway?

Simply put, your key message is the one thing that you want your prospects, clients and customers to know about your business in any particular context. It’s why you are communicating with them in the first place. Now, there may be plenty of things that you want to convey in any given situation, but there is always one key message that overrides all of it. Get to that and your marketing conversation becomes much easier and more effective.

Key messages are also situational. While they should never run too far afield of your overall company message, they are driven by audience and by context. What you most want to communicate when issuing a news announcement is not always the same as what you most want to communicate when developing a new market sector brochure. But those messages must smoothly fit together.

The next time you're writing a new communications to your prospects and clients, step back from the branding buzzwords. Ask yourself one question: what do we most want people to know about this service, offer, news?