How do you develop messaging that grabs attention in a crowded market?

The key thing is to do what you just mentioned -- grab attention. Do something different. Either tell a bolder story, take a different angle, focus on a differentiator, or show how other players in the market have it all wrong. This is a never-ending battle because your competitors will likely copy any good messaging you put out, so the need for new creative messaging is cyclical. I do think it’s a good exercise to act like a new buyer and see if you could easily tell the difference between your ...Read More

I don't think there is a single answer here---it is the fundamental messaging & content marketing concern! As you know, we all see hundreds of commercial and noncommercial messages every day (I've seen an estimate that the average American views 3000 advertisements daily). Breaking through is HARD. But I have a few thoughts and a framework to offer. First the thoughts: KEEP IT SHORT: Your message is better if it's brief and to the point. I'm amazed how often I get inbound email with 6 paragr ...Read More

Tell a compelling story. A story that resonates with your target audience. Something that speaks directly to the pain they are experiencing and/or describes a future state they want to be in.   You should aim for the right balance of cleverness, clarity, and cheekiness. That balance all depends on your brand and target customer. It's easy to stand out, but less easy to stand out in a way that's a positive reinforcement of your brand.    Grabbing attention is step one, ultimately you must be able ...Read More

What medium and what specific messaging? Depends on those two things (e.g., emails that capture people's attention vs website messaging that enables a staged, conversion-optimized flow of learning). Plenty of more in-depth stuff here if you could clarify what you mean. If it's the value proposition itself, then it's a question of how to design the right positioning statement. The "tried-and-true" format really emphasizes the segment you're going after as well as addresses the pain point with the ...Read More

If I read the question right, you sell sales development services, right?  Hook me: 1. Show you get my pain. 2. Teach me to be a better customer. Make fun of the pain felt by [your target] sales and marketing execs who fail to hire you or don't currently have SDR programs...  Sales reps who hate us because our leads are crap  A lack of feedback on why our leads are crap SDRs that can't seem to figure out when to nurture a prospect with more educational content vs a prospect who is ready to dive ...Read More

   My short summary is that you need to align your STORY so that it is strategic and meaningful to the prospect and teaches them how you can transform their world. You do this by putting the buyer in the Hero's role, and your offering is a supporting but critical one. ONLY After that, you need VERY powerful value based messaging. Lasting, show me don't tell me, no more long form boring whitepapers!. This is a very different discussion if on the MACRO level, how I've answered it, or on the micro ...Read More

The problem that I see in a lot of crowded markets is that players try to one-up each other with new features that the buyer either doesn't fully comprehend or care about. Start with really good buyer persona research. Personally, I interviewed several customers, recorded their answers, and had them transcribed. Then I organized quotes based on suggestions from the book Buyer Personas. Now use the language of your customer to communicate to your audience what struggles you can help them make pro ...Read More

I'm going to take a somewhat contrarian view on this and say that in order to really break through in a crowded market, it takes more than clever messaging (though that never hurts). You have to position your product correctly and you have to prove that you are better. Now would be the time to invest in a really solid customer marketing program to tell their stories of success with your product. All the better if they moved to your product from a competitor. Include that question in every win in ...Read More

"Messaging is more effective when it's aligned with the top priorities of your customer (instead of what you think is important)." Dead. On.  I'll go even further: When doing persona research, try to discuss your product/category as little as possible. Yes, you read that right. Knowing what they think about the product/category is useless if you don't know how much they think about it. The buyer* conversations should revolve around what their biggest pain points are regardless of their seeming r ...Read More