In This Issue...

• Editor's Note
  One of the biggest frustrations for those creating messaging is the use of subjective evaluation criteria such as "I like it" or "I do not like it" because...
  
  
• Feature Article
  PART TWO: The Principles of Highly Persuasive Messaging:
  Create Your Most Effective Messaging with These Objective Evaluation Criteria
  
  
• Silver Bullet
  Using Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to Accelerate Market Share Growth

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Editor's Note

One of the biggest frustrations for those creating messaging, and the deliverables in which it goes, is the use of subjective evaluation criteria, such as "I like it" or "I do not like it" because ...[insert person/boss's opinion here]. You can improve this situation greatly when you use objective evaluation criteria to create and defend your work. First get your team/boss's agreement to create and use a set of objective evaluation criteria. Then use this article as a starting point for your conversation. Once complete, evaluate your messaging/deliverables using those criteria. Not only will you enjoy your work more, you will also create much more effective messaging and deliverables.

Do you have a success story about using objective evaluation criteria? Please share your success and thoughts using the link below.

Regards,

Michael Cannon

Michael Cannon is a sales and marketing effectiveness expert, best-selling author and speaker on topics related to sales messaging and the strategic sales planning process.

[Author's note: The conclusion of this two-part article presents the 10 remaining criteria, or principles, to be used as a checklist in evaluating the effectiveness of your sales messaging, the most crucial category of messaging in persuading potential customers to buy your product or service. In the previous edition of Sales Messaging Matters (Vol. 5, No. 1), Part One covered the first 10 of these essential criteria, such as targeting the buyer by audience type and buyer role and defining clear capability advantages. Click here to view and/or print this two-part article in its entirety.]

Feature Article

Part Two — The Principles of Highly Persuasive Messaging:
Create Your Most Effective Messaging with These Objective Evaluation Criteria
by Michael Cannon

As stated in Part One of this article, in the world of business-to-business marketing, messaging is the words you use, along with supporting visuals, to persuade people to buy from you. Sales messaging, a breakthrough category of messaging, is the most effective messaging you can create as measured by its ability to persuade the most people to buy from you. (Click to learn more about the different categories and types of messaging, or learn about the difference between sales messaging and a value proposition.)

Numerous research reports show that the problem with most messaging is that it is ineffective. For example, in the IT Buyer Survey from International Data Group (December 2008), it was found that "58% of a vendor's marketing content is not relevant to potential buyers and reduces the vendor's chance of closing a sale by 45%".

One of the main reasons for ineffective messaging is the use of subjective criteria, such as conciseness, clarity, relevance to the target audience, addressing of the prospect's pain points, likeability, etc., to evaluate messaging effectiveness. These evaluation criteria have a different meaning to each person. What seems "relevant" to one person may not be relevant to another. It's very difficult to create effective messaging using subjective evaluation criteria.

It’s very difficult to create effective messaging using subjective evaluation criteria.

What is missing is an objective set of criteria, or principles, that is clearly defined, agreeable to the majority of people responsible for creating and using the messaging, and easy to use when evaluating messaging effectiveness, prior to formal market testing or launch.

This is the gap in the current marketing approach that “The Principles of Highly Persuasive Messaging” fills. You now have an objective set of criteria to use as a checklist when evaluating the effectiveness of your messaging. Review your messaging now by asking, Does your messaging…

11. Employ Multiple Differentiation Themes. There are five important differentiation themes that you can include in your messaging: Time, Money, Risk, Strategic, and Personal. The more of these differentiation themes you use, the more likely you are to attract and create buyers. Examples of strategic differentiation include increased productivity, return on invested capital, faster time to market, etc. Examples of personal differentiation include peer recognition, promotion, bonuses, etc.
    
    
12. Make the Customer the Hero. A lot of messaging repeatedly uses the company’s name, and pronouns such as we, us, and our. It is written from the perspective of what the company or product does, or can do. Buyers do not care about your company or products, they care about themselves. So, stop making your company/product the hero of the story. Instead, turn your customers into heroes by rephrasing the messaging to use pronouns such as customer, you, and your as much as possible.
    
    When you create your messaging with the customer as the hero of the story, the impact of your messaging increases dramatically. You also enable prospects to more easily visualize themselves using your company/product as a tool to become a hero in their company.
    
    
13. Align with the Psychographic Profile of the Buyer. This is a sophisticated way of saying that your sales messaging must be tuned to the buyer’s values and needs. For example, in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, there are four buyer profiles. They are Visionaries, Early Pragmatists, Late Pragmatists, and Conservatives. Your messaging must be tuned to each buyer’s compelling reason to buy or his/her buying theme. (Learn more about aligning messaging with the TALC here.)
    
    
14. Avoid the Use of “GOBBLEDYGOOK” Adjectives. Words such as highly integrated, future-proof, scalable, flexible, world-class, best of breed, innovative, industry-leading, next-generation, robust, cutting-edge — and the list goes on — do one thing: they reduce the effectiveness of your messaging. These adjectives are not the words your buyers use to describe what they want and are so over-used that they have no meaning. They get in the way of crisp, clear communication; give your company and product a “me too” position in the mind of the buyer; and encourage commoditization.
    
    
15. Pass the Substantiation Test. If you had to prove that your messaging is accurate and truthful, could you do it? If you cannot substantiate your messaging, then you should not use it. Using unsubstantiated messaging will, sooner or later, cause you to lose credibility with the customer, and with the sales teams delivering your message. It’s a poison pill with a devastating impact on the effectiveness of your marketing and sales investments.
    
    
16. Pass the Sales and Customer Validation Test. Since a lot of messaging is developed without Sales or Customer input, it’s critical that we do a reality check with these key stakeholders. Do they agree that the key buying question you are answering is the right or most important question to answer? Do they agree with your answer? What do they like? Dislike? Why? These simple validation tests can be done over the phone, in less than an hour each, and will help you ensure acceptance from prospective customers and adoption by the sales team.
    
    
17. Differentiate You in the Market. In order to have truly effective messaging, especially for competitive differentiation, no other company should be able to make the same claims as your company. The buyer must perceive that your company is different from all the other competitive options and vendors. If you took your messaging and replaced your company name with one of your competitor’s names, would the messaging still be true? If yes, then your messaging is not going to be very effective.
    
    
18. Use Highly Relevant Visuals That Appeal to the Buyer’s Emotions. Some common adages are “a picture tells a story” and “people buy on emotion and justify rationally”. Thus, it’s important to include visuals (pictures, graphs, diagrams, charts) that align with your messaging and amplify the buyer’s emotional reasons to buy.
    
    
19. Summarize in Three Key Points. It is a proven fact that people remember things best when they are presented in groups of three, and certainly no more than five. Since the brain works this way, you can best optimize your sales messaging for maximum impact by organizing your sales messaging into three to five key points…or Silver Bullets, as we like to call them.
    
    
20. Fit on One Page. Less is more. Buyers do not have the time or the inclination to read multiple pages that list extensive reasons why they should buy your product or service. Also, comprehension and retention are increased when information is presented in easily digestible amounts. One page is a good rule of thumb. This helps your sales team remember and articulate your great sales messaging, and your buyers are more likely to understand, remember…and buy too.
    
    

The more of these principles your messaging incorporates, the more effective it is. Moreover, since messaging is “the fuel” on which all your marketing and sales engines run, it will also have a big impact on the effectiveness of all your marketing and sales investments. Typical results from companies that implement great sales messaging include:

• An increase in sales leads and sales pipeline growth of 10% to 20%
• An increase in win rates of 15% to 30%
• An increase in market share of 5% to 10%
• A reduction in the amount of time Marketing spends supporting Sales by 40% to 50%

Better messaging means better results. It’s truly a silver bullet to help you increase market success and gain a more sustainable competitive advantage.

Michael Cannon is an internationally renowned sales and marketing effectiveness expert and best-selling author on topics related to sales messaging and sales planning. For more information, visit www.silverbulletgroup.com or call 925-930-9436.

Silver Bullet

Using Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to Accelerate Market Share Growth

There are only two ways to accelerate market share growth: 1) Create more business opportunities in your market/accounts, and 2) win more of the business opportunities in your market/accounts.

TCO is the total cost to own and use your solution (product and/or service). It includes acquisition cost, training, maintenance, upgrades, etc., until the asset is replaced.

Using TCO to Create More Business Opportunities
Early in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC), the key buying question you must answer in order to "create business opportunities" is some version of "why should I change-out/upgrade my current solution with a new solution?" It's about the business case for change. How is spending money going to help the customer make more money? The comparison is the customer's current solution versus the proposed new solution and the advantages of changing, i.e., the value delta between current state and new state. The bigger the value delta, the more likely customers are to change.

Reducing TCO is one good reason to change from a business case perspective. There are many others as well, such as faster time to market, increased productivity/revenue, higher return on invested capital, improved margins, etc., that are probably even more compelling and that should be considered in a "why change ROI?" business case.

There is also a good chance that the competition can give the customer a TCO story for change, too. So using TCO to convince a customer to change is a good start, but it's not good enough, since it often creates an opportunity for your competition as well.

Using TCO to Win More Business Opportunities
Later in the TALC, or buying process, once the customer has made the decision to spend money changing-out/upgrading his or her current solution, the key buying question you must answer shifts to some version of "why should I buy this new solution from you instead of competitor X, Y, or Z?" Now you need to "create an order" for your company. The reference point for comparison is your solution versus the competition's solutions, and the advantages of selecting your solution, i.e., the value delta between your solution and your competitors' solutions. The bigger the value delta, the more likely the customer is to buy from your company.

In this "order-creation scenario", the TCO story needs to change to why/how your company can provide the "Best TCO" as compared to the competition. It's a different set of TCO calculations than that used to convince the customer to change. How much less expensive to own and upgrade is your solution as compared to the competition? How are you going to reduce the risk that the customer will need to "forklift upgrade" and buy a completely new solution? This is how you can use TCO to create greater competitive advantage and increase your competitive win rate.

ACTION ITEMS: 1) If you are using TCO in your go-to-market process, then determine if it aligns with the core teachings above. If it doesn't align, then commit to updating your use of TCO. 2) If you are not using TCO to accelerate market share growth, then set aside some time to determine if you should. 3) The gold standard for marketing/selling technology is Geoffrey Moore's Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC) model. Click here to learn more about using the TALC model to generate greater market success.

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