Key Marketing Messages

Often when I talk to clients or teach classes for the Long Beach Nonprofit Partnership, I refer to “key marketing messages.” I start by asking them what their key marketing messages are without telling me their product. Clearly defined key marketing messages reveal a strong brand that people understand instantly without necessarily knowing your product or mission.

Talking about their own product or service without naming their product or service consistently stumps them. Then I ask them to describe the Apple Store and in comparison, describe Best Buy. They usually come up with a list like this:

Apple Store

Cool

Sleek and Subtle

Cutting Edge

Best Buy

High Volume

In Your Face

Bargain

They didn’t mention one product or one service. They mentioned the qualities that permeate those stores, those brands, and thus become their key marketing messages that are communicated clearly, and intentionally.

As another example, I ask them to name a fast food chain that uses red and yellow in their logos. The top two to get named are usually McDonald’s and In-N-Out, though there are many others that also use yellow and red in their logos. When asked to describe these two restaurants, I usually hear the following:

McDonald’s

High volume (over 30 billion served)

Dated

Junk Food

In-N-Out

Fresh

Clean

Efficient

Note that the menus of the two restaurants have great overlap. They have burgers, fries, shakes and sodas. They both even have a double patty burger. Even though they both use the same colors, they are drastically different in how they communicate what they do. In-N-Out features crossed palm trees giving the subtle message of life, freshness, movement. McDonald’s has the golden arches—long lasting, immovable. Their brands come through in so many more ways than just through the colors of their logos.

While my clients and students are spouting off their products and services, I caution them to describe the feeling or the essence of how they do what they do to boil it down to their key marketing messages. There are two roads I see them consistently take.

Nonprofits often go to their list of core values. Key marketing messages are close to core values, but usually people don’t describe a business as having integrity—a common core value--unless they’ve seen that organization face a crisis. Core values may be the foundation of their key marketing messages but they usually are not marketable in their raw form. You don’t walk into Apple and say, “Wow, what an honest company.” Of course there are exceptions. Public safety consistently uses values as key marketing messages and they use them consistently. “Protect, honor and serve” is communicated with a navy blue or black uniform, worn proudly and properly. “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is truly a values statement, but we can’t all be Superman.

Business professionals, on the other hand, tend to go to testimonials that show gratitude for the product or service they provided. Again, no one walks into an office and says, “Oh, this company is very appreciated.” That’s not to say that we can’t or won’t use testimonials in our marketing materials, but testimonials usually do not spell out your key marketing messages.

Sometimes clients will offer their media messages, also often referred to as key marketing messages, usually making use of superlatives like first, best, only, biggest, and so on. I refer to those as “talking points” that may change depending on the issue at hand. There will surely be an overlay of your key marketing messages, but talking points alone do not express your key marketing messages.

Your key marketing messages expose the essence of your brand—beyond the colors of your logo. Your marketing materials, the way you personally present yourself, the look of your office and everything you do should express these key marketing messages clearly.

Looking at the lists above, you can see that McDonald’s is struggling a bit. Surely this was not their intended list of messages. It’s not that you can’t sell those items and be successful—we just pointed out how wonderful In-N-Out is selling the same items. McDonald’s needs to reevaluate what their key messages are then match those through everything it does. If you visit their corporate website, you can see this phrase under the Ray Kroc story: Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value, but when you go to their “values” page, they list their community service endeavors—sustainability, green, recycling and animal welfare. If they stuck to Ray Kroc’s list, they’d probably be okay. It’s the quality of their product that constantly comes into question. Balancing quality with value is probably the quagmire they face in their marketing platform on a regular basis.

So how do you develop your key marketing messages? Simply ask yourself what three things would you want your target market to associate with you. I personally want people to think of McCormick L.A. as creative, straightforward, and knowledgeable. Everything I do I can measure against those three things as the essence of my brand.

Examine what you do and how you do it then boil that down into three words that describe your organization or company. Don’t get bogged down in worrying whether other people say these same things. A unique sales positioning statement comes after this. Look back at the lists of Apple and Best Buy. Those same messages can apply to BMW and Kia.

Define these and you will have the best tools for measuring all of your marketing tactics. If you find what is mirrored to you is not your intention, as in the case of McDonald’s, then it’s time to re-brand. 

Marketing ≠ Advertising ≠ Public Relations

Synonyms? No.

Almost the same thing? No.

Duplication of efforts? Absolutely not!

Contrary to how the words ‘marketing,’ ‘advertising,’ and ‘public relations’ are commonly used in the marketplace, they are not interchangeable. Here is the simplest definition I can give you to help you understand the relationship of these three words.

Marketing

Marketing is the big umbrella term here. I like to describe marketing using Four Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. As you can see, marketing means more than promoting a product or service. It means developing and offering a product or service that people want, then putting it in the right market, at the right time, at the right location and then strategically getting the word out about it.

The P for Promotion branches into two segments: Advertising and Public Relations. These two ways of promoting an item or service (your Product) are not the same thing. Both Public Relations and Advertising are meant to evoke feelings about your product to the point that your audience will be inclined to buy your product, that’s where the similarities end. Though they have a common goal, they are completely different and work hand-in-hand for a really successful campaign.

Advertising

The easiest way to define this was how my advertising professor in college described it. “Advertising is paid persuasion.” You buy ads. You dictate where they will go, the size, the copy and the artwork. You get exactly what you paid for and if you placed the ad in an outlet that reaches your target market, then you might garner some sales. Placing just one ad won’t do it except in rare circumstances. You have to keep the ad going with some consistency to get the results you want.

Public Relations

If Advertising is an anchor, then Public Relations is a cloud. Public relations activities are those things that help you relate to your customer. The message is carried through different channels than advertising. Contests, giveaways, news articles, awards, advocacy efforts, and so on, down to the basics of how you answer your phone are all elements of public relations. As deliberate as PR activities are, the results are in the hands of others. Journalists, editors, and your target audiences decide what they will do with the information you give them as part of your PR plan.

That’s as simple as I can make it. Now you can use the words with some confidence that you know what you are talking about. 

Saving the World as a Marketing Technique

For poor children. For cancer research. To save the rainforest. For more sales!

Is “social responsibility” a “marketing angle”? The answer is yes, and sometimes more than that. I have used social-conscious appeals for my own clients and they have worked great. Lately, however the trend is growing and businesses are designed completely around this aim. In other words, saving the world in one way or another is the purpose of their company, enmeshed in their business plan, not just an overlay in their marketing plan.

The way to the cause

Here are three main avenues that businesses choose to save the world:

1. Nonprofits including foundations and philanthropic agencies with a specific cause;

2. For-profit businesses that launch specific campaigns for a cause (the marketing overlay); and 3. For-profit businesses that are built around a specific cause.

Lately the retail sector seems to be on fire to save the world, including for-profit businesses with an aim to make a difference. The Body Shop was one of the first I can remember that encouraged reusing their plastic bottles and making it popular to forego a bag for your merchandise. Now it’s a prevalent values statement for companies. Whether it’s a free pair of shoes going to a third world country for every pair you buy (TOMS), or a percentage of proceeds going to medical research (Happy Nappers, and many more), these philanthropic endeavors draw us to products so we too can help save the world.

Is it a gimmick?

When the purchase of a product benefits the world, the feel good appeal puts consumers in a position to reason, “If I buy this, I help the world too. How wonderful!”

Reading TOMS website, you’ll find it very convincing that selling shoes in a for-profit environment (online, Nordstrom) is a means to an end. Basically, that the mission of the company is to shod children around the globe, and selling shoes helps make that mission possible. It’s no different than a non-profit holding a dinner auction to raise money to buy books for local children. Same result, different angle. Very clever!

If you’re going to buy it anyway, okay. But let’s be clear that those companies are not philanthropic, 501 c 3 nonprofit organizations. They sell stuff and make money. They are using their generosity as a marketing angle to get you to choose their product over another—and join their team to save the world. The retail sales price of one of the “buy one and another goes overseas” products, pays for two of those products, the shipping to get the one to a third world country, the staff to oversee that endeavor as well as the production of the product, and enough money to make a profit. In other words, you are helping to save the world with your pocketbook, which is similar to a nonprofit contribution, but the company makes a profit. The company also benefits from the marketing and perhaps tax deduction of its donation. The retail price for a pair of TOMS, for instance, ranges from $38 for kids to $98 for a pair of women’s vegan boots and $100 for men’s perforated leather shoes. Not exactly on the low end and not a tax deduction for you. 

Does it Work?

As a consumer, you can instead buy the competitor’s product for half the price and give the difference to your favorite nonprofit. But, as a start-up business, this might be an angle to consider. After all, TOMS has donated more than 1,000,000 pairs of shoes.

Lately it’s very cache, even important, to have a social-responsibility factor in your marketing plan, your mission, or in your core values. It does work. People want to feel they are backing companies that recycle, use sustainable products and natural resources responsibly, and have an organic, natural feel to them.

I think this is a generational trend as much as it is part of the prevailing “rivers of thought.” The Millennial Generation is generally socially liberal and is disgusted by waste (i.e. paper bags), and tends to feel a strong obligation to take care of the earth. Composting = good; drilling for oil = bad. Companies that don’t have a social agenda are off-putting to them.

What Can You Do?

More old-school professionals are not as blatant with their community service. They volunteer to serve on boards, they chair fundraisers for non-profit organizations and they sponsor charities with cash and prize donations. Their service is personal and doesn’t necessarily involve their whole business and its personnel.

If you run a small business and a cause is not already at the center of your existence, there are still many ways to help without doubling your prices to do it. Local eatery Johnny Rebs has coin jars on the tables next to bowls of peanuts for their patrons to deposit a few coins or a dollar when they dine. Their “Shell Out for Charity” campaign raises money for charities that rotate throughout the year.

Martha Alderson, the Plot Whisperer promised to plant a tree for every Like she got on her Facebook page during a certain time period. She reports that 120 tree seedlings were planted in American forests from her campaign.

You can do something simple or you can choose to do something very ambitious like create your own fundraiser or service campaign. Large or small, it is important to give back to your local—or global—community.

What Else Is True?

How many versions of the truth are there? Some would argue that the truth is finite and therefore just one answer for any question. That’s true in math and for some sciences, but not for most of everyday life.

More than once, I have used kaleidoscopes in training presentations to represent that there are many versions of the truth. Ask three people to look through a kaleidoscope and tell you what color is in the center and you are more than likely to get three different answers—all true.

I use this demonstration to show that many people—though appearing to disagree—can in fact be telling the truth. It’s the truth as they see it, as they know it and commit to it. Some people are open to understanding that other answers may be correct and some people are insistent that their answers are the ONLY right answers. That’s where group dynamics get interesting.

I’m not suggesting to abandon all of your opinions in the name of compassion or cultural sensitivity. I want you to apply this thinking to your press releases. Most of the time, your press release will be used as a starting point for a reporter. The reporter will interview people that you mentioned and people that you didn’t. The reporter might already have an idea about your topic and take a completely different angle than what you suggested, simply because they see it differently.

Before you issue a press release, read it like a reporter taking it as an assignment, acknowledging that the reporter sees the center of the kaleidoscope differently than you do. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Does anybody care about this? Have I compelled them to care? What’s newsworthy about it?

I once had a client who was nominated for an award that she did not win. She asked me to issue a press release about it. About what? As Gertrude Stein said, “There’s no there there.” Unless there was something she had overcome to get nominated in the first place, there was no reason any newspaper would pick it up. There were no qualifications for the nomination either, anyone could nominate anyone.

2. Can a reporter take action with this story?

In other words, let the reporter know your news before it happens so they can be there and take some pictures. If you are reporting something that already happened—a decision, an event, an award—then supply pictures and quotes to the press regarding the reaction to what happened. 

3. If a reporter speaks to my competition or opponent on this topic, what will he or she say?

Anticipate your opponent’s side of the story and refute it. Right up front, just get the naysayers out of the way. If you know the other guy says the center of the kaleidoscope is yellow when you contend it is blue, then address it like this. “Though many people claim that the center is yellow, they fail to take into account that the kaleidoscope needs to be turned 45° in order to be viewed according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. When used properly, the viewer sees blue.” Hyperbole aside, you want to address the issue and get it out in the open in a way that leads the reader to agree with you. Some reporters will incorporate your statement and not call the opposing side for an opinion, while others will call your competition right away. 

4. Are my statistics and facts accurate and proved by a legitimate agency or organization? Are there statistics refuting my argument?

This is extremely important. It’s very easy to lie with truthful statistics. If I say, “Our program has a 98% success rate,” that sounds impressive. But if I left out that the success rate is only based on the 40% who stay in the program, that could pose a problem if the reporter digs that far. Perhaps 40% retention is better than your competition and you’re still okay. Think about the other side of the statistics before you publish them. If 40% stay in the program, what happens to the 60% who dropout?

Be mindful that there are more versions of the truth than what you are putting in your press release. Think them through for optimum results. 

Derek Sivers has become one of my favorite speakers to watch on YouTube with short TEDtalks. Here’s his video that demonstrates how things are different (or weird) worldwide.

Cash Caveat

Times are tough for everyone, but especially small business owners. I have noticed a few e-mails and Facebook postings offering great discounts if you pay cash. Cash is king but promoting that you want to be paid in cash and will offer a sizable discount for it, is like waving a big red flag that says, “Turn me in for tax evasion!” 

The Board of Equalization, where businesses report and pay sales tax in California, has a long list of clues that help people report possible tax fraud. If you are not guilty of tax evasion, then take some steps to make sure you are in the clear. Cash is still a legitimate currency, of course.

1. Cash vs. Credit Cards

You, as a business owner, may offer a discount for using cash instead of credit cards to avoid the business fees that banks charge for using credit cards. Some businesses even offer to “pay the sales tax for you,” meaning they back the tax out of whatever price you pay. These days, that’s a pretty decent savings in most parts of California.

2. Receipts

As a legitimate, tax-paying business owner, you need to issue a receipt for cash or any other type of payment. Not issuing receipts is another red flag to the Board of Equalization.

3. Liquid Cash

It’s common when a store is liquidating its inventory because it is closing, that the management or the liquidators running the closing sale will ask for cash. A receipt is still necessary.

As a customer, be aware of businesses offering certain programs as cash only. They might not just be evading their taxes, they might be on the brink of going out of business. Don’t spend $60 cash on the day spa program that promises five visits with several services, that each usually cost more than $60--especially if they are selling it to you in the parking lot. Something’s wrong with that picture. They might be closing tomorrow leaving their customers with no recourse for the services or to get their money back.

When businesses avoid paying their taxes it puts a greater strain on city, county and state resources and may actually cause taxes to go up. 

Be a good corporate citizen: if you offer a discount for paying cash, and want to promote it to the masses, then make sure you follow the rules and keep yourself beyond reproach.