Creating an effective marketing message usually calls for a three-step approach. Define your audience, define your goal, and define your message – in that order.
1. Define your audience
Who are you marketing to? Who are you hoping to motivate and persuade? Sure, you want to get more clients – but get more specific than that. Go beyond the obvious. Take notes about each client you work with and then compile the notes. Review them prior to each marketing project you undertake.
Create a mental picture of your typical prospect. What do they look like? What do they want? What concerns them? What satisfaction do they seek? When you can answer all of these questions, you can move on to the next step, defining your goal.
2. Define your goal
Under this step you might add the steps of clarifying and simplifying your goal. The clear part is obvious – a clearly defined goal is a goal more easily attained. Simplifying doesn’t mean making your goal trivial but rather just reducing the goal to its purest form.
Strip away anything that’s not critical to the precise objective you want. If you have several goals for your...