How Weak Messaging Can Derail Your Demand Generation?
Have you wondered why potential prospects walk away from your Tech firm without buying?
Do you know why your demand generation campaign is not yielding any result?
Do you know why sellers simply cannot connect with prospects and articulate value?
TechCEOs and leaders usually assume it’s your products, service offerings or lack of right references that keep prospects and clients away from you.
But often, it’s simply that you are confusing the heck out of your potential prospects and customers, and they’re going to competitors whose messages they can easily understand.
Have you watched any Hollywood movie lately? If we watched Harry Potter try to knock off Voldemort, settle into a nice lifestyle with his friends AND discover his true identity and past, that movie would be terrible. Real life is messy, but movies filter out all the clutter and give us a clear, compelling story.
Here are the three most common ways that Tech firms confuse (and lose) customers:
1. You only talk about yourself. Your messaging is ‘Me Centric’.
This is probably the most common thing TechCEOs do to confuse their customers. They lead by talking about themselves. Their service offerings, history, their awards, how long they’ve been doing business in the South East Asia, India and the US. Customers don’t understand how the information is relevant to them, and they tune out.
Why?
Simply, as human beings, we are tuned (or designed by god) to spend less mental energy to live for another day. There is simply no incentive to stay around and understand all the bells and whistles about your company and what you have to say!
So when you start talking about your company by saying you founded the company 5 years ago, what do you think your customer’s brain is doing? It’s burning calories trying to figure it how you starting the company and offering these services are going to help them?
They are already fatigued looking at gazillion offerings, choices of companies, their packed calendar, emails, ads in social channels, personal challenges at home and now your ME ME ME message! Let’s take a look at this example of a tech firm.
Everything about this website home is about ME ME ME.
Is there anything about this website homepage message that clearly communicates the following?
Who am I trying to help?
How do I help them?
Why do I matter?
What’s my promise?
Do you think the ‘already fatigued brain’ of your prospects and clients will try to understand you and how they can engage with you? You are making life difficult for your customers in an already competitive business environment.
2. You communicate too much
The sooner you understand this, the better off you’ll be:
Human beings do not buy the best products and services. They buy the ones that they can understand the fastest.
But every TechCEO or marketing leader tends to make their products and services more complicated than they need to be.
That’s because we all have what we call “the curse of knowledge.” We are so close to the nitty-gritty details of our tech products and cloud & AI gizmos that we can’t “zoom out” enough to think about how our customers might encounter them for the first time.
In other words, we know too much, and that knowledge does two things: first, it causes us to make assumptions in our marketing. We never spot the language and terminology that confuse our customers because those things are second-nature to us.
Second, it causes us to give customers too much information too soon. Customers get overwhelmed and tap out. This has been proven, by the way. In a 2018 study, two researchers put out chocolate bars at a grocery store. Some shoppers chose from six different kinds of chocolates. Other shoppers chose from 24 varieties.
Here’s what happened. A measly 3% of those who had 24 choices ended up making a purchase, while nearly a third of people bought when there were only six chocolate bars to choose from.
The upshot for us? When we communicate to our customers, we need to keep it simple. Trying to communicate too much ends up paralysing our customers. They may forego buying altogether or find a competitor with a simpler pitch.
3. Failing to open any loops
Your brain is hardwired to pay attention to what we call “open loops.” This is known as the Zeigarnik effect, and the idea is that we pay closer attention to those things which aren’t completed. Quite simply, our brain holds onto them because it wants a resolution.
Our lives are full of open loops. Hunger opens a loop, and a sandwich closes it. Cold opens a loop, and a warm fire closes it. Try humming “Jack and Jill” without singing the final note. Annoying, right? That’s your brain trying to close an open loop.
When we don’t open loops in our customer’s minds, they have no motivation to engage us. There is no tension that demands resolution. As a result, they don’t understand why what we’re offering matters to them.
To ensure you don’t confuse customers, you need to open these loops.
We helped one of our clients, GTKonnect, do this well. They doubled interest in their campaign by simply communicating one thing. Their CEO, Anand Raghavendran, went on the air in a concerted campaign and said, “Dear trade management professionals, I know you have a problem. Your are looking to avoid making errors in a fast changing trade management landscape and SUCCEED in your job.”
That’s a pretty simple thing to do. Yet, what does it do in your brain when the CEO of a company says, “I know your GOAL is to SUCCEED in trade management function?” You pay attention to that message, because you want to know if they’ve fixed it. That’s the open loop.
To close the loop, you’ve got to find a partner who can help you succeed with less effort. That resolves the question he opened up in your brain.
In their messaging, most companies fail to open up these kind of loops that can only be closed by inquiring or purchasing. As a result, customers find us forgettable and uncompelling, and they simply move on.
Does your marketing do anything I describe on this list? If so, chances are, you are confusing and losing customers. If your products are strong but your business isn’t growing, see if you can spot and resolve these missteps in your marketing. With a few tweaks, you’ll communicate in such a way that connects with prospects and generates more sales.
4. You are not telling a story that clients can buy
Finally, TechCEOs do not tell a story that clients can relate to. Your prospect is not interested in deep discovery of AWS cloud and finding out the nuts and bolts of getting their micro-services or API architecture from the word go.
They simply want to onboard more customers, uplift Gross Merchandise Value, reduce cost or testing overheads. That’s it.
So how can you tell a better story that can resonate with your buyer persona?
If you are ME centric, tell too much and simply do not close the loop in communication, your messaging is going to crappy, disjointed and sound like a 124 byte clunky spitter spatter machine.
You have to tell the story of your customer’s transformation with the need they had before meeting you and how different their life is after you helped them experience that beautiful transformation. The story and messaging should be ALL about your customer phrased from their perspective.
They are the hero and you are the yoda who is leading them to their holy grail.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 3 ways I can help you grow your tech business:
1. Grab a free copy of useful stuff that can help you grow your tech business. More in our blog.
4 Ways to Position Your Tech Business to Attract More Clients Click here.
3 Mistakes to Avoid In Your Tech Business To Grow Revenue Click here.
Do TechCEOs Get ROI from Marketing Click here.
Should Tech firms consider Re-Branding to Drive New Demand – Click here.
2. Schedule a 15 Minute assessment call with us – Click here.
We have worked with a bunch of tech companies and have offered them systems, strategies and coaching to attract and convert clients. We help you install sales and marketing systems that automate stuff and help flood leads and drive higher revenues and margins. Talk to us.
3. Join our TechCelerate Implementation Program and be a Case Study
I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at TechCelerate this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with us on your client-getting and scale plans… just reply to this message and put “Case Study” in the subject line.
Life is short. Take action now and grow. Best Wishes.