Marketing messaging strategy 101 (a guide for course creators)

What is a marketing messaging strategy?

A messaging strategy defines how you communicate your course’s value.

Your messaging strategy is the plan you use to convey the benefits and value of your course to your target audience. It makes sure your communication is clear, consistent, and compelling.

Without a well-defined marketing messaging strategy, your potential students might not understand what your course offers or why it’s valuable to them. This can lead to missed opportunities and lower conversion rates.

Think of messaging strategy as the blueprint for all communications about your course. It guides what you say, who you say it to, and where you say it.

When done right, a messaging strategy helps build trust, differentiates your course from competitors, and drives engagement and conversions.

Key components of a messaging strategy

1. Audience

Identifying and understanding your ideal customer avatar is the first step in creating a strong marketing messaging strategy. Your message will be weak if you’re unclear on who you’re speaking to.

Start by defining the key traits of your audience.

• Demographics: Determine the age, gender, education level, and job title of your audience. For example, your audience might be working professionals aged 25-35.
• Psychographics: Understand their interests, values, and lifestyle. For example, they might value financial security and enjoy trading stocks, perhaps while living with their parents.
• Goals: Identify what they hope to achieve in your area of expertise. For instance, they might want to save enough money to put down a deposit on their first home.
• Challenges: Recognise any obstacles or pain points they face. For example, they might have limited funds and low risk tolerance – which means they get slow returns on their trades.

Understanding your audience means you can speak directly to their needs and desires, making your message more persuasive – and your course more attractive.

Pro tip

Focus on one audience at a time. Messaging is more persuasive when it’s specific. If you have multiple segments, prioritise one to start with and then create secondary marketing funnels later on. Casting a wide net only dilutes your message.

2. Proposition

The next part of a marketing messaging strategy is a clear and compelling proposition that resonates with the audience you’ve defined.

Think of your proposition as a bridge between where your audience is now (Point A) and where they want to be (Point B). Your course is the solution that gets them from A to B.

Example 1: Pain Avoidance

• Location A: “My dog pulls on the lead.”
• Location B: “I wish my dog would stop pulling on the lead.”
• Proposition: In just two weeks, our course will teach you simple techniques to stop your dog from pulling on the lead, making walks enjoyable again.

Example 2: Desire-Focused

• Location A: “I’m working as an accountant.”
• Location B: “I want to get a job in cybersecurity.”
• Proposition: Our cybersecurity bootcamp gives you the skills and knowledge to land your dream job in cybersecurity within 12 weeks.

Remember your proposition isn’t just one sentence; it’s the offer or promise underlying your whole messaging strategy. It’s often distilled into headlines or value propositions, but it’s present throughout all your marketing messaging strategy, tying everything together.

A strong proposition consistently reminds your audience of your course’s value – at every stage of your marketing funnel.

3. Channels

The final part of a marketing messaging strategy is selecting the right channels to deliver your message. These are the platforms and mediums you use to deliver it. These could include social media, email, paid ads, and more.

The key is delivering your proposition to your audience in the right context and at the right time. Even a perfect proposition won’t convert on the wrong channel. You need a concrete plan.

Framework for evaluating channels

To determine if a channel is right for your marketing messaging strategy, consider these factors:

1. Audience presence: Is your target audience active on this channel? For example, conferences can work for reaching professionals, whereas TikTok is better for younger audiences.
2. Context and relevance: Does the channel fit the context in which your audience would want to engage? For example, accountants are more likely to engage with work-related content on LinkedIn than on Facebook.
3. Engagement potential: Can this channel result in meaningful interactions with your audience? For example, webinars or live streaming allow for real-time engagement, while print marketing doesn’t.
4. Reach and accessibility: How broad is the reach of the channel, and how easily can your audience access it? For example, email marketing has a broad reach and is easy for people to access. Conventions, on the other hand, have a smaller reach and attendance is more difficult.
5. Cost and resources: What are the costs and resources needed to use this channel well? For example, Google ads are more expensive than community marketing, but the latter might take longer to deliver returns.

Pro tip

Focus on one main channel to start with. It’s better to have a strong presence in one place and improve your approach than to spread yourself too thin with a scattergun approach in your marketing messaging strategy.

Optimising your messaging strategy

Developing your marketing messaging strategy is just the beginning. To make sure it’s working in practice, you’ll need to monitor KPIs and continuously optimise your approach – whether it’s working or not.

Check KPIs against benchmarks

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are stats that help you understand how well your marketing messaging strategy is performing. Comparing your stats with industry benchmarks will tell you where you can improve.

For example, common benchmarks are:

• Facebook ad click rates of at least 0.9%
• Email open rates of at least 20%
• Landing page conversion rates of at least 10%

If your KPIs are significantly lower than their benchmark, your message isn’t resonating with your audience yet.

Conduct split testing

Split testing (or A/B testing) involves testing multiple message variations to see which performs better.

But beware – it’s only possible to do accurate split testing if you have a reasonably large audience. If your sample size is too small, your result won’t achieve statistical significance, meaning you might as well be acting on random results.

You can use statistical significance calculators to check if your sample size is big enough, otherwise you’re best to skip this in your marketing messaging strategy.

Pro tip

Use the top of your funnel for testing. The further up your funnel, the more traffic you’ll have. Tens of thousands might see your Facebook ads while only a few hundred will see your sales emails. That means you can test your subject lines or value props in your ad copy and get statistical signifance.

Get feedback from your audience

If you can’t do split testing, user testing is the next best thing. This is where you ask people directly for feedback on your messaging.

Options for audience testing

• Reach out to people in your audience: Approach people directly and let them know you’re conducting research for your marketing messaging strategy. Arrange a Zoom call with them and show them your copy. Ask them to narrate their thoughts as they read your message – and take notes!
• Use user testing platforms: Websites like UserTesting can be helpful, although finding niche audiences might be harder on these platforms. These platforms try to match you with your target audience, then you can collect feedback.

Whichever option you choose, the priority is asking good research questions and letting them talk. No leading questions. That way, you’ll get their organic response to your marketing messaging strategy.

Key takeaways

The main points to remember for a strong marketing messaging strategy

• There are three key components - You need to understand your audience, offer a compelling proposition, and choose the right channels to deliver the message.
• You must understand your audience - Define their demographics, psychographics, goals, and challenges so you can speak directly to their pains and desires.
• Make a compelling proposition - Your proposition should offer to take your audience from their current situation (A) to a desired outcome (B).
• Choose the right channels - Use platforms where you can connect your proposition with your audience in the right context.
• Keep testing your message - Track KPIs, conduct split tests where possible, and collect user feedback to monitor how well your message converts at all stages of your funnel.

Follow these steps and you'll create an effective messaging strategy that builds trust

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