BY Jessica Helinski
Sales messaging isn’t just a message you send through text or social media; it encompasses everything you communicate throughout the sales process. Steli Efti writing for the Close blog, gives us this definition:
“Sales messaging is the basic foundation of how you describe your company, product, and mission. It should include the main benefits of your product and pain points you can solve. This foundation is later used to create scripts, email templates, and other sales collateral.”
It’s important that sellers craft their messages thoughtfully to make sure they are engaging the right buyer with the right message using the right method.
Sales messaging: Why it’s crucial at the start of the process
While what you communicate is always important, your messaging is especially impactful when you first engage with leads. It’s these first interactions that will capture, and keep, a prospect’s interest.
“Once you get deeper into the sales process, your messaging will organically tailor toward the needs of the client,” the professionals at LinkedIn explain. “But your sales messaging shapes everything you do to get a potential buyer interested in the first place.”
This means that you must have an ideal customer profile (ICP) to target your messages to in order to make that first connection. Without knowing who your solution will benefit, you won’t be able to tailor a message that will resonate and have impact.
Efti recommends defining which buyers are the best match by analyzing which customers have the most success with your solution. Make sure that the profile you build includes specifics such as:
- Business type and size
- Industry or niche
- Relevant department size
- Main goal or purpose for using your solution
- Roles or titles that champion your product
- Location
- Seasonal influences on the business
- Other technology they’re using
- Main pain points your solution solves
The more specific you can make your ICP, the more effective sales messaging you will create.
Seek out “repeatable phrases”
LinkedIn shares a creative way to build messages; they recommend finding, and using, “repeatable phrases.” These are words and terms that your ideal customers use often to describe their needs and goals, as well as their pain points.
To uncover their commonly used phrases, conduct interviews with current or past clients (LinkedIn recommends at least 10). Then, ask questions that will encourage them to discuss their use of your solution, what led them to buy from you, and what issues they’ve resolved. Recommended questions include:
- “Can you tell me a bit about your role and what you are responsible for? What do you do on a daily basis?
- If you were to break down a full year in your position, are there certain times where you focus on one thing vs. another? What are those things?
- What are your success metrics? What do you usually get evaluated or incentivized on? Do you get any bonus or extra compensation for any of those?
- What are some of the biggest problems that people in your role face? Are there already solutions that help you solve these problems?”
Then, compare the responses and pull out common phrases, terms and words they used. Implement these repeatable phrases into your own messages to ensure they resonate with your ICP. You’ll be communicating with leads using the same language, making your messages instantly relatable.
Keep the focus of your messages on the buyer
These are only two suggestions for crafting your own sales messaging, but they shouldn’t be the only steps you take. Your messaging will likely evolve over time, and LinkedIn points out that “Many sellers spend months – if not years – trying to craft the perfect sales message.” The key to successful messages lies with building your communications around not what you think you should say, but what the buyers want to hear and what they’re actually saying themselves.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki