What do an ex-con, kid, and an elegist have in common? A founder asked me this very question at a workshop I led on clarifying messaging to appeal to your audience. Like many founders and CMOs, she assumed different messaging was needed to appeal to each group of her diverse customer base. She soon discovered her customers were more united than she realized.
This particular founder, a local flower shop owner, knew her brand story needed to be more clear. In doing so however, she was fearful she would alienate a key customer group. This is an extremely normal fear. If you haven’t been in this position, you’re probably not a founder or CMO.
Her customers included ex-cons leaving prison, students going to homecoming, and those mourning a loss at a funeral. Creating messaging that would appeal to all of those groups seemed impossible, and yet we figured it out in about 5 minutes.
Conflicting messages are a sign something’s wrong.
Most founders and CMOs find themselves in this position at least once. Their product seems to appeal to a diverse group and therefore they fear focusing the message, alienating the wrong people. The solution is to create multiple messages that appeal to every customer. They quickly end up with a convoluted brand that ends up confusing their ideal customer.
Customer A sees messaging for Customer B and vice versa. Hot leads turn cold, and the founder catches themselves trying to explain value over and over. The more they talk, the more they dig themselves deeper, losing the prospect forever.
The solution is to dig deeper beyond what your eyes see.
There’s no need to create messaging for multiple audiences. You need to find out what unifies all your seemingly diverse audiences.
One message appeals to all your customers.
In roughly 5 minutes, flower shop lady and I discovered her audience wasn’t ex-cons, prom students, and funeral mourners. It wasn’t husbands coming home late from work with an apology bouquet; it wasn’t girlfriends treating themselves on a Friday night.
It was deeper.
Her audience was “folks seeking deeper connection through actions and gifts.” Her customers appeared different on surface, but shared common values. THIS was her messaging opportunity.
The ex-con wants deeper connection to lost relationships.
The kid wants a deeper connection with the cute girl.
The mourner wants deeper connection to comfort family.
The kid, con, and comforter had a lot more in common than she thought.
Application: Finding YOUR Audience
I encourage you to find the values and traits your audience share, but before you start to drill down this story comes with a huge caveat. The flower shop owner was able to dial in her audience in about 3-5 minutes only because she knew her audience on a deep level already. She was able to rattle off the various profiles and answer my follow ups succinctly and quickly.
If you aren’t able to do this, that means you haven’t spent a proper amount of face time with your customer. Until you spend some quality time getting to know your customer on a deeper level, you’ll stay stuck.
Start carving out time to meet your customer and get to know them. Take hand-written paper notes. Don’t worry about asking specific questions just yet, after the first 2-3 conversations you’ll start to notice patterns emerge. After about 10, you’ll be better equipped to find out how they align.
Remember, if you think you have to message multiple audiences, you probably need to dig deeper and find what values they share. The intersection of common values is your messaging opportunity.
