Why Your Marketing Messages Aren't Landing (And How to Fix Them)
When marketing your business, you know how important it is to speak to your target audience. These are the people who need to understand your value - whether they're buying from you, referring business, or supplying your goods and services. But have you thought about how to make sure your marketing messages are actually speaking to your audience's needs?
How do you write a marketing message that resonates? Whether you're posting on social media, writing a blog, or pitching at a networking event, understanding what your audience actually needs is the difference between gathering leads and getting tumbleweed.
What you need is to understand what drives people, their core motivations, and how your offering fits into the bigger picture. In this article, we'll take you through understanding customer needs, show you real-life examples, and give you a simple structure for writing marketing messages that work.
What Do My Customers Need?
When offering a product or service, it's easy to fall into the trap of designing something we think is amazing before testing whether it's actually something people need. Without understanding your customers' needs, it becomes very difficult to tailor marketing messages that attract leads, because you can't get much further than talking about features and benefits. And we all know that's very 1990s.
The question we need to answer here is WHY.
Why are your customers motivated to buy? What is it that means they need what you have to offer? To understand this better, we're going to explore Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Developed in 1943, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory comprising a model of human needs, expanded in the 1970s to an eight-layer pyramid. While the model is quite old, it's still incredibly useful for understanding what your customers could be thinking and feeling.
The pyramid splits into two key types of need: Deficiency Needs (the first four levels) and Growth Needs (the top four levels). The way people move through these categories isn't set in stone; it fluctuates depending on individual circumstances.
Deficiency Needs
These arise from being deprived of something, leading to motivation to get access. The longer you're without it, the stronger the motivation. Once you have it, the motivation may drop.
Physiological Needs - Things humans need to survive: food, shelter, warmth, and sleep. If you work in sectors like food and beverage, energy, construction, or agriculture, your customers' needs fall here. The focus is often on perceived value based on personal circumstances. Is your product of better quality? More reasonably priced? Does it meet specific dietary requirements?
Safety Needs - Protection, security, financial stability, health and well-being. Relevant for sectors like insurance, financial planning, health services, home security, or legal services. Customers here are motivated either by necessity (car insurance, home alarms) or by values aligned with who they are and what they want to protect.
Love and Belonging - The desire to be part of a group, build relationships, and feel accepted. If you run a community, organise events, or create content for a particular niche, this is your audience. They're looking to enhance their relationships and want to communicate with others who share their interests.
Esteem - This splits into two types: esteem for self (achievement, mastery, independence through education and qualifications) and the need to be accepted and valued (status, prestige through awards, media features, reviews). Your audience is either looking to better themselves or showcase their authority to others.
Growth Needs
These don't come from 'not having' something, but from a desire to develop and grow. Think of these as less tangible, more emotional.
Cognitive Needs - Building knowledge and understanding, satisfying curiosity. Your audience might be considering books, online learning, mentors, travel, or experiences. There's a shift here from needing something every day to wanting experiences they can look back on.
Aesthetic Needs - Appreciation for beauty, balance, and form. If your business falls into art, nature, architecture, or design, this is where your audience sits. People need to refresh themselves when surrounded by beauty, as it brings inspiration and comfort.
Self-Actualisation - The need to be your best self and reach your full potential. Consumers here typically have strong moral standards, are quite democratic in attitude, and tolerate uncertainty well. They're likely investing in personal development through coaches, advisors, or conscious learning.
Transcendence - Needs related to things beyond the personal self: mystical experiences, service to others, science, faith. Your customers are motivated by their values and driven by having meaning and purpose. They align with organisations that share similar values.
What Is Marketing Messaging?
Marketing messaging is how a brand communicates the link between its value and what their audiences need or want. It is NOT talking about features and benefits. The focus of quality marketing messaging is how you're there to fulfil your audience's needs - problem-solving.
As a brand, you should be able to craft marketing messages that align you with your prospective customers because you've taken time to understand what motivates them. Once you've crafted your messages, you can communicate them using the marketing strategies within your overall plan.
How to Design Effective Marketing Messages
You're familiar with what motivates your audiences. You know what a marketing message is. Now it's time to nail yours. Here are the steps to follow when writing or refreshing your marketing messages.
Step 1: Target Audience Personas
To avoid confusing your messaging by trying to talk to different needs each week, clearly set out who you're positioning yourself in front of.
There are four groups to consider:
Your primary audience - Your dream clients. These are people aligned with your values, bought into your offerings, engaging with your marketing, with the greatest lifespan and value.
Your secondary audience - People who buy part of your offering but aren't as consistent. This could be a one-off project or someone who only needs your product once. They might follow you, but don't engage with everything.
Your strategic partners - People who share your values and interests but aren't customers. These could be collaborators with similar audiences, or people who can refer you to customers and vice versa.
Other key stakeholders - People invested in your organisation, but who don't actively promote or purchase from you. This could be your supply chain, employees, or investors. You should work with people who share your motivations.
Once you have these groups, gather detailed information about exactly who they are: demographics, revenue information, goals and challenges, personal interests and opinions, perceptions and attitudes, social factors, and motivations.
Step 2: Write Your Value Proposition
Now that you understand your audience, it's time to communicate your value in a way that resonates with their motivations. We suggest using the Value Proposition Canvas because it keeps things clear and concise.
Start with the Customer column:
Customer Jobs - The things your customer has to do or struggle with that they'd like taken off their to-do list
Pains - What the customer is feeling as a result of these jobs. If we were a fly on the wall, we'd see things going wrong and experience their emotions
Gains - What your customers expect to gain from having access to your product or service
Then flip these to form how you convey your value:
Customer Jobs become your Products/Services - What you offer to solve their problems. Simply explain 'what you do'
Pains become Pain Relievers - This is 'how you do it'. What approach do you take? How are you alleviating their pain?
Gains become Gain Creators - Describe the experience you're creating for customers by showcasing your value. This is 'your way of being'
Step 3: Craft Your Brand Story
You now have everything you need to finalise your key marketing messages. Your Brand Story is the final piece, taking people from being interested to taking action.
Using your value proposition canvas, you can write a brand story for each audience you've identified. We use the StoryBrand framework to do this because it's simple to follow. Think of the structure of a good film: there's a character (your customer) who has a problem, usually defined by the villain (the thing blocking them from what they need). Throughout their journey (where you explore their motivations and emotions), they find a guide—someone to help them (you). They form a bond with this person (your authority and reputation). The guide takes them through the process, calling them to action, leading to their transformation.
The main thing to remember is that the character of the story is the hero, not their guide. Don't talk about yourself too much if you truly want to resonate with your customers.
Generate Consistent Leads with Effective Marketing Messages
To make sure the time you're spending on marketing isn't wasted, it's vital that you're crafting messages that will resonate with your audiences. To do this, you need to understand what motivates them and relate your offering in a way that gets them to buy into your brand.
If you'd benefit from chatting through this process with someone, let's grab a coffee.
