Every business has a USP, or at least aims to. This is going to be at the heart of all of your marketing campaigns, making a point of what distinguishes you from the other businesses in the industry and answering why you’re the best choice.
Your USP isn’t your only trait to be proud of, however, and that means that you have to try and communicate these various features to your customers without overloading them with information or diluting from that central aspect. It’s a difficult balance to strike but the answer might lie in the sheer number of options you have for communication.
Practice What You Preach
You might be tempted to try and make as many people happy as possible through statements and forms of marketing that make a lot of promises. The downside of this is that you have to actually back up what you’re saying, or you risk being seen as untrustworthy. This might not refer so much to situations where you’re offering some sort of unique but legally binding deal (money back if the customer isn’t satisfied or something similar), but more in how you reinforce and bolster the personality of your brand.
For example, if your company has made it clear that climate change is an issue that they take seriously, reports of you acting contrary to that concern could be very damaging to your reputation. Similarly, assuring all of your audiences that their data is secure with you and that you’re committed to their safety, only to fall prey to multiple breaches might highlight your weak commitment to security. This latter instance might not be so much your fault if you become the unfortunate subject of multiple cyberattacks, but it should encourage you to look for cybersecurity solutions. An MDR approach, for instance, means that you don’t have to know everything about cybersecurity yourself – instead putting you in touch with a team of experts that can advise you on how to improve your defenses. This might be an investment, but the message sent to your audiences is one that paints you in a positive light – eager to be true to your word and win the trust of your customers.
Let Others Do the Talking
There are times when it’s important that you do say something – understanding when to communicate can make all the difference in a PR crisis, after all. However, when it comes to trying to convince audiences about what makes your brand great, it can often be impactful to be silent. It’s important to remember that audiences are bombarded by marketing absolutely everywhere they go. When they’re on their phone, when they’re watching TV, when they’re working, when they go outside – it’s inescapable. That, understandably, can lead to a sense of fatigue that puts you in a difficult position. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be marketing at all, just that you should understand why your voice can be a difficult one to hear sincerely for certain customers.
This is where user reviews come in. Widespread access of the internet means that there are an enormous number of platforms dedicated to giving customers a voice. At first, this might be something that you find unnerving, due to the possibility that occasional bad experiences your customers might have could ultimately be given more attention than multiple positive ones. However, the multiplicity of good reviews might be something that shines through – especially when it comes to aggregate scores. Customers who have first-hand experience with your business might be more trusted by people interested in what you’re selling, and you can get involved by responding to reviews indicating how grateful you are for the feedback, potentially improving how people view your customer service.
Through Results
There is also the possibility of communication without using any words at all. Just like when you support your stances on trust or climate change through how you respond to those issues, you have to think about what it is that customers actually want from your business. It’s easy to get lost in the mire of what’s currently popular and the various possible answers to this that you ignore what’s most simple. Customers want a positive customer experience, and that means that they want businesses like you to provide a quality service or product.
While you’re inevitably going to try and talk about why you’re proud of your product in your marketing, those words don’t mean anything if customers are continually disappointed by your output. When you have the results to back up your words, they might become much more trustworthy. Positive word of mouth is a hard thing to cultivate, but your best bet is right here – making sure that you’re trying to provide something that people actually want. It’s an area where looking for shortcuts might be actively detrimental to your goal.
The Right Audience
Not every aspect of your business is going to be important for everyone to hear about. If you’re proud of how your business treats its employees, down the benefits that you offer and the positivity of the workspace, that might not be something that you feature prominently in marketing to your target audience. Instead, you’re going to be putting that information in your job descriptions, making sure that prospective applicants are made aware of the kind of role that you’re offering. This not only has the advantage of allowing the information to get where it needs to go, but it means that your communications across the board are much more focused – only containing the information that they need to.
There is a value in being concise. It’s something that you likely try to embrace in multiple areas of your business, such as when you’re displaying information on your website. The art of communicating as much as possible in as short a span of time inevitably condenses and omits information, but as long as that information is present somewhere, this initial communication can be much more focused on conveying what’s important.
