How to Create Marketing Messages that Stick

You try to create the most compelling marketing messages. You know how important it is to speak directly to your target audience and share ideas, features, and tips that will capture their attention. But try as you might, it seems like you’re pushing a bunch of boulders up a super-steep uphill. Your messages seem on-point to you, but your audience doesn’t seem to remember them. And if they do, they don’t seem to remember them long enough to buy your products and services. Never fear! You do have options—good options, actually.

Create Marketing Messages that Stick

Creating “sticky” messages can be a lot of fun. The key is to think like your audience thinks. Here are 7 more tips to get you rolling:

Know Your Audience

If you don’t know whom you’re talking to, you are dead in the water. It may seem like a good idea to create marketing messages that appeal to you, but this is simply the wrong way to go. Your target audience is unique, and it is key that your marketing messages speak to its members rather than to you, your friends, or the world at large.

Create Marketing Personas

You’ve probably noticed that your audience consists of more than one type of person. For example, your audience may consist of busy parents, senior citizens who travel a lot, and executives looking for ways to simply their lives. By creating personas, you can better understand the different segments of your target audience and create messages that speak to each segment.

Keep It Simple

Creativity is a good thing, but sometimes businesses create convoluted messages in an effort to be different and creative. Be careful that creating longer, more complicated messages doesn’t dilute your point and confuse your audience. Often, simple and to the point is more memorable and more likely to hit home.

Go for the Surprise Attack

Your audience is made up of people who have one thing in common. They hear the same things every day. They constantly hear that one brand is better than another. Marketing messages constantly tell them that they cannot possibly live without a product or service or that the only way to get superior quality is to choose company B over Company A. Because they hear these messages constantly, they gradually tune them out. There’s nothing new to be learned, so these types of messages become part of the background noise. But if you can surprise your audience, you can capture its members’ attention and then use their focus on you to give details they’ll need to choose you over the competition. Use surprising facts, interesting product uses, historical information, etc. to surprise your audience into listening and remembering your messages.

Get Visual

Today’s audiences are highly visual. Because of this, plain, old text can be seen as, at best, a little dry and, at worst, flat-out boring. If your messages are seen as boring, your audience is far less likely to remember them, at least not in any good way. The good news is you can take a simple message and give it life through mental and visual imagery. First, write out your message as you normally would. Then, add descriptions that help your audience visualize your message. This is great for provoking emotion, increasing interest, and stimulating memory. Now, go ahead and add images or video whenever possible. The combination of these steps will encourage your audience to not only pay attention but also share your message with others.

Engage Them With Show and Tell

Seeing is believing. Your marketing messages may be spot on, but people are always more likely to believe what you show them over what you tell then. Do create your simple, visual, targeted marketing messages. They are important, but don’t stop there. Create a couple of demonstrations as well to help your audience visualize what you’ve been telling them all along and ensure that they remember you and your products and services.

Tell Stories

People like to be entertained. Even when they are learning about something serious, they prefer to learn about it in a way that entertains and intrigues them. Give them what they want by creating stories that share something they didn’t know, highlight how your brand is different, illustrate that you understand them and get where they are coming from, and speak to their pain points. Your stories will provoke emotions in your customers and prospects, not only ensuring that they remember you but also helping them to feel connected to your brand.

It takes effort to create sticky marketing messages, but the rewards of doing so are measurable. Go ahead and try these 7 tips on for size. They’ll help make your marketing messages more memorable and encourage your audience to purchase from you.

Have tips for creating sticky marketing messages? We’d love to hear them! Share your tips in the comments section.