The message of your business plays a big part in developing connections with your audience. But, where do you turn for inspiration when choosing your message? Listening to your audience and letting them define your message is the best way to reflect their needs.
We speak with Jonathan Gandolf, Co-Founder & CEO of The Juice, about early initiatives in creating the brand message and best practices for finding that message.
Jonathan covers:
- 100 conversations w/ 100 marketers
- Team building’s influence on pivoting the message
- Sticking w/ a consistent message
100 conversations w/ 100 marketers
When testing a product for launch, what do you think the better approach would be? Creating the product with no outside input and hoping people will like it? Or asking your target market how they feel about the product at various stages of production to align with their wants?
The latter, right?
In the beginning of The Juice’s inception, their message was a bit of a mystery. How could anyone know the exact needs and wants of everyone in the target audience? For Jonathan, the answer was simple: ask them.
”What I tried to do was listen; I tried to paint the picture of the vision, and just listen.” — Jonathan Gadolf
Listening to 100 people explain their pain points, challenges, and opportunities, Jonathan was concerned that each person would have a different concern — making it almost impossible to develop a coherent message across the audience; but, he realized right away after the first 20 to 30 conversations that everyone was saying the same thing in a slightly different way.
After the 100 conversations, Jonathan not only felt confident that having 1,000 conversations would end in the same results, but it helped paint a very clear picture of what the message should be. Then, when he brings the message back to the audience, it can act as a mirror.
Team building’s influence on pivoting the message
Having a team that’s passionate about the brand vision can help refine the message into a polished, shiny version of itself. Think of it in terms of writing a book — letting trusted colleagues read and give ideas on how to make the book better is the tried and true way to getting the most out of your writing.
Community support
There’s never been a better time to engage with online communities than right now; and companies like The Juice are reaping the rewards. Reaching out to a wide range of potential partners, Jonathan has been surprised by the amount of reciprocation.
”I’ve been so impressed by the community, the broader marketing B2B community’s ability to want to help, to provide their perspective, or just listen to our perspective and provide feedback.” — Jonathan Gandolf
2 ways The Juice has reached out:
- Share podcast links to show them what you’re capable of.
- Share marketing concerns that resonate with them.
In Jonathan’s experience, reaching out and asking for help solving marketing problems that plague the space has been a great way to get talented, passionate people on board with The Juice.
Sticking w/ a consistent message
When you work on a project day-in and day-out, it’s easy to lose sight of its importance. You’re going to be a lot more excited about purchasing a new car the first day you drive it compared to how you’ll feel in a year. The importance of having a reliable car hasn’t lost its importance, but you’re used to it.
The same can be said for the brand message — it needs to be consistent if you want to gain traction. Even though the message may feel boring to you when you’ve heard it repeatedly, updating that message can throw off the connectivity between your audience and all platforms.
”If you have a bunch of different messages, I’d argue you have no message at all. So I think consistency is key.” — Jonathan Gandolf
A Key Takeaway
If you’re looking for the right message for your product solution, look to those people who you’re solving for. A message that resonates for your audience is the goal — leaving any room for a misstep by not doing your research, like Jonathan has done, will leave you with regret.
This is based on an episode of the #FlipMyFunnel podcast. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.
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The Juice: Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
Jonathan Gandolf – Chief Executive Officer at The Juice – Twitter | LinkedIn
Jonathan is a left-brain marketer with a right-brain problem. Having launched his career in marketing data, a curiosity and appetite for problem-solving has led him from digital marketing, to craft beer (yes really), to healthcare analytics (yes, an even weirder transition).
Now, he’s tackling his most challenging problem yet — helping B2B marketers, like himself, break away from their old school habits. The Juice is a B2B Content Discovery Platform that more intelligently connects content consumers and content marketers. It’s the B2C experience for curated content we all know and love being applied to the B2B space. Stop filling out forms, start enjoying content.
Brett McGrath – VP, Marketing at The Juice – Twitter | LinkedIn
Brett has spent the past 12 years in the B2B SaaS industry in various marketing functional and leadership roles. He wakes up every morning thinking about creating value for the audience he is serving and loves building winning content programs. He believes the content marketing function is the catalyst for change in B2B marketing and spends his days learning from other marketers on the 3C (Curating Content Creators) Podcast. His evenings consist of creating content in the sports cards industry with his show Stacking Slabs and is always looking for rare Peyton Manning cards that he doesn’t already own.
