In the age of digital marketing, using the right words to make your product stand out in a sea of competition is essential. Crafting an effective messaging strategy for your product or service is key for making conversions. Your product’s core positioning—what it is you’re selling and why—should stay consistent, but the words you use to sell it can change and have varying levels of success.
One key strategy is to build your messaging on customer pain, not product features. Start by researching the real, painful problems your customers face in relation to your product. Use those exact words when describing issues—they resonate more powerfully than industry jargon or making grand promises.Then, you can position your product as a painkiller to said problems, rather than a vitamin. This is because people pay more attention to immediate relief than optional enhancements. Highlight how your product relieves a specific pain, and turn their pain into promises. However, it is important to not focus too much on either the pain or the promise. Focusing on the pain can get too negative, while making big promises can be unconvincing. Balance is key. A good example used was the dating app Hinge, whose slogan is “Designed to be deleted.” This evokes the pain of dating apps while making a promise that Hinge has the solution.
Another important tip is to adopt the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework. For this, customer research and insights are key. You need to understand the journey that leads a customer to your product. If you focus on the customer’s end goals and daily workflows, not just product features, you can effectively frame your messaging around what customers are hiring your product to do. To help craft your messaging, you can research the context of the job-to-be-done, and shared trigger events among your customers that could lead them to your product.
Another strategy to keep in mind is using “Trojan-horse” messaging to bypass competition. This means selling a customer what they want, and delivering what they need. Lead with messaging that directly addresses small but meaningful customer pains, so compelling that they choose your product even in crowded markets. For this strategy, it is also important to understand the true competitive landscape, which consists of direct and indirect competitors. Consider the indirect alternatives and substitutes that solve the same problem as your product, and position your messaging to stand out in that broader set.
In essence, there are three P’s to keep in mind when crafting great messaging strategy, according to buyer psychologist Katelyn Bourgoin: problem, promise, and proof. Understand the pain your customer faces and the functional jobs they seek. Then, craft clear, tested messaging that positions your product as the most effective painkiller in a competitive landscape—your promise. Finally, support every core claim with a strong framework of evidence.
