In a startup, single individuals often handle multiple roles. Someone handling sales might also spearhead marketing, or vice-versa. Yes, that’s scrappy and agile and all that, but it can also cause significant confusion. That’s because sales and marketing are very, very different.
Marketing introduces and reinforces. It succinctly informs your prospects of what your offering provides, how it will help them, and why it will do so better than the competition. Sales, on the other hand, builds on that information to erect a structure specific to a particular prospect, with all the industry nuance, buzzwords, and extras deemed necessary to make the sale.
When marketing tries to mimic, as opposed to support that sales experience, the result can be chaos. Attempts to incorporate the industry buzz du jour or the hot new industry idea into your messaging can cloud your core significance and obscure the principal reason someone might consider your solution. It can drown your primary benefits in what becomes, frankly, industry word vomit that requires a slide rule to decipher into simple English.
Another mistake startups often make is attempting to complicate their solutions in the belief that the more intricate, the more compelling. If what you do is simple, let it be simple. If you provide two significant benefits, no need to stretch them into five to better decorate and Excel spreadsheet. By necessity, as your meaning becomes more diffuse, so does your language. You’re left sounding thin and hollow, sometimes sounding as if the act of moving your lips had value.
State your benefits and differentiators in the most direct language possible in order to elicit a visceral reaction. Do not expect your prospects to read your messaging missives as if they were students of haiku, desperately poring over every word to discern hidden meaning. Most often, the most direct language is the most compelling.
The final caution regards relying on what’s worked in the past. That can end poorly if the solutions you previously sought to market are decidedly different from the ones you currently push. Your old templates and playbooks may be inappropriate. Organizations often push new marketing folks to provide immediate results, and that can necessitate yanking old tools out of the satchel to repurpose for the new solution. However, do all in your power to take the time to learn the solution (on a more than surface level), learn about the audience, and ensure that your marketing efforts are purpose-built for the task at hand. Your new dance partner may not be sympathetic to your old moves.
Leonce Gaiter – Vice-President, Content & Strategy
