Things are changing around here…
Two things we find ourselves constantly repeating to clients:
Have a specific buyer in mind
If your target audience is “everyone”, your target audience is “no one”. Your message will be most persuasive if it is tailored to appeal to one, single type of buyer whose problem you solve.
2. Speak the language of that buyer
The most persuasive words you can use are the ones that a single, target buyer is already using. So pay close attention to their language when they describe the problem you solve — and repeat that same language back to them.
But following both these pieces of advice takes confidence, particularly in the early years of a business. That fear of missing out on a potential gig creates the feeling that you have to cast the net wide. In the words of the coach who supported us in our early months: “go for what you want, take what you can get”.
But the risk of being all things to all people is you end up speaking in broad generalisations that don’t capture what’s differentiating about your product or service.
In startup land, there’s a thing called being “uncomfortably narrow” at launch. It’s idea that your MVP should be exactly that: minimally viable. And it follows that, from a brand perspective, your messaging should be similarly distilled.
This is a conversation we’ve been having a lot in recent weeks with a particular client. One whose AI product is for executives at all levels, working in all industries, within companies of all sizes, big or small.
But it’s also a conversation we’ve been having with ourselves. And three years since launching Broom & Moon, we’ve realised it’s time to take our own medicine.
Last week, at the Broom & Moon quarterly offsite, we decided we needed to get clearer on our own positioning. And, in a sign of the maturity of our own business, we’re narrowing down. Three years on, we’re becoming less “take what you can get” and more “let’s just do the thing we’re best at”. And that is:
Helping leaders translate their strategy into a story people can get behind.
We’ve also realised that if we’re to really speak the language of those we’re best able to help, we need to change how we talk about ourselves.
So we need to be less about “brand language” and more about “strategic narrative” (though we, ourselves, do prefer the simpler word “story” to “narrative”).
In the coming months, we’ll be updating our website to reflect our new focus. Watch this space.
