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Guest post by: Michael Cannon Become an Author

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So you think you or your marketing team creates great sales messaging. Or, maybe you’re not happy with your current messaging, are unsure how best to improve it, or not certain how to constructively communicate with your team why you don’t feel right about the messaging.

You’re not alone. According to a recent poll by BtoB Magazine, 70% of the marketing people gave themselves a “D” or an “F” grade on how well they prepare and provide sales support messaging and materials.

Use these five tests listed below to make sure your sales messaging is great or use them as objective evaluation criteria in a discussion with your marketing team. The tests assume that you understand how sales messaging is different from other messaging types, that you know your buyer’s primary buying questions and that the sales messaging is appropriate for your product’s life cycle and sales cycle.

#1: Great Sales Messaging Must Communicate Key Differentiation Points

Most messaging does not clearly differentiate how your solution is better than the buyer’s current solution, nor does it clearly differentiate how your solution is better than the competitor’s solution. Great sales messaging must provide concrete answers to your buyer’s questions: How will my life be better if I buy this product from just anyone? How will my life be better if I buy this product from you rather than from your competitor?

Great sales messaging uses one or more of the five differentiators that are of most interest to your buyers:

Differentiator - Message
Time: You will save time.
Money: You will save money.
Risk: You will reduce the risk of wasting time and money.
Strategic: You will gain market share, better margins, or return on assets.
Personal: You will get a bonus, promotion, or recognition.

Does your sales messaging appeal to the buyer’s primary interests?

#2: Great Sales Messaging Must Include Sharply Contrasting Adjectives

Consider the following two statements:
a. Our widget is one of the fastest on the market
b. Our widget has been tested to be the fastest you can buy
Which statement is more compelling?

Another example:
a. Silver Bullet Group is a leading provider of sales messaging solutions
b. Silver Bullet Group is the global leader in sales messaging solutions

Many neuroscience studies have concluded that the brain comprehends best when presented with clear contrasts between opposites like black and white, best and worst, fastest and slowest. That’s why great sales messaging must include sharply contrasting adjectives such as Only, Fastest, Easiest, Most, Best, etc., in order to clearly differentiate your solution from the competition’s.

Does your sales messaging use sharply contrasting adjectives?

#3: Great Sales Messaging Must Quantify the Differences

Quantification is another strategy to clearly differentiate your solution from the customer’s current solution and from competitive alternatives. For example, can you change:

• “Reduce network cost” to “reduce network cost by 15% or more”?

• “Unmatched performance” to “25% better network performance”?

Does your sales messaging quantify the differences?

#4: Great Sales Messaging Makes Claims That No Other Company Can Make

You are competing with so many messages in the marketplace that to truly stand out from your competition, your company must be the only one able to make the claims you do. If your competition is saying the same things as you, your messaging will not rise above the others and buyers will perceive it as “Me Too.” It must be very easy for your buyers to see you as different — and as the best of all competitive options and vendors. For example, you can change “great service” to “rated #1 in service with 98.7% customer satisfaction score.”

Does your sales messaging make claims that no other company can make?

#5: Great Sales Messaging Is Validated

While some companies do make claims that no other company makes, they often then fail to ensure that those claims address the buyer’s needs. They have not asked their customers, “Why did you buy from us?”. What do you like and/or dislike about our messaging? What would you change and why?

Instead, they believe that they know what their customers want and thus fail to listen to the voice of the customer. For instance, a company may tout its car as having the best acceleration (the zero-to-sixty factor) in its class when their buyers care more about gas mileage and reliability. It’s crucially important that you validate your sales messaging.

Does your sales messaging get validated by customers as relevant to their needs?

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