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What's the point of having a catchy slogan if it doesn't work for you? Messages are the ideas that get people's attention and convince them to buy a product or service. Messages differentiate, helping to generate leads and drive revenue. The challenge for marketers is the sheer volume of messages that individuals are exposed to each and every day. Over the past 20 years, the quantity of messages the average adult is exposed to daily has increased 100-fold according to some experts. The result is that most Americans are becoming numb to these messages and are 'opting-out' at staggering rates.

Now the question is how do you break through in this type of environment? The answer is by developing and delivering relevant and compelling messages that your target audience cares about. Sounds simple, right? Well, often the simplest things are the hardest to do. Here are the basic steps for developing messages that generate leads and drive revenue.

Know your audience. Detailed customer segmentation is critical to effective messaging. There are some key questions you need to ask in order to really get to know your audience:

' Who they are ' look for standard demographics like age, sex, location, decision-makers, influencers, vertical markets, company-size, or revenue.

' What they care about ' this is sometimes referred to as psychographics; look for the fundamental needs and problems they are trying to solve and the reasons for it. Look for buying behaviors, drivers, and emotional connections, social or business affiliations.

' Where they go for information ' online, offline, industry leaders, community leaders are key influencers and need to be addressed.

Given the level of detail required to know your target audience, I hope you agree that 'Consumer' or 'Business' are not effective audience descriptions. On the other hand, 'Female heads-of-household with children under the age of 15' or 'IT decision-makers in biotech companies with revenue greater than $1B' ' these are effective descriptions and will help you develop relevant and compelling messages and optimize your marketing mix.

Know the competition. Understanding how your company, product or service stacks up against the competition is the next step towards a message that really delivers. Marketing strategy guru Jack Trout said 'differentiate or die'. That doesn't mean bashing the competition. It means knowing your relative strengths and weaknesses and positioning the offering accordingly.

There are many competitive positioning models and some are more comprehensive than others. However, at their core, they all look to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats posed by the competition. This is often referred to as a SWOT analysis and can be a very effective approach to understanding competitive differentiation. Armed with this knowledge you can knowingly and effectively position your marketing messages.

' S-O strategies focus on opportunities that leverage the company's strengths.
' W-O strategies invest to overcome weaknesses in order to focus on the opportunities.
' S-T strategies leverage the company's strengths to decrease exposure to outside threats.
' W-T strategies are defensive and protect a company's weaknesses from being exploited by the competition.

Test the messages. When people think of 'market research' they often think of expensive, complicated approaches involving focus groups, interviews or other high-touch methods. The truth is you don't have to invest millions in market research to validate that you're on the right track. In fact, there are opportunities for market research in our everyday interactions with customers and prospects. For example, list the top three questions you'd like to ask your customers. Give these questions to your sales reps and business development folks. Make sure they ask these questions in every customer meeting and write down the feedback and send it to the marketing folks. This data can be consolidated and can provide valuable insights at no incremental cost.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative is best, but it's not always possible. The biggest thing is to test the messages with a significant enough sample of your target audience. A sample of 300 will result in a 'statistically significant' result; however a sample of 30 will result in solid understanding of the target to within one standard deviation. For most start-ups and smaller companies the difference between 30 and 300 does not warrant the extra investment. This input can either validate your messages, or give you new insights and direction to keep you from making avoidable mistakes. Just because people inside the company think the messages are 'on target' doesn't mean your customers do.

Message vs. Copy. There is a difference. A message is an idea or concept that you're communicating to a target audience through a variety of media. Copy is the articulation of the message for a specific medium. For example, a message might be 'Easy to Use'. Copy to support this message might be, 'Our new interface is really easy to use ' just ask one of our customers.' Or perhaps 'With 1-click access we made it super easy.' The copy conveys the idea and may or may not use the specific words. Copy can and should change frequently. Messages should not.

Carry it through. Once you have a message that is relevant to your audience and positions you appropriately against the competition ' don't be afraid to use it. The real value of messaging is in consistency. The message (remember, it is an idea or concept) must be integrated across all customer touch-points. From the company tagline to your email signature, from the CEO's keynote to your e-newsletter, press releases, website and advertising, the message must be communicated consistently to be heard.

When applied as part of an integrated marketing campaign, these recommendations help produce clear, compelling and consistent messages that enable companies to be heard ' and the objective is to generate leads and drive revenue.