{"id":20336,"date":"2024-06-05T13:21:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.matsio.com\/matsio\/saasboomi\/?p=20336"},"modified":"2024-06-16T18:39:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-16T18:39:23","slug":"creating-a-hook-with-messaging-and-website-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.matsio.com\/matsio\/saasboomi\/saas\/marketing\/creating-a-hook-with-messaging-and-website-design\/","title":{"rendered":"How to create a hook through effective messaging and website design"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The US consumer is bombarded with marketing messages every day. If you\u2019ve been to the US, you\u2019ve probably watched ads on television of smiling salespeople from pharma companies conveying a grim message. Even as they smile, they tell you that death due to cancer\/heart attack\/other grievous ailments is inevitable if you don\u2019t consume their pills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These companies want to sell their products to the US consumer. At any given point in time on various channels, whether Facebook, television, etc., consumers are constantly accosted for money.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US is a company with an army where the entire nation\u2019s focus is to make more money, generate more wealth, and consolidate power.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a capitalistic society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas in India and it may be due to the remanence of the Raj<\/em>, we look up to our politicians in a big way. It\u2019s difficult for us to understand a capitalistic mindset in its entirety, but at a basic level, it is about getting the consumer to buy more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you do that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it\u2019s through winning trust because people have limited money. An average US citizen will have at least $400 in their bank account at any given point in time, and you want them to pay for your product. The consumer has multiple choices (the US functions like a corporate) and brands are always vying for critical mindshare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing that you need to keep in mind is how to win trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You win trust through subtle cues on how you present your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Positioning your brand for the US consumer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, in America, if you don\u2019t come across as a fellow Texan or as someone from San Francisco, or a company run by whites, your sales will be lower and the kind of audience you\u2019d get would be the price-conscious ones. You\u2019d also most likely struggle to win market share in your category. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you appear more American in the American consumer\u2019s mind?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You appear more American through design. And design is not about throwing in a bunch of illustrations, but subtle cues. For instance, the way your logo is designed, the typeface you use, and the quality of your graphics w.r.t. retina display compatibility. These are some prominent cues among a host of others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you appear more \u201cwhite-washed\u201d and you have cracked the design, it\u2019s time to get down to the brass tacks. Many people are focused on illustrations and how their logo appears, but in reality, 80% of design is text. And people make a mistake here without realizing the importance of the text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many companies that I advise, draft their headlines during the day which is a terrible mistake because that text is your marketing base \u2013 the way you draft copy. Everything else is secondary. Drafting your headline needs substantial focus and should be done in an environment with no disturbance whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Positioning: Categories & Differentiation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t get too creative with your category    <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When categories become commoditized, differentiation is hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People now tend to go to G2 for category search and even Google has made life difficult. When you search for a category, you are directed to a G2 or Capterra. When someone has a bottom-of-the-funnel need or a trigger, they land on these directories which display the entire competition. Then, they compare and evaluate the competition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with a Facebook ad, where you get direct traffic from an ad that you have pushed, consumers will still search for alternatives just to make sure they are making the right choice. Many people make a mistake and I have made this mistake as well – creating differentiation by being too creative with the category.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me share my experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Helpdesk market is fairly commoditized, and a very difficult market to create a differentiation. For Kayako, we got creative and decided to call it a \u2018Customer Experience platform\u2019 and we re-labeled it on the website. There was no reference to helpdesk software, ticketing system, or customer service. It was all about customer experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how we thought about it – what\u2019s superior to customer service is customer experience, so let\u2019s highlight customer experience<\/a>. It was a disaster. Prospects that came on the website said, \u201cOh, but I was looking for a ticketing system\u2026which you are not\u201d. This perception adversely impacted sales. There were similar comments from a few trial customers who didn\u2019t convert \u2013 \u201cI was looking for a helpdesk software and you are not a helpdesk software. So, I will go with Zendesk\/Freshdesk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These comments stung \u2013 but drove home the point!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a revelation and too costly a mistake. If you are in a commoditized category and differentiation is hard, don\u2019t try to be something that you are not. Embrace the category<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you embrace a category<\/a>, the adjacent possibilities are all you have. The way to imagine adjacent possibilities is through a grid like this where you see a map location marker that says: you are here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Based on your capability assessment (ref: the illustration), you can position yourself as – I am an Inbound marketing platform \/ ABM marketing platform \/ Outbound Marketing platform. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all you get when it comes to categories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you jump one level beyond, it\u2019s usually very difficult to make it work. You have a product and already have an audience who are coming to you to buy something, and then you decide to jump a block or two in your brand\u2019s positioning<\/a>. It\u2019s usually very difficult to get it right and win trust. Unless of course, the need is very strong, and the supply side is still playing catch-up which is rarely the case in a commoditized market.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you have identified an adjacent possibility, your product needs to be aligned <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t say \u2018I am an Inbound Marketing platform\/product\u2019 and not be true to what you are claiming. If you want to be a dominant player in that adjacent category, then your product has to be aligned with that category. And you need a roadmap to get there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, with Wingman, the point of differentiation was real-time. Now \u201creal-time\u201d is a generic word, and they don\u2019t make great USPs. It\u2019s not even a category so we changed the category to \u2018Actionable Conversational Intelligence\u2019. We picked Conversational Intelligence as a category and said this is what the product is aligned with. And of course, we had to be what we claimed! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The falling dominos: Understanding needs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to address growth with the example of falling dominos. Not the pizza variety but the game Domino where you may have seen that if you trigger one domino fall, the entire series falls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a prospect lands on your website they are a part of this journey and during this journey, subconsciously, a series of dominos keeps falling. Each falling domino can be seen as earning a vote of trust (on certain criteria) from a prospect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n