Winning with words | Peep Laja

Peep is the CEO of Wynter. He is an entrepreneur, a conversion optimization and messaging expert. He talks about the importance of words. How effective are the words we are using? Are we conveying our message? How do we measure the effectiveness of words?

Words and why they are so important.

Let’s put the importance of words in a context:

There have never been as many brands as there are today.

• Barriers of entry to business are at their lowest ever;
• Roughly 775 000 startups launched every month in US market;
• Competition in the market place has increased 5300% in 10 years.

Why?

• Technology has gotten cheaper;
• More funding around;
• More know-how around, easier to build businesses.

Scott Brinker, on his Chiefmartec blog, reports 9 932 marketing technology solutions, up 24% from 2020.

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The map shows that in each section, there are many service providers. A few we know, the market leaders. The remainder are unknown.

Peep’s observations of provider websites are:

• The 'sameness' of the marketing message
  ‘Sameness is the combined effect of companies being too similar in their offers, poorly differentiated in their branding, and indistinct in their communication’;
• Lack of marketing innovation;
• Inability to communicate differentiators in terms of competition;
• Lack of research and development (RND) when taking a product to market.

With this type of messaging, it is very difficult to make an informed decision.

I looked at some marketing technology websites. My observation is that it is difficult to understand what the service offered is. Look at the following examples:

• Blackbox
  The Email Insider's Secret Weapon
  Protect Against Bad Actors & Bad Reputations
• Ocean Software Solutions
  360° Project Analysis
  Magic xpa • uniPaaS • eDeveloper
• Sender Score
  Do you know your Sender Score?
  Understand your sender reputation. Learn how to improve it.

We compete either on innovation or brand. It is difficult to compete on product-led innovation, especially over an extended period. The world catches up. This leaves brand: story, positioning and messaging.

Winners take a different position in the market. Communicate this with words. In a nutshell - messaging.

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Messaging is on a continuum from Strategic to Tactical.

Strategic messaging

This is the story we tell to the world. How the world is changing. Give original insight into my profession. Insight to my niche and unique offer.

Set the scene and the context for why my company matters. Validate my story, whether the reader resonates with it or not.

Positioning

Target the message to a specific audience. Who is my solution for? Who is my audience? If you have this problem, you want this outcome.

Appeal to a specific segment of the market. What I am for and Who I am for. What problems do I solve and for whom?

High-stakes messaging

Messaging that matters in key moments. First time visitor to my website. Messaging that happens when you want the reader to take action. Conversion pages. Key page where I tell my story and want to persuade readers to take action.

Relating to leads:

• Brand story (strategic messaging) - attracts the leads. Creates demand for my company.
• Positioning messaging tells the customer if my product is right for them.
• High-stakes messaging sells and persuades the customer to take action.

For effective messaging, I need to know

• What does my customer want?
• How is my message received?

What is interesting on my page, what is boring? What is relevant, what is irrelevant? What is clear, what is unclear. What questions do they still have once they read the page?

As a business, we are trying to create customers. My best customer is the customer who wants to be my customer. The customer who is sure that they want to work with me. Intrinsic motivation. Internal truth.

To achieve this, copy is THE most influential piece of my website.

Peep cites a study done by Unbounce. Focusing on design and copy. Which element contributed the most to conversion. On analyzing 40k landing pages, the study found that copy is 2x more effective than design.

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Peep states that an effective message depends on five key components.

• Clarity 
• Relevance 
• Differentiation
• Value
• Brand

These components can be seen as the cause, which will have an effect.

If I work on the five components of cause, our message will have more effect and more 2nd order consequences.

Clarity

• What is it I am offering?
• In what category does my offer sit?
• Explain what problem I solve?
• Jargon free.
• Be specific.
• Use short sentences.

Then measure if the copy is clear. Do the readers understand my message?

Relevance

• Who is my solution for? Make it clear. Readers need to recognise themselves in my message.
• Have a clear problem | benefit statement. Incorporate some ‘Job Maps’ or ‘Jobs To Be Done’ statements.
• To find the right language, do message mining. G2 text mining. Explore Capterra reviews.
• Order content blocks in order of customer priority

Value

A value proposition is a promise to deliver value. Answer the question: Do I want the value?

Is the value proposition:

• Credible?
• Quantified and specific?

My value proposition should tap into the Top Priorities of my customer. It should speak to the Top Pain Points of my customer.

All five components can be measured. This is done using qualitative measurements.

The process of measuring as described by Peep:

• Pick a page.
• Conduct message testing. A type of survey of prospective customers - strangers. Not existing customers.
• For each of the sections, ask likert scale questions. Combine these with open-ended questions.

E.g. On a scale of 1 to 5:

• How clear is this paragraph of text?
• How clear is the above fold section?
• How well do you understand how I am different from others?
• How well is my offer aligned with your priorities and challenges?
• How well do you understand what I offer?
• How clear is my value proposition?

Value:

• How interested are you in learning more?
• How motivated are you to speak to me?

Ask open-ended questions about each section.

• What about the paragraph is unclear?
• What questions do you still have?
• What was off-putting about this?
• What do you think is the main value you get out of this?
• What was most compelling about this?

What will start emerging are themes. The themes will lead where work is to be done.

Clarity + Relevance + Value + Differentiation - Friction = Conversion.

To increase my conversion, I improve my words

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