The Big 3: Musketeering the tiers of messaging

Brand messaging is the words companies use to communicate themselves to their audience. Not to be confused with merely copy. Messaging, rather, is the higher level written communication that further articulates a corporate brand and what makes them unique. Messaging is used to convey company ethos — who you are — and is also used for products, services and anything else a company wants to sell, using messaging to capture interest. More importantly messaging is used to further engrain brand into the minds of their customers.

To capture attentions and make customers want to pick up what you’re putting down — within moments — it’s good to follow a tiered category of messaging that can be universally applied to what you’re trying to let your target customers know about you. Every agency has their own categories and messaging process. We have 3.

The Big 3 of messaging

Tier 1: Outcome messaging

This is also known as emotion-driven messaging. This refers to the most top-level messaging that elicits an emotional outcome from the desired audience. Mottos are typical examples of outcome messaging but it doesn’t stop at company slogans. An outcome centric message (often accompanied by outcome centric imagery) isn’t trying to tell people about the specifics of a product. Instead, outcome messaging seeks to tap into someone’s feelings and leave them inspired.

Some famous examples are Nike’s “Just Do It” and Apple’s “Think Different.”

Tier 2: Descriptive messaging

This type of messaging gets a little more specific and defines what you do as a company but still speaks to the main effects of the products and services you offer. While this tier is supposed to “describe” the product it is still advertising how the end-user should feel rather than educating them on the myriad of specific aspects that make up a product.

Nike would say:
“Athletic gear designed to make you perform to the max.”

Apple would say:
“Take your creativity anywhere with the iPad Pro with mobile hotspot.”

Tier 3: Detail messaging

We also call this features messaging. Here is where we get to the engine that makes everything work. Specification copy would fall under this category. This type of messaging should be used for marketing copy only when necessary or when a specific innovation is so revolutionary it benefits higher level messaging. Don’t waste digital (or worse physical) real estate talking about minute details that aren’t unique to you. If a customer is still intrigued by the time they get to third tier details it can safely be assumed they know your product can be shipped or that your internet application works on Chrome.

On the other hand, calling out certain details may be beneficial. If you know your competition lacks a feature, functionality, etc. that you possess a competitive edge may well be worthy of messaging to help prospective purchasers make a decision.

If you’re shopping online at Nike and looking at a specific pair of shoes you’ll read this on the product page:
• Mesh details for an airy feel
• Synthetic and textile
• 2-piece midsole

Likewise if you’re visiting an Apple store checking out a new laptop you’ll read:
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• MagSafe
• Two Thunderbolt ports

Let’s see the Big 3 in action

Here is the front page of a website that shows all three tiers of messaging.

The company is a CRM platform developer whose primary brand differentiator is task automation. The unique selling prop and promise this company makes to its customers is that by using their software the customer will reduce manual, time consuming tasks so they can have more time to do more things (including time to just relax).

1. Alex (or the end user) is shown lounging, enjoying a cocktail after using his CRM platform to send out marketing videos to his entire client list simultaneously. The messaging in and of itself tells you nothing about the product. It’s telling a story, and while the message and the story it is telling is specific, the outcome is the general feeling you get when you discover you’re able to just do nothing since your daily tasks were significantly reduced thanks to the company’s product.

2. Now we are validating why Alex is getting to do what he’s doing (what’s causing the customer to be able to feel the feelings we’re trying to engrain). We can now see what the product name is and a brief descriptor of its capabilities. Notice while we briefly drop stats (grow your business by 10x) and features (automating tasks) the descriptive message is still eliciting an outcome (don’t be tied to your desk all day).

3. While uncommon to see detail messaging on the very first image of the first page of a website, this is an example where details or features are beneficial to display to the viewer immediately. This company’s competitors in their industry do not have features like easily viewable pipeline views and roles and permissions for larger companies. These things may seem obvious to anyone familiar with SaaS products but in this case the company’s industry is behind the curb so bragging about detailed features upfront qualifies as a differentiator.