It’s a question I’ve been pondering with this week on my quest to help my customers create remarkable impact. And to answer it: We’ll likely never know; however, I think we can all agree: More than we can bear. So it’s something to be very alert on. Challenging our work on pure ‘clarity’ pays off in many ways – not only in Marketing.
The first two rules I always use in assessing if something is clear are: Is it simple and is it concrete? It’s a quick and simple test that answers whether your work succeeds or fails in the ‘don’t make me think’ test.
It’s a valuable exercise, just don’t do it in isolation. Take for example your homepage: Instead of judging it in isolation, compare it to 4 or 5 of your main competitors. In 15-minutes you know where you stand, because even if you believe how you communicate is ‘clear’ – if your competitor’s way of conveying their message is ‘clearer’, you have a problem.
Doing this exercise will not only give you an understanding where you stand. It’s also a valuable investment of time to find new ideas and inspiration how you can stand out by simplifying and being specific in what you say and promise.
The moment you are unclear your prospects has to do the work. The point is, they don’t have time for this. Imagine you are presenting in front of a key prospect that can make or break your Q4 results. If you’re not clear the following happens:
- They wander off – trying to figure out what you actually mean. So, you lose them right from that moment.
- They think ‘It’s not for me’ – you have failed to resonate with them, hit the right nerve, and make them sit up and pay attention
- They think you’re like all the others – so you have failed to position yourself in a way that makes them desire your solution over the alternatives
To me being ‘clear’ in your messaging means:
- It connects to what your ideal customer wants and cares about
- It doesn’t get lost in translation – there’s no noise, we say what we actually mean, without jargon, without trying to be clever
- Shorter is always better
- It creates a mental picture
So a challenge to you: Assess the core of your message and then share it below. You’ll get new insights and ideas to make it even better.