A common challenge marketers face is how to present multiple, similar products without confusing customers. When you are working with them up close every day and thinking about their specific use cases, it is easy to see what makes each product different. You may think these differences are as obvious to your clients as they are to your team who creates and sells them. Unfortunately, what makes your business’ products distinct from one another is not always easily understood by your audience.
When it comes to successful marketing, clarity is key. You want your target audience to understand exactly what it is you’re selling and why they should buy it. Trying to market multiple products can be tricky, but with a plan and clear vision of your own, it can be done with more ease.
Start with value
Before you begin promoting anything, it is important to understand the value of all your company creates and what your products can do for your clients first. Considering how customer experience will vary between products, and how they’re all connected to one another from the inside is great but this can result in being so close to the details, you’re unable to clearly see how they’re being perceived externally. Start with overall value and let that be at the root of your messaging. Allow for the key differences in your products to be the second priority–this may feel counter intuitive when you are working with the differences closely but remember your clients aren’t. Focus on communicating what your products can do for your clients and how they’re different from your competitors’ offerings rather than what they are individually and how they are different from each other. Framing it this way can help your clarify your marketing strategy quickly.
Identify and speak to your target audience
Who is your ideal customer and what do they ultimately want? What are their specific goals and how can your products help your target audience to achieve them? Identify your target audience and speak to them. This may not be easy but it is that simple. Everyone in your audience has at least one thing in common that can be understood. Once it is understood, you can package your solution in the form of ads and salescopy. As unique as people are and as distinct as your products may be, they’re your clients for the same reasons and likely have similar long-term goals for their use.
You can explain your products uses and differences as salescopy but this probably isn’t going to hook your audience. People are much more interested in results and more specifically in the results they can expect.
Create an umbrella message
So you’ve done the research to identify your audience. You’ve clarified the value your products bring for your customers. Now you can get started with branding and initial outreach efforts to concisely present your multiple products. To avoid confusing your customers, start with an umbrella message. This is the message that emcompasses everything your business provides and it applies across all your offerings. Once you have an established umbrella, then you can focus on the details of each individual product your business offers to achieve the goals of your target audience. Those more granular specifics can come later in product descriptions or become inspiration for blog posts and social media captions. This goes back to starting with value and what your products can provide rather than focusing specifically on what they are.
A simple way to create the umbrella message is to focus on the core benefits of each product first and note the commonalities. Then, tailor your messaging to include it all. By doing this, you will be able to create a cohesive marketing message that will resonate with your target audience better than if you were only focusing on one product at a time and not intentionally connecting it across your product line.
Test your umbrella message
You may ask yourself: Does this messaging make sense to our target audience?
As we’ve covered, when you’re working closely with your products, what obvious to you is not always clear to your potential clients. This is how messaging gets muddled and doesn’t come across clearly to your clients. And they’re likely not going to tell you if they don’t understand. They’ll close the email or keep scrolling. It is not your customers’ job to tell you they don’t understand what your products do, either.
It is the task of the marketing team to concisely and clearly represent the available products in the best light possible. You can do your own umbrella message testing by experimenting with variations in different trackable arenas or you may opt to hire an agency to do the testing for you so you can focus on creating quality products.