Do Your Messaging Framework Before Your Website
Wanna know how long it took to launch the M.Isa Messaging, LLC website? Two weeks. That’s all folks. Two weeks to map the site, write and draft the web copy, design and develop the landing pages, and optimize the whole shebang for key search terms.
This is a stark contrast from the many stories I hear from business owners about web launches that dragged out for months and months because the web firm could never quite get the design where they wanted it, they kept having to reinvent the site structure, or the layout was completed so early that by the time folks got around to copy, nothing seemed to fit together.
So often, people rush to get the skeleton of the site design up before they’ve even figured out what pages they need, their value proposition, or even their brand colors!
My dears, this is making your website launch several times more expensive than it should be, and is pushing your launch date further and further out.
Why We Were Able To Launch Our Website In 2 Weeks
Perhaps you’re feeling defensive and wondering if our 2-week miracle website actually just sucks. Nope. Not according to the marketing qualified leads that almost immediately started coming in through our site. Of course, everything can be improved upon, but this little website is doing a real good job of lead gen so far.
So, what’s the secret?
Some of it is luck. I (CEO Isa Gautschi) have the good fortune of being a messaging specialist, expert copywriter, SEO wizkid and passably competent web designer, so I was able to do a lot of the legwork myself.
I also had a little help with copy editing and illustrations (though the site went up before all the illustrations were finished).
But, the real reason that the M.Isa website went up so fast is because we had our messaging framework sorted out before we did anything on the web launch.
What Is a Messaging Framework?
A messaging framework is like a blueprint for your marketing and communications. It distills the essence of your brand and solutions in context of the market.
A messaging framework usually lays out:
The messaging aspect of your brand identity
The specifics of your offers
Your target market
The market need that you answer
The customer pain points that your solutions resolve
The value you bring to customers
Proof of that value
How you stand out from the competition
Obviously, it’s incredibly useful to be clear on all of this information when conducting any strategy, marketing, or sales work.
Does this info sound basic? Yep. These are your messaging essentials.
But you’d be surprised by how many organizations skip over clearly establishing the most basic aspects of their messaging before moving forward with strategy and expensive tactics.
Many a web launch happens long before business leaders consider sorting out their messaging. This leads to website messaging that is:
Unclear
Fragmented
Contradictory
Lacking a strong brand identity
Watered down
Unoriginal
Unmemorable
Confusing
Difficult to navigate
When I cut my teeth as a marketer, I was working in the B2B tech field. I was struck by how many tech heavy hitters and slick startups lacked strong, cohesive messaging- despite their 6 and 7 figure marketing budgets.
Furthermore, sales tended to have one message, while marketing had another, the website copy vs. social media copy vs. ad copy sounded like they were from entirely different brands, and partner communications tended to rely on messaging that everyone else had abandoned months ago (no doubt due to lack of internal communication).
Soon, I began to specialize in developing messaging frameworks to get everyone on the same page about:
Brand story
Brand values
Positioning
Differentiation
Ideal customers
Customer challenges
Offer specifics
Value proposition
Proof points
Voice & tone
Content marketing themes
Search engine optimization
Though I tailored each messaging framework to the unique context and needs of the client, I found this resource and this template very helpful.
Post messaging framework development, I watched marketing get a lot more efficient. It was easier and quicker to develop content marketing, sales collateral, and partner education materials. The companies had a renewed sense of unified purpose.
After launching M.Isa Messaging, LLC, I began to see that messaging frameworks didn’t just speed things up for tech giants. They also helped sole proprietors, small startups, musicians, artists, and even us to get on the same page with ourselves, gain clarity and confidence in our vision, and know what to say where.
Why Messaging Frameworks Make Website Planning a Whole Lot Easier & Faster
When you invest in developing a solid messaging framework, every marketing and communications activity that comes afterwards gets a lot easier. Especially when it comes to your website.
Messaging framework = big marketing head start.
When you are clear on your target customers, offers, value, proof points, and differentiation, it becomes pretty clear what landing pages your website needs.
Do you have a few offers that can be summarized on the homepage or lots of offers that need category, subcategory, and individual product pages? Do you need a full page to showcase your glowing reviews because these are strong visual evidence of your value? Do you need an FAQ page to explain why you’re a little more expensive but offer a better service than the competition? Do you need persona pages so that they can find the offers most relevant to them?
When you start with a messaging framework, all this becomes a lot more clear. The strength of your messaging pillars, proof points, and differentiation are all good indications for how much web space you need for what.
Why Messaging Frameworks Make Copywriting a Whole Lot Easier & Faster
Messaging frameworks give you a sense of the big picture storyline that needs to come across on key pages like Home, About, and Our Services (or similar). You’ll have a sense of what aspects of your brand need to be highlighted first and how to explain what makes you a better option than your rivals.
You also know how to write a sentence or two introducing the key benefits of your services so you can link out to more detailed pages that get into the specifics of each offer and the evidence you have to support your claims as to the value you’re promising.
With a messaging framework, it becomes easier to write your Our Story page, draft team bios, and explain your mission and history because you know what to include to demonstrate your values and credibility.
For product/service pages, you’ll know which line of persuasion is designed for which buyer persona, the pain points you’ll need to speak to, and the hopes and dreams you’ll need to tap into.
With a messaging framework, no copywriting project starts from square one. A lot of the work has already been done up front.
Not only will this speed up your website launch, it also makes collaborating with other people much more efficient.
Messaging frameworks really come in handy when you’re hiring, training, or working with contracted copywriters on your web launch. Messaging frameworks significantly cut down on the time it takes to bring collaborators up to speed on your context and eliminates many hours of research and brainstorming they’d otherwise have to do before they could start writing.
How Messaging Frameworks Make Web Design a Whole Lot Easier & Faster
Messaging frameworks also make the web design process a lot easier, because the designer has very clear indications of the most important information to visually highlight.
If you want to draw the eye to a unique benefit, funnel visitors to your signature product first, or make sure everyone sees your glowing testimonials that provide social proof of the value you bring, you’re going to want your web designer to know that before they sink a lot of time and effort into putting the web page together.
Web designers can use layout, sizing, whitespace, colors, design, animation, and more to make sure web visitors see the most important parts of your messaging first.
In particular, a lot of care and attention needs to be put into what shows up “above the fold”- or what a desktop visitor sees right when they land on the page without having to scroll and a mobile visitor sees within the first few swipes. Making sure you have your best, most engaging messaging show up here is important for immediately convincing web visitors that your site is relevant enough to them to keep reading.
Also, knowing how you’re different from the competition gives your web designer an important indication of what copy needs to be visually emphasized so that skimming web visitors can’t miss it, and what copy can be treated more as "fine print.”
Remember, with design, you can’t visually emphasize everything or the eye won’t know where to go. Your web designer needs a sense of your unique value proposition in order to design web pages that emphasize the strongest aspects of your messaging. A solid messaging framework will help them know how to visually prioritize the information you present.
Imagine trying to design a website without knowing the difference between your brand’s messaging pillars and supporting details. It would be really, really hard. No wonder so many companies that don’t start with a messaging framework wind up reworking their web design over and over again and delaying their website launch.
This Is How We Do It
Want an efficient, effective website launch? We recommend streamlining your process like this:
Messaging framework. Put one together for the first time or make sure the one you’re working with is up-to-date. You should have a messaging framework for your brand and for each line of products or services. We highly recommend starting with a messaging framework so that everyone working on the web launch understands who you are trying to persuade to do what and what line of reasoning will convince them.
Website planning. Figure out your site structure. Does each product or service need its own landing page or will you group offerings on service category pages? How will the homepage direct people to other pages on the site that are relevant to them? What needs to show up in the site menu? Do you need an FAQ? Know what pages need to be built before you start copywriting or designing.
Search-engine friendly copywriting. Determine strategic search terms to optimize your pages for and use them as you draft the copy. Word to the wise draft your page copy in a text document like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. As you draft, think about what is most important to convey and make sure it shows up in highly skimmable places like headlines, headers, block quotes, captions, and above the fold. Leave notes for your web designer about what sections, headlines, bullet points, etc. need to be visually emphasized. Be sparing here, you can’t emphasize everything! Get everyone who needs to sign off on the copy to sign off before it goes to the web designer. Remember, it’s much easier to edit a text document than a full web page layout. Especially since the layout may need to change again once the copy is dialed in.
Web Design and Development. When you go in this order, your web designer and developers don’t have to fly blind. Since you have such a clear sense of what you want to communicate, the points you want to emphasize, and the structure of your site- your web designers and developers have a much better chance of understanding what you’re going for and making you happy without having to go through endless cycles of revisions. We highly recommend having a strategy session with the web design and development team to go over the messaging framework and your vision for the finished site before you turn them loose to get started on the design.
Of course, you’ll need to review, revise, and edit after each step. However, you’ll find that this process keeps forward momentum for your website launch. And, continual progress keeps the discouragement at bay.
It works, we promise. This was the process that enabled us to launch an effective website within 2 weeks that almost immediately began generating leads.
Messaging Frameworks: Get On It
Often, popular marketing web articles describe messaging frameworks as a strategic “exercise”- so we can forgive you if you hadn’t before thought of them as a top priority.
The true value of a messaging framework is that it forms the foundation of all future marketing efforts.
It’s very hard to build a solid, stable, inviting house without a good foundation.
Invest in a messaging framework before launching any big new marketing effort (like a website), because the investment is far less costly than the delays, reworks, and frustration that happen when you don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Want to fast track your web launch without sacrificing any quality ? Check out our Website Launch Rocket Pack where we’ll give you a custom sitemap + the search and sales optimized web copy you need to make your launch a success.
