Episode 496 Copywriting With Todd Jones Building a Foundation For Your Core Message

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Show Summary

This podcast features a discussion between Rob Cairns and Todd Jones on building a strong core message for a business. Todd emphasizes the importance of a solid foundation, using the biblical parable of houses built on sand versus rock as an analogy. He outlines eleven key elements for a core message platform, including value proposition, target audience, brand voice, key benefits, and social proof. The discussion stresses the need to document these elements for consistent messaging and efficient collaboration, particularly as a business grows.

Resource

Show Transcript

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here and today I’m here with my co-host, Mr. Todd Jones, with this copywriting segment. How are you, Todd?

Not too bad today. I’ll take it.

No, me too. So, today we last episode we talked about um building a value prop and all this about what’s your what’s your value proposition and what’s the point. And today we’re going to talk about building a foundation for your core message. So, why does a foundation matter? So STDM show and Rob Karens,

what do you want to talk about?

Yeah,

let me tell you a story. Um, it’s in the Bible and it’s a story Jesus told and I’m going to do it with the Todd version. So, you know, it’s not exactly, but there’s two men that wanted to build a house, right? Everybody knows this story. Um, they both wanted a beachside resort. So, they wanted to build on the beach. And the first one didn’t have any time to waste. He Let’s get to it. Started building a house right there on the beach, excited. The other guy took his time and said, “Let’s think about this a second. I don’t think I want to build it on the sand.” So, he found rock and built his house on a rock. Both of them are on the beach.

Mhm.

Not much longer after they built those really cool houses right there on the beach, a big storm came and the storm, but had lots of wind. It went swooshing and shooshing and had rain and thunder and lightning. And the man who built the house on the sand, the house went flat.

And when we were kids and we would tell that story, we’d say flat with a, you know, we had fun saying flat.

So he asked the question, Jesus does, which man was wise? And of course, the people there said, the man who built on the foundation, the the rock, they he was the wise man. So, the reality is when you have a business, whether you’re selling web security or jewelry or uh remodeling for, you know, special type of customer or you’re an e-commerce store, whatever, you have a message because you have to have a message, right? Um and a lot of people sometimes rush to build that foundation on fan, which is shifty. No unique value proposition, no north star. And so what we want to talk about is building your message, the message that you have, the story that you tell on a firm foundation. And so a few years ago in the uh oh what a I think it stands for American Writers and Artists Assoc. uh they would do these copyright marketing courses and one of them was called was about the guy called it a key copy message key message copy platform that’s what he called it some people called a brand strategy or brand message actually when you talk about branding we talk a lot a lot about branding in business right you need to get your branding down well typically I would say the estimation the Todd Jones estimation is when they say that about 75% of time they’re talking about visual branding, right? Your logo, the color scheme, what fonts you use, all that.

The problem is that there’s two sides of the same coin when it comes to branding. One side is that visual representations, what people see, what they helps them remember. The other side is the message. And so what I’m talking about today is the message side of the branding coin. Um I have called it a message um a copy um what’s the word? Uh a Compass messaging compass. I’ve called it that before. Um I’ve called it different things. U but today I’m going to call it core core message platform because these are the elements that I believe you need to have as a business owner. The most um important elements and everything else. I think I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have the other things that some people will say you should have but uh these are what I would say when you talk about a small medium business. Sometimes they don’t really have the team to do content. Usually maybe the one person does the content or whatever.

So, but but these are very important things and there’s 11 of them. I don’t want to I don’t want to sit here and go in depth on each one of them, but we will talk about some of them. And uh so the first one, what what I recommend you do as a business is to gather this information into a document. So you can use a Google document, you can use notion, you can use

whatever you want to use

Microsoft Office. whatever you care to use, it doesn’t matter to me. The the places that you have it documented and some hierarchal structure and and it’s something that you share with your team, assuming more than one person does the various marketing content that you have. So, the first one is your value proposition. We talked about that the last episode. I don’t want to go into it too much, but the idea is what is the point? A clear articulation of what the brand offers and why it matters. That’s kind of what I said. The second one, and by the way, some of these will actually be a part of the value proposition, but you you still need to gather that information, document it. The second one is a target audience. So, we talked about that some in the last episode as well about who it is you’re targeting. Uh we’re thinking about um more more about what we call psych psychography rather than demographic, right? Like, okay, like your mom is selling homes to people who are in the latter part of their stage of their life and they’re really it’s it’s really the final spot. Maybe they’re moving there to be near kids or their retirement age or whatever or they’re house flippers. These are not your new market buyers. These are people who are down the road. So that would be, you know, you got to address what that target audience is. A lot of people will jump into, hey, this is what our demographics look like and then they’ll come up these uh fictitious names, right? Uh marketing Mary, you know, whatever. Okay. I think personally those are a waste. Um the ideal is to create what it is that they’re needing, uh what they’re hoping to achieve. You figure that out by interviewing them, but I don’t want to go deep into that, but that is definitely something you need to document.

Yeah.

The next one is something that I think is important, but doesn’t have to be something you start off with, but it’s the brand voice and tone. Um that is an important thing. especially as you mature as a brand and you start doing more content.

Um, and and a lot of times a company will start and they’ll have one without thinking about it because it’ll reflect their personality.

And isn’t consistency really important? I see it time and time again where brands are not consistent in their messaging and their voice and their tone. And I think that’s a big mistake as well.

Yeah. As I was working with um Rhonda uh for her um newsletter, I was trying to get a sense of of you know what her brand and tone is as a person. Uh but I will make a recommendation and I think you’ve had her on your show before and I’ll put it up in the book. Uh writing for humans and robots uh by Maddie Osman. Very good book. It’s a resource book. Have it on your desk. Um but R she will talk about Brandon Tone in this book

as well as the the grammar and editor editing and all that kind of stuff. So definitely get you a copy of that book. Um but that is something that you should think about and and I don’t you can get really carried away with this, right? Usually it’s like it’s it’s as simple as I I’m irreverent. My brand tone is irreverent, you know? Okay, that’s fine. Or I’m casual. I’m I’m professional yet casual. That’s kind of how I define define myself.

Some people have referred to me as warming warm somehow. Okay,

if you get my emails, you’ll know that I like to refer do a lot of cultural references like Okay. I’ll talk about a song um or I’ll talk about something from a movie or whatever and and that’s just part of my brand and tone. Um so anyway, that’s something you need to think about. Number four,

key benefits and features. Um

Oh, yes.

Yeah. And so, and this this one might take some time to do, and again, it’s not something we can just do so quickly on here, but uh if you’re a product company, you’re going to center these around your product. So, what’s your product? I have a book and this is what the book is and these are the features of the book. This is what you’ll learn. This is the the so what is the benefit? Uh if you’re a service, your features and benefits are going to center around the services you offer.

Um and you probably want to do one for each service or each product you offer. Uh but you and of course in the website copy framework, we talk about that to some degree. Uh but there are actually a lot of articles online that do that. Um and so But anyway, that’s you need to have your uh key benefits and features and it needs to be documented. Uh the next one is I think a future podcast episode that we’re going to do is supporting proof points or social proof.

Y

these are the things you you what I find interesting when I do website copy project Rob uh one of the things they’ll ask for is I’ll start asking for these things and they don’t have them. They don’t have them selected anywhere or anything. And you know the testimonies are views are fairly easy. Okay, they’re on G2, they’re on Facebook, they’re on Google. Uh, that’s fine. I can go find those and they’re all in one place. But little things that um that are important for social proof. One of the things that I’ll ask for is like, “Have you ever been interviewed for a podcast, an article?”

I have a I have a media page on my website.

Yes. Where did you learn that from?

Oh, I did.

Where’d you get that idea from?

I I talk about that. Having a have a media page. Um, you know, so you should have, you know, you don’t even have to have a media page, but you need to collect those things. Uh, and maybe you can put them in a PDF and send them to somebody if it wants it. Uh, or highlight two or three of them on your about page.

So, what I’ll share with you, and you may know this or not know this, I even created a media kit uh website that’s got so if somebody wants some information about what I do or wants to interview me, there’s that there. There’s is there. There’s a link to my media page there. It’s all there. And all I do now is send them that URL and say, “Go here and get what you need.” And I’m good.

Yeah. And and that makes it easy for you and easy for them. And I can tell you as someone who did do some tech journalism at one point, uh having that at my fingertips without having to bother somebody and email somebody is like you’re go to start interviewing somebody and you’ve already had a chance. Look at all that stuff because they had it documented on one spot on our website.

But in order to do that, you’ve got to collect it. So, you got to know where they where it all resides, you got to be able to find it quickly. Um,

so the so the tip the tip I have to throw out there is do it as you go.

So, when you do when you do an interview, one of the things I do is I grab the URL right away. And if I don’t update my media page right away, I’ll put it in a a notepad file or somewhere So I remember when I go to updating that page, I can just do it. Um, with videos, I usually just embed, if at all possible, the video right into the media page. Um, you know, those who know me know I’m a frequent, I haven’t been on lately of this week in WordPress. I often join that show very quite often. I’ve done several interviews, including our friends up at WP Founders and other places. So, you know,

yeah, I uh I need to update my website for a lot of things. And one of the things I need to do is the regularity of me being on this show.

Um, so but anyway, yeah, absolutely. You should have that documented and uh in your documentation even if you’ve got it somewhere else and you have a link to okay, you can find it all here, but you’ve got to collect those uh proof points and that includes data like if you have certain proof point data that you can do sub something to substantiate your claims.

Um case studies if you’ve done case studies and I have a whole thing about case studies. I don’t like how they’re normally done, but case studies would would be go here or or if you’re going to do a case study on somebody, you know, a reminder that that’s somebody you can do a case study for. That’s

No, I I I agree with it. Number six.

Number six, call to action. Uh this is something we forget about until the very last minute. Um so what kind of call to actions do you want to do? You can do them all at one shot or you can do them as you go. But I think if you at least sit down and think about it like what are the calls to actions I want somebody to take basically it’s like okay I want somebody to join my email list okay that’s great there that’s call to action I want somebody to contact me about web security okay that’s a call to action u you’re going to think about how you word it whenever you do it on the website but you got to think about these are your channels to bring people into your world um and so do I want somebody to listen to my podcast there’s a call to action for that Um,

y

so um, do I want somebody to join the school of content which is coming out this month? Uh, there’s a there’s got to be a call to action for that. So you you know start thinking about your call to actions and uh because these are the entry points into your world where you bring them in and then from there you you nurture that relationship and eventually if they buy from you or you know hire you then you you know that’s how they get there.

Y

so that’s the first one.

That’s number six. Number seven, what is your vision? Vision of the future. Uh actually seven and eight kind of go together. Vision and mission statements. Um and they’re they’re slightly different. Uh vision is typically looking in the future like this is what we want to do. If you have a a very succinct mission, the vision might be the steps to get to the mission or the vision might be bigger than the mission. But nevertheless, um, number seven and eight is your vision and mission statements. Yeah.

Uh, so long-term objectives, that would be your vision and a statement that defines your organiz organization’s purpose and goals would be your mission statement.

Uh, think about mission in terms of purpose. What is your purpose? So, as a as a company, as a person, if you’re a solarreneur, what is your purpose? Like, uh, you know, that kind of thing. So,

yeah.

Number nine is your promise. Something I have added to my stack recently is the promise because that is something that that kind of aligns with your values like I promise to do this and a lot of times when people do brand manifestos it’s kind of a culmination of their promise right the values are kind of a culmination of their promise you may have to do all that stuff um and number 10 by the way is values so seven eight nine and 10 kind of all together vision and vision statement, mission statement, the promise you have for your customers because vision and mission is sometimes internal and values is internal but that promise is external. What are you promising to your customer? Uh so those are kind of a a singular block but there I’ve got them divvied up um in seven 8 n and 10.

So those are things that you document. Uh if you do uh I know that some people do the EOS organization uh system. Uh we got a guy in town that does that and I’ve connected with a couple people on LinkedIn. But whenever you start doing organizational processes and stuff like that, those are things they ask for. So you’re not doing something you’re not putting this out there and like it’s not, you know, aspirational. It it’s practical. It’s how you how you conduct your business. And so when you go talk to a coach, a business coach or EOS consultant or whatever, they’re going to want to know those things. So if you already have it for them,

then you know that helps them help you. So if you’re trying to mature your business, those are those are four things you need to have. By the way, um I’ve got a friend in Texas uh who helps companies um mature and get themselves where they can exit eventually.

If you plan on ever exiting your business, you need to have all these things, but those four things particular are um may really increase the value of your business as you get ready to sell it.

So now the final thing is something we have talked about before

the origin story or the founder story.

Um now you could go further. I think there’s uh this is a future podcast for us. Uh the different stories that a c a company should should tell.

Uh and we’ve done one similar to that before but this is a future podcast. Uh but but I start with the origin founder story because that is the the origin of um of your business. This is how we started. Um

yeah,

so um those kind of things are are very important and usually sometimes you do that first, right? And everything else kind of flows from that.

Um but I’ve I’ve read some pretty interesting founder stories along the way and um it’s something I I do advocate you putting on your about page or your brand page, whatever that is. uh some solarreneurs their their homepage will lead read like an about page with leading with that story and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Um I think it’s a good thing actually. So it’s it’s definitely a format you can use on a homepage especially if you’re a soloreneur kind of driven by that origin story. Um but uh and and usually when you look at those origin stories you can see where the purpose, the mission, the vision and the promise and the values all come from. They usually come right out of that origin story. So probably you don’t want to wake you don’t want to make that number 11, but that’s 11th on the list.

So there you

probably it probably should be the first or the second one truthfully. Not

Yeah, it should be in the top three or four of the things on the list. I may rearrange that. But I was actually when when we were going to do this the other day, I was working on this and and so I was going ahead and put them all I may go back and like reorganize them and they may be I like to do like less points because it’s easier to remember. Nobody remembers 11 points.

Yeah.

But they can remember three, they can remember five, they can remember seven. So eventually I’ll probably work it into three or five or seven

to make it easier. Just like the six Ps, right? In fact, if you look at the six Ps for an about page, which I think I have done a podcast on. If I haven’t, we we’ll do that down the road. Um most of those stem from this here. But my point is this. All these things should be documented in a document for the company. Of course, if you’re sold, at least for yourself, but um if you have a team, uh they all need to have access to it. Um and whenever somebody comes, you start using a third party uh to do content uh for you. Here is your foundation. You can build that platform on top of this as your foundation. and you need it.

So, I would go back and listen to those 11 things. They’re kind of like gold. And uh thanks Todd for joining and for sharing. And uh have a wonderful day, my friend. Be well.

All right. Happy New Year.

Thank you. Happy New Year.