Don’t sweat the small stuff. A useful mantra for life, but a rubbish way to think about marketing. Because, when it comes to communicating with your audience, small messages matter. In fact, you could be missing lots of chances to communicate a tiny – but mighty – marketing message.

You just need to spot the opportunities…
It turns out there are so many ways to market your business beyond the usual email campaigns, social media content, blog posts, web copy, and so on. Look hard enough and, hidden amongst everyday business life, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to turn a simple sentence into a small marketing message. Having a brand strapline is an obvious example. Other examples include:

• Your email signature
• The headline section on your LinkedIn profile
• The bio or ‘about’ sections on social media profiles
• Service overviews
• Even your out of office message

Each of these provide a platform to quickly communicate what your business does or showcase your brand’s unique personality, which is why we like to call them ‘power sentences’.

How to nail your small messages
As an example, consider these two very different out of office messages:

Example 1:
Subject: Out of office autoreply
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office until 30th September, and I’ll respond to your message when I return. If your query is urgent, please contact janet@company.co

Example 2:
Subject: Sorry I missed you
I’m currently hiking in Scotland, which probably means I’m soaking wet and existing on energy bars. I’ll get back to you when I return to wi-fi and normal sugar levels (30th September). If you need help before then, email janet@company.co and she’ll take care of you.

Personally, we’d much rather receive the second one. It grabs our attention, gives us a sense of the company’s personality and instigates a friendly ‘getting to know you’ conversation with that person. What a great little marketing message!

Lessons we can learn from this example are:

• Use simple, clear language – talk to the reader like a human being.
• Make it interesting and (if appropriate) different to the norm.
• Include a call to action that tells the reader what to do next (i.e. visit a website for more info or, for an out of office message, contact a colleague).

Bottom line, never miss a chance to communicate what you do or highlight your brand’s winning personality. Here at OCTOPUS, we can help you capitalize on every marketing opportunity, big and small. Chat to us about levelling up your messaging.

(Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash)