Find your message by trying it — Kelford Labs Daily

Marketing is a mess of uncertainty.

If there were any way to know for certain—ahead of time—that a marketing tactic would work, it would almost immediately stop working. Because everyone would start using it.

That’s the central problem around which the marketing industry orbits. The singular flaw we fight against:

It just can’t be known ahead of time that what we’re going to say is going to work.

There are indications, sure—but nothing definitive.

Just like the only way to know for certain that we’re funny is if someone else laughs. We can think we’re awfully funny in our own head (I, for instance, am the funniest), but the reaction we get from other people provides the often gutting truth.

In the same way, the only way to know if the messages we say will get people to buy from us is if they actually do. Which means the only way to test our messages is to try them out.

Not just on peers, friends, advisors, or well-meaning strangers. But on the market you intend to serve.

Someone who doesn’t have the capacity or experience to understand my extremely good jokes won’t laugh at them—I’ve repeatedly discovered. And unless someone has the capacity and inclination to exchange their money for your services, their feedback won’t help, because they’re not your customer.

But that doesn’t mean we have to blindly spend money on ads or plaster the internet with untested messages. It means we test them out before investing.

We can try out new messages on social media, in our newsletter, or even in our next sales conversation. We can study the reactions we get—the questions, thoughts, or suggestions our potential buyers tell us.

That feedback—that real, valuable feedback—will lead us closer and closer to saying the right things, to the right people, at the right time.

Because the way you know a message works is if the person agrees to give you money for the thing you offered them. Everything else is speculative—directionally indicative at best.

The truth is, if you want people to laugh, you’ve got to say funny things to an audience that finds you funny.

And if you want people to buy, you’ve got to give them a good reason why.

You find it by trying it.

Kelford Inc. shows you the way to always knowing what to say. Marketing positions and messages for hands-on entrepreneurs.