Why Your Audience Doesn't Get What You Do - The Expert's Paradox

What's Working - and What's Not

Reminder: brand messaging is what you say.

Brand voice is how you say it: it combines the vocabulary, style, tones you choose to use. 

Elly's voice is formal, intelligent, and authoritative. She uses a complex sentence construction that elevates her style.  

But how Elly sounds is not the problem: her ideal clients appreciate and are attracted to her brand voice. 

But her messaging loses them because what she's saying isn't what her audience needs to hear to allow them to easily connect with her ideas. 

Let's break it down:

Problem #1: Messaging That's Too Conceptual

When a reader needs to translate what you're saying and decide "Does this apply to me? What does this mean for me?"...

You've lost them. 

Elly's page describing The Molina Method opened with "a body of work devoted to language, consciousness, and creation". 

It's a beautiful sentiment that means almost nothing to someone who isn't already deep in her world. 

When a reader lands on your page, your messaging's first job is to answer these questions for them:

• Am I in the right place? 
• Do you understand my problem?
• Do you know what I want?
• Can you get me there?

When you skip past this, your ideal client skips past your words.

Problem #2: Even the Strongest Section Still "Speaks Expert"

Elly's principles section is well thought out and extremely coherent, but it's still too conceptual to resonate with most readers meeting her for the first time.

When the reader has to wonder "How does this apply to me?"...

You lose them.

Elly's deep expertise keeps the messaging from connecting with the reader. 

Your audience needs to see themselves in the problem or the outcome before they’ll connect, engage, and resonate…

Much less follow you all the way to the solution. 

The way the page is set up, they're asked to trust that the relevancy of these concepts to their life will be revealed. 

In marketing, that's a tough ask. 

Problem #3: Messaging gold is already on the page - but ignored. 

Elly doesn't need to dig very far to get better messaging that answers her reader's questions:

She's got the answers sitting right there in her testimonials.

One client said, “I started hearing the language I was using to cap my own growth.” 

Which outlines the problem and the solution in one sentence. 

Another said her income tripled in four months - talk about an incredible outcome!

Testimonials are a fantastic place to find the exact words your audience uses for their own problem. 

So put that language near the top of the page instead of buried at the bottom.

The fix:

Two shifts will dramatically improve how readers engage with Elly's page:

First, write messaging that meets the visitor where they are when they arrive, not where Elly’s expertise already lives. 

Second, plainly state the results she helps clients achieve often, instead of implying them or making the reader sort through them in testimonials.

Elly's voice can stay exactly as elevated and academic as it currently is. The reader simply needs to know immediately if they're in the right place and why they should care before they’re asked to understand how Elly helps.

Steal this for your own page

• Open with clear messaging that lets the reader see themselves, their problem, or their desired outcome. Don't start with the concept.
• Let your testimonials help you write more powerfully: they show you what your audience’s problem sounds like in their words. 
• State the outcomes your clients get clearly & out loud, then say it again in a different spot.
• Change what you say before changing how you say it.

Your Next step

Instead of guessing what your audience needs to hear...

I'll walk you through what's going on and tell you exactly how to change it so you can get more traction with your own audience.

Get an expert's eyes on your sales page, home page, about page, or any piece of content.

Grab a Second Opinion Call at jenliddy.com/secondopinion.