[Video] Human vs. Robot: Episode 4 – Cloud Haven – A Humanized Marketing Messaging Series

Summary

How do you make your cloud hosting marketing message sound less robotic, exciting, and relatable? In this episode of Human vs. Robot, we analyze a marketing message from a cloud hosting provider. Who takes this one home? The human or the robot?

Here’s the Marketing Message:

Question: Why do I need your cloud hosting solution?

Answer: Cloud Heaven’s cloud hosting removes all the technical barriers and complexities, letting you focus on the growth and success of your projects, while helping you save money and improve your team’s reliability and productivity.

——-

Cloud computing has revolutionized the way that we do business today. Today, companies can leverage the scalability of the cloud and quickly deploy business applications. The challenges of managing servers in-house and in access to data on the go is now a thing of the past. While cloud computing offers so many benefits to businesses, at the core, cloud hosting services tend to look quite similar. As a result, differentiating your cloud hosting service becomes quite challenging. The critical element needed to stand out and differentiate your cloud hosting service is to focus less on technology and more on why you provide a different kind of service. Let’s take a look at our messaging example from a cloud hosting provider that we are calling Cloud Haven Inc.

Humanized Marketing Message Analysis – Cloud Hosting

As usual, as part of our humanized marketing message analysis, we will analyze the message for the three main elements of humanized marketing.

Here are the three humanized marketing message elements:

• It should make the audience feel like you listened
• It should make the audience feel like you empathized
• It should make the audience feel like they can see your dream

See Also: Human vs. Robot: Episode 1 – A.I. Machine

Let’s get to the fun part of grading our cloud hosting marketing message.

Here’s the message again:

Cloud Haven’s cloud hosting removes all the technical barriers and complexities, letting you focus on the growth and success of your projects, while helping you save money and improve your team’s reliability and productivity.

Human vs. Robot Marketing Message Grade

1. Does this audience feel like you listened? Does the author understand their pain? – It’s hard to grade this because the cloud hosting provider mentions a pain, but it’s said in a very vague way. “…technical barriers and complexities…” this gives you a sense that there is a challenge, but you cannot immediately imagine the specific pain. So, in the end, we have to give this one to the robot.

Winner: Robot

2. Does the audience feel like the author empathized with their pain? Is there a connection between the pain and the solution? – Sort of, also once again, a tough grade because of the ambiguity surrounding the pain. If it were easy to know what the pain is describing clearly, then this would be an easy win. Since we have to select a winner and, in this case, the key is to connect the pain with the solution, we have to give this win to the human.

Winner: Human

3. Does the audience feel like they can imagine a dream world where the solution makes their life better? – Yes, I think this is the core strength of the message. It mentions a lot of the benefits of using Cloud Haven’s cloud hosting solution including, cost savings and productivity. I would, however, push the envelope further by trying to simplify the message.

Winner: Human

Tally: Human – 2 | Robot – 1

Ultimate Winner: 2/3 – Human

Get Started: View Brand Differentiation Strategies

Why this marketing message is human

What this messaging does well

• Selling the dream: The message sells the dream. It talks a lot about the benefits that you can get from using the cloud hosting service from Cloud Haven.
• Connecting the pain with the solution: Though we would have preferred for the pain to be much more specific, the message does a great job of connecting the pain with the solution.

What this message doesn’t do well

• Describing the pain: While the message mentions the pain, which is a considerable achievement because most of the marketing messages that we’ve analyzed so far don’t mention the pain. It, however, doesn’t go a step further by truly describing the pain. When you write your marketing message intending to describe the pain, you have to imagine that you are explaining something to someone who doesn’t already know. Please don’t assume that people know the pain that you are referring to when you don’t mention it. The sad reality is that when your message is up on your website, you don’t have anyone there to explain what you mean if someone is unsure. So, your goal is to ensure that you can make your description of the pain as specific as possible.

How would we humanize this marketing message?

First, we have to start by fixing the writing style. As usual, we are going to use my easy to remember messaging phrase:

‘If you don’t tell me why, I won’t care about how you do what you do, and I certainly won’t want to do what you want me to.”

Mainly you want to make sure:

• You mention your intended audience in your message
• You talk about why your software is better [paint a before (pain) and after (benefits) picture; mention what’s different]
• You show how your software makes things better [mention what’s unique about how you are solving the problem]
• You explain what your software does [key features].

Read Also: Proving Marketing ROI: Why Should I track Micro and Macro Marketing Metrics?

Here’s the breakdown for the marketing message for Cloud Haven

Cloud Haven’s cloud hosting removes all the technical barriers and complexities, letting you focus on the growth and success of your projects, while helping you save money and improve your team’s reliability and productivity. [why]

Missing element:

The entire message talks about why but doesn’t mention who, how or what causes all these fantastic benefits. Even though the message sounds excellent, you are left wondering how all of this will happen and what Cloud Haven uses to accomplish this.

Trending: Tips for Marketing Your SaaS Product as a Must-Have

Combining Storytelling Format and Humanized Messaging Steps

Now that we’ve looked at the storytelling format, we’ll combine the elements of storytelling and humanizing a message to create a different version of the message.

Humanized marketing messaging elements:

1. Listening: Based on what we know from this message, the cloud hosting provider is solving the pain of:
   • Technical barriers and complexities

We don’t know which technical barriers and complexities the message is referring to. For me to rewrite the message, I need to be creative here. So, I’ll fill in the gaps.

We’ll make the following assumptions:

• We’ll assume that by technical barriers, the author is referring to the I.T. infrastructure investments that businesses would have to make if they are not using a cloud hosting solution.
• We’ll also assume that complexities refer to the fact that managing I.T. infrastructure can be challenging if you don’t have enough resources in-house.

2. Empathize: Now that we know the pain, we have to build a connection by making the audience feel that we understand their pain. We do this by not just mentioning the problem but also talking about what life looks like today.

Questions to answer:

• How would you manage I.T. projects if you didn’t use cloud hosting?
• Why is that so much more difficult?

3. Dream: Finally, your message should talk about why someone would use your solution to solve that pain. The message does a great job of talking about why you should use Cloud Haven’s cloud hosting services.

Read: No, Your Customers Won’t Ask for A Faster Horse

New Humanized Cloud Hosting Marketing Message

Here’s a sample marketing message that you can create that combines all the elements of storytelling and humanized marketing message:

Using Cloud Haven’s Cloud Hosting, I.T. managers go from worrying about the complexities of managing I.T. projects in-house to focusing on the growth and success of projects. With instant access to our secure data centers across the globe, we eliminate the technical barriers of setting up and managing your I.T. infrastructure on a day-to-day basis by taking care of everything for you. Save money while improving your team’s productivity with Cloud Haven.

Cheesy Bonus fun message: Experience I.T. Heaven with Cloud Haven

Here’s the message again with the elements highlighted:

Using Cloud Haven’s Cloud Hosting, I.T. managers [who] go from worrying about the complexities of managing I.T. projects inhouse to focusing on the growth and success of projects [why]. With instant access to our secure data centers across the globe [how], we eliminate the technical barriers of setting up and managing I.T. infrastructure on a day-to-day basis by taking care of everything for you [what]. Save money while improving your team’s productivity with Cloud Haven [why].

It’s a wrap, folks! On this one for the first time, the human takes it, even if it’s a narrow win.

About Human vs. Robot

Human vs. Robot is a video and blog series from Brisque, where we look at how to humanize real marketing messages that sound overly technical or ‘robotic’ from technology companies. Marketing messages used in the episodes are modified to remove any identifying features of the sourced company. All company names used are fictional.

Do you have the guts to find out if you pass the human test?

Get a free messaging assessment to find out how you can transform your marketing message from sounding too technical to more human. Email your marketing message (no more than a paragraph long) and a brief description of your company to hello@brisquemarketing.com. Be sure to include in the subject line: “Human vs. Robot.”

Please note: By emailing us, you agree that we can use your marketing message as part of our video and blog series. As usual, we eliminate all identifying characteristics, and your original message may be further modified to ensure obscurity. Simply put, no one will know it’s your marketing message except for you.

Happy humanizing!

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