For your marketing efforts to be effective, your B2B messaging framework should speak to a specific audience and approach the people your product can best serve.
Based on the product, the messaging should be tailored by persona, department, company type, or all of the above.
Depending on your solution, your messaging may focus on a specific type of persona, department, or company type, or you may need to address multiple people or teams who use your product or are involved in the decision-making process.
For example, if you’re selling a no-code tool that helps software developers build apps faster, you might need to tailor your messaging as follows:
→ Persona 1: developer (the person who uses your product)
→ Persona 2: CTO (the decision-maker)
→ Company type: software development agency
Why should you tailor the messaging to address different personas with different needs?
Because each individual has different needs and challenges – the developer needs a tool to help them build faster. In contrast, the CTO needs the developer to complete the software on time to meet deadlines and ensure timely deployment. Below are more B2B messaging examples.
Why should you ensure your messaging is tailored to the right company type?
A developer and a CTO from a software development agency will have completely different needs than a developer and a CTO from a marketplace.
Defining who you are speaking to and how to communicate with them using their language can make a huge difference in your company’s growth.
You can’t create messaging that clicks with your best-fit customers unless you understand their current reality.
Your clients may need help with many problems, have many broken workflows, and have many uncovered needs.
But they are already running their business before you come in place.
Therefore, even if you have a better solution to their problems, and you might help them solve their needs instantly, first, you need to understand:
→ Their current workflow – what and how are they doing now
→ Their current problems – what are the limitations of the current workflow
→ Their needs and desires – what they need and how you can cover it
Being aware of all of these will help you understand their current reality.
1. Understand your clients’ workflows
→ What are they doing right now?
→ How are they managing their processes?
→ What are the struggles in their daily operations?
Outcome – find the context for your messaging
2. Understand your clients’ pains and problems
→ Where are the pain points in their current workflow?
→ What are the friction points in their processes?
→ What keeps them up at night?
Outcome – show how your solution can make their life easier.
3. Understand your clients’ needs and Desires
→ Beyond just solving problems, what do they really want?
→ What are their short and middle-term goals?
→ What are their long-term aspirations?
Outcome – align your messaging to speak directly to their core needs.
Your potential customers are already doing something to address their challenges. Your job is to understand what that is, what’s working, what’s not, and why.
You can create messaging that clicks and presents a better solution to their problems only after that.
When selling a SaaS product to large corporate and enterprise clients, who should your messaging target?
Corporate sales are complex. The process involves different decision-making layers, primarily when you sell expensive software solutions and stakeholders have different needs.
Recently, I had a workshop to define positioning and messaging for a SaaS company. They sell an expensive platform to corporate clients.
Their product is used by Sales Reps in their daily activities, by the Area Sales Manager to monitor and control their team, and by the National Sales Director to oversee all operations.
Many SaaS companies selling to enterprises face this situation where their product users differ from the decision influencers and decision-makers.
In this case, we had the following situation:
User → Sales Rep.
Decision Influencer → Area Sales Manager
Decision-Maker → National Sales Director
Which persona should we target with our messaging?
The short answer is that ALL of them.
However, our most considerable efforts must focus on one specific audience.
The question is, who?
When selling a SaaS product to enterprise clients, should your messaging target the user, the decision influencer or the decision maker?
In our specific case we evaluated if we should craft the messaging for the Sales Reps? After all, they’re the ones who use our product in their daily activities.
The answer is no. Even though they are the ones using the solution, they don’t have the power to decide whether to adopt that specific solution in the company.
Should the messaging speak directly with the National Sales Directors?
The answer is, again, no. It is less likely that someone from Top Management will search for specific solutions on the Internet. They may do that when they are new in that position, but most often, they are the ones who make a decision based on what people in their team recommend.
We decided to craft our messaging for the Area Sales Managers, the Decision Influencers.
Why? Because they act as a bridge between the Sales Reps (the Users) and the Top Management (Decision-Makers). They want their team to perform better. And they can influence the decisions made by the company’s top management.
If Sales Reps don’t hit their target, this will directly impact the Area Sales Managers.
The Area Sales Managers can influence the National Sales Director’s decisions regarding which solution to choose.
So, the messaging should speak directly to Area Sales Managers.
We decided to include a separate section on the website of whom the product serves by role, and that is the place to mention the specific functionalities and benefits for each of the shareholders involved in this process.
When you sell a SaaS product to enterprise clients, you must craft your product messaging and target the right audience within the decision-making hierarchy.
While all stakeholders play a role, focusing your communication efforts on the right people can make a massive difference between “This is exactly what we need!” and “Losing them at hello.”
A clear messaging that clicks with the right audience will.
→ Make your product instantly clear for your ideal customer profile (ICP).
→ Highlight the right features to target the right customer segment.
→ Transform technical details into clear, engaging language without confusion.
Ultimately, clear messaging will increase your conversion rate.
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If you run a B2B software company and need help refining your positioning, messaging, and copywriting, let’s talk. Send me an email outlining your current challenges, and I’ll help make your product instantly clear to the right audience.
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If you think I can add value to your company, let’s schedule an intro call to see if we’re a good fit, and if we are, we can discuss a potential collaboration.