Is your messaging cutting through the mass of content you’re producing?
Without a messaging framework, it’s easy to get blinded by a wave of great content and not notice messaging gaps or unnecessary and costly duplication. With different audiences and multiple channels of communication, it’s crucial to focus on the important messages, who they’re for and when they need to be delivered.
Here’s a model I use as a planning tool to define my key messages, and check that my content stack does actually cover those messages. Conveying the right message to the right audience at the right time and being consistent across all channels is vital. Brand campaigns, PR, thought leadership and product/service messaging must all fit together factually, tonally and visually.
That alignment happens only when marketing, PR and sales teams work in synch … which may not always happen naturally! I’ve found it’s helpful to show strategic thinking before introducing actual messages and content and this model does that for me. I’ve used it successfully to brief marketing, sales and PR colleagues and report up to senior leadership teams.
What exactly are you trying to say and to whom?
The starting point is to be really clear what you want each audience to understand. When boiled down, what are the big points? If you can’t easily explain that to a friend, think again. At this stage, you need simplicity and clarity … the copywriting will come later.
Some messages are needed for all audiences. For example, all audiences are interested in customer case studies, which bring to life everything you’re saying about your products and services. So a bank of case studies, testimonials and quotes, in written, graphical and video format is a goldmine that all teams need to be able to pull from to give to prospects, customers, journalists, partners, prospective employees, analysts and investors.
Other information will be of interest only to a subset of an audience, for example detailed product specifications and/or technical information and service level agreements (SLA).
And some messaging is confidential but may be shared under NDA with investors and analysts, for example company strategy, future product thinking.
Lift the lid on Awareness-Consideration-Purchase-Advocacy
These familiar 4 stages are a useful way to map out a structured customer buying process and categorise the content stack. But I like to encourage people to think carefully about the reality of an interaction before selecting the most appropriate content to use, whether it’s a demand campaign, an event or a sales meeting.
This context, more than anything, must determine what messages are needed, so ask yourself these questions: who am I talking to, what will catch their attention, what are their pain points & interests and what in my offer will they think is valuable?
A demand email campaign doesn’t necessarily have to use ‘awareness’ content followed by ‘consideration’. It could open with a big name case study (or one with some eye-catching numbers) and then go on to explain who we are and what we offer.
The point is to have all messaging bases covered for when the context is right, and to monitor customer activity to discern the context. Marketing automation helps track customer interests on-line so we can serve up content appropriately. Using CRM systems with aligned marketing and sales activity can tailor what content customers are exposed to at every touchpoint, on and offline. Along with customer research and insight, these tools form the backbone of an ABM approach.
Maximise value from PR activity
If marketing, PR and sales teams work together, from the same content stack, audiences will receive consistent messaging, which builds trust and credibility. And all talking points and opportunities for customer interactions can be utilised from marketing content and PR campaigns. Obviously robust processes are needed to maintain press-embargoes.
While the PR audience is different (media, analysts, investors & prospective employees rather than prospects) customers are naturally exposed to PR activity, especially since so much of it now happens on social media. Customers really like to be told what’s coming in the media and to receive content directly from us, for example research papers and best practice. Then if they enjoy the material, they may be more likely to become an advocate for us, commenting/sharing on social media. There’s nothing more powerful than customer advocacy.
Must-haves in the B2B customer messaging stack
1. Awareness: you don’t know me but I’d like us to get acquainted
At the highest level there must be clear and informative brand & corporate messaging to introduce ourselves. For example, a visual identity, business description, boiler plates, USPs, an elevator pitch, advertising, PR, social media. This is the organisation communicating who it is, what it does and how it thinks.
Next is thought leadership, an essential and useful tool to build on brand communications by showing knowledge and expertise about the topics our customers are interested in. It’s a mixture of in-house subject-matter expertise, original thinking and external research. Importantly, thought leadership is not specifically talking about our organisation or its products/services, but about the industry/business topics that will inform and interest customers. Or entertain them – humour is good, even in B2B!
2. Consideration: you’re interested in me and want to know how I can help you.
Having started a conversation with a customer, their needs/wants are starting to be identified. So this main stage of messaging comes into play: value statements and descriptions about how those needs/wants can be fulfilled by our products & services.
The simple message is that we can provide this benefit or solve that problem with a feature/features of a product/service. For example, “We can reduce your IT capital expenditure by providing your internet firewall as a cloud-based managed service.” That’s a benefit-led message. (Sometimes it works best to use feature first, followed by benefit, for example in a list of products/services – again, it depends on the context.)
As already mentioned, case studies are invaluable to bring these descriptions to life – to show, not tell. If a named case study is not available, make it anonymous, or tell a fictitious story – which works really well in visual formats including animations.
Thought leadership and best practice content can be a brilliant conversation-starter either online (from a website or social media) or in person perhaps at an event/meeting. This sharing of ideas and expertise is a crucial component to grow strong business relationships based on trust.
The other point to make is about the future, in terms of how customers can evolve with your current portfolio of products and how you are innovating. It’s particularly relevant in the technology industry to be able to show that your products/services are evolving with new technologies. But most industries are interested in long-term relationships with customers, so you’ll want to explain how they can keep increasing the benefits they enjoy from being with you.
3. Purchase: you’re seriously thinking about buying from me.
This is the final stage of the sale, when the customer needs clear, unambiguous and accurate information, with the detail. This includes technical information, pricing, service agreements and commercial/legal terms & conditions.
4. Advocacy: I want you to be a satisfied long-term customer
Communication continues after the sale with onboarding, implementation, go-live and satisfaction checks. Then there’ll be promotions, offers, new product information and contract renewals. Existing customers continue to be exposed to brand/PR communications and will still be interested in thought leadership and best practice material.
There are some customers you’ll want to reference externally, if they’re willing. That permission could be for a press announcement if it’s newsworthy (a big name customer and/or a new idea) with quotes you can use wider than the press release. Later on, you’ll be looking for a testimonial, new quote or case study with permission to use them in owned and earned media.
As we learn more about our customer, the more relevant our communication can be, and it’s an absolute must to make certain any direct communication is relevant to them. Inappropriate messaging to an existing customer is a quick way to damage a relationship, for example, an email about a product they’ve already bought, a link to a research paper they’ve already downloaded. So that’s going back to thinking carefully about context.
In summary ….
- Define key audiences – employees, prospects, customers, partners, media, analysts, investors
- Define key messages by audience and stage in the conversation
- Put messages in appropriate carriers (content formats) to suit the context and audience
- Deliver content through multiple comms channels in sales & marketing activity.
SALLY-ANNE BURWELL – June 2021
B2B MARKETING and PR 