What is B2B messaging?

Messaging is the operational expression of your unique positioning. 

If positioning defines what makes you unique and where you strategically fit in the market then messaging is the vehicle that communicates that position in a simple, clear way to your target audience.

What does good messaging do?

Good messaging makes buyers quickly identify what you do, who you are for, why you matter and why you are different. It has a huge impact on everything through the sales process including outbound, inbound, demos and sales consistency.

Clear and strong messaging is an aggressive accelerant. Great messaging makes it easy for a buyer to assess fit and buy. It speeds buyer comprehension, pushes buyers down the funnel faster and builds buyer confidence in your product. 

Let’s come back to our earlier positioning example with Accredible vs Pearson. 

Refresher:

Our positioning was simple: “Your brand should be the face of your digital credentials and therefore, whitelabelling of the credential recipient experience is a must when choosing a vendor”

Their counter position: “Our brand is well known and creates immediate trust and therefore you don’t need whitelabelling”

The messaging has evolved over the years but it’s still there on the website: 

Crystal clear. Your brand is the face of your credentials not ours.

Positioning > Messaging > Buyer comprehension > Buyer confidence > Conversion

What’s the difference between copywriting and messaging?

Messaging is your strategic communication framework, how you broadcast your positioning. Copywriting is best thought of as channel level execution of your messaging strategy. 

The importance of consistency in your messaging.

I think of great messaging often like a thread that winds its way through every part of the organisation. It's not just something that marketing polishes and pushes out in hero tags on your website. If you nail your messaging strategy, the entire org should be singing from the same hymn sheet. Messaging is most powerful and you get a multiplier effect when Sales, Marketing, Founders, Website, outbound, product all drive forward with the same unified narrative. 

How do I actually develop or test messaging?

This is the archetypal moment where perfection will kill your momentum. You should probably be embarrassed about the first message you push out to your buyers, because it's their feedback and reaction that is actually going to be the ultimate litmus test that allows you to hone in on your messaging voice and winning strategy. 

First off you should be doing this in order:

ICP > Positioning > Messaging.

That order gives you foundations for your messaging to be built on. The basic starting point is simply taking the pain you solve for your ICP, describing the positioning that makes your company unique and writing down how you would explain that to a potential buyer. Simple.

Once you have that you need to start singing your message from the rooftops (figuratively, unless that’s part of your strategy). Email, website, social media. But most critically you need to create feedback loops. How do people resonate with what you are saying? What actions does it drive? What outcomes are you aiming for?

From there it is a case of being scientific. Create your controls. And then tweak one thing each time as you optimise and iterate towards your goal.

What are the common mistakes people make with B2B messaging?

The fastest growing mistake I see right now is outsourcing the entire thing to ChatGPT et al. This won’t work. I am not saying don’t use AI, it should help you run experiments and can be a sounding board. But getting AI to write your entire messaging will likely end in failure. There is a reason that Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and more are investing huge sums of money into human copywriters and content creators. They know that today AI written copy turns buyers away. 

Feature dumping is another thing to avoid. There’s the classic saying that Simon Sinek coined in his TED talk “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. This still stands true and although of course at some point you need to be able to say what features you have this shouldn't be the central point of your messaging strategy. 

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Simon Sinek

As per above, you need consistency across your messaging. This is also true across channels, so ensure the messaging and voice you choose is standardised whether you show up. 

Don’t negate the work we did in crafting your ICP. Ideally your ICP helped inform your positioning which is now helping you inform your messaging. They are intrinsically linked. If your messaging is disconnected from your ICPs pain it won’t land. 

Your positioning was designed to make you stand out and be unique, if your messaging doesn’t convey this then you’ve also not succeeded.

Also avoid boring generic category language, trying to sound too clever or jargon-heavy messaging. 

To wrap up. 

Messaging isn’t just website copy. Yes it informs it, but when done correctly messaging is the accelerant that engages your ICP and drives them down the funnel. It can create leverage where there was none, it can give clarity to a buyer searching in a crowded space. It also has the power to drive organisational alignment.