Meet the B2B brand messaging framework.
In the last three years, I’ve seen “messaging” becoming a bigger topic in B2B.
I’m serious. I know messaging has been around a long time. It’s important, and a foundation of marketing.
But I don’t know. It seems like a volcano erupted in the world of B2B SaaS and we all collectively realized that brand messaging really matters.
I’m all here for it — as a conversion copywriter I’ve been a de facto brand messaging strategist for 6+ years.
When I was working internally at B2B companies, I generally just became the person responsible for all the messaging work. Things like:
Interviewing customers
Writing case studies
Creating brand voices
Establishing personas
Listening in on sales calls to find messaging language
Writing value propositions for different products
The works. As the only person internally with the capabilities of taking customer insights and turning them into actual words, I became a product marketer, brand marketer, and conversion copywriter all wrapped up into one emu-sized person.
And I loved it. Really.
Over the years, I’ve worked with dozens of different B2B tech and SaaS companies to help them figure out their brand messaging.
I’ve also worked with mentors to learn about how to get better at finding concepts and build brand voices.
The result? It’s going to be this monster blog post, where I’ll detail why brand messaging matters for B2B — then give you a messaging framework that you can use to create your own MVP version.
First though, what’s the state of B2B brand messaging?
Did you know that only 25% of B2B buyers consult sales vendors?
Me either, until I read this article from TrustRadius. It's all about how B2B buying (and selling) is shifting. And it's something you should read if you're in sales or marketing.
Some notable takeaways?
🧑🤝🧑 33% of buyers say collaboration amongst decision makers has increased since the pandemic started, and that buying groups have gotten bigger.
💌 Buying groups share information in a fragmented way. They're spreading your message across email (68%), in person meetings (35%), Teams (34%), Slack (20%), and other tools
💯 Virtually 100% of Buyers want to self-serve part (or all) of their buying journey
🥉 The top 3 things vendors do that make buyers less likely to buy:
Cold calling (64%)
Lack of transparent pricing on the website (57%)
Unclear messaging (48%)
The crux of it all: Millennials and GenZ are maturing and taking over the buying journey. And they want to do as much of the research as they can *without* talking to your sales team.
And if your website doesn't give them what they want, or if your messaging isn't obvious, you're missing out on some amazing opportunities.
The sad reality though is that most B2B brand messaging is a veritable shit show.
For the last 30+ years, B2B tech companies have coasted on the fact that their products have been difficult (if not impossible) to copy.
It’s always been expensive to try and build a competitive product. If you build a SaaS tool like Salesforce, for example, there’s always been high costs of development.
But, that’s changing. And it’s changing fast. The Product Marketing Alliance recently released a report that predicted "brand will be a B2B SaaS company's most important competitive advantage."
1️⃣ Every market is going to become more competitive as the cost of development sinks.
2️⃣ Product features will become easier to copy.
3️⃣ Buyers are getting more sophisticated, and pay attention to things like design, color choices, and brand voice as indicators of trust
In other words: in a few years, your company story and image could be the only thing that makes you stand out.
In fact, it's already happening. I recently spoke with someone in a *very* traditional B2B industry who told me, "We're losing out on deals because our competitor has a recognizable and trustworthy brand, even though our product is significantly better."
How is B2B brand messaging changing in 2024?
If you slowed down marketing spend in the last two years because of the economy, I've got a hard truth for you:
What worked in 2020 simply isn't going to work today.
Here's why. 👇
1️⃣ Your audience has gotten more sophisticated.
There's a concept in marketing called "market sophistication."
At the most basic level, it refers to the way that an audience changes as a market becomes more saturated.
Take smartphones, for example: in the beginning, none of us knew what these things could really do.
But if you tried using the same messaging today that Apple used in 2007?
Your brand message wouldn't make sense — smartphones are so integrated into our daily lives now that you'd seem like a buffoon with an ad that explains, "This is how you turn on an iPhone."
If your marketing has been working, your audience probably knows more about your market category now than they did 3 years ago.
Your message needs to change to reflect that.
2️⃣ Your product has changed.
Marketing has effectively sat still for two years...
...but your product's certainly been changing.
Chances are high that your old key features have new messages and ideas around them…or that you have an entirely new feature set to start with.
Your marketing efforts should change to reflect the updated product strategy and roadmap.
Otherwise your marketing and sales teams will be telling two different stories.
3️⃣ Your market has changed (hi, new competitors).
If you were a category disruptor three years ago (and your category was a profitable one), chances are you've got some competition by now.
It's getting easier and easier every year to build a product — so your ability to compete on features alone gets harder and harder.
Now is the time to look at your differentiation strategy. What stories can you, and only you, tell about the market?
✨ Remember, marketing isn't just about driving leads — it's about capturing attention and creating connection.
And in the new wave of B2B marketing, it's time to build something that's worth paying attention to.
How can you build a B2B strategic messaging framework?
When I first heard the term “product marketing” a few years ago, I was honestly shocked it had taken me so long to find the discipline.
At the time, I was the only copywriter working in a SaaS business. And, like I’ve previously mentioned, I was the only person who had a lot of the skills necessary for product marketing.
When I learned there was a whole discipline to describe the work I’d already been doing I was thrilled and started digging in.
Ever since then, I’ve been mad-sciencing together my ideas about brand messaging based on my career’s worth of insight as a conversion copywriter, product marketing experience, and love for brand strategy.
The result: it’s a b2b brand messaging framework that’s perfect for startups because it captures everything you need for aligned messaging.
It’s broken into roughly three big parts:
You have to start with your positioning.
Positioning, to quote April Dunford, “defines how our product is different and better than alternatives for a particular set of customers. Strong positioning is the foundation of great marketing and sales and is the starting point for a company’s messaging, branding, lead generation, and sales strategy.”
Basically: it’s the process of figuring out where you sit in the market in relation to your competitive alternatives. It’s the art of looking at your business through an objective lens, and figuring out who your ideal audience is.
Sure, sounds heavy. But the truth? It isn’t so bad to do. I’ve helped a few companies refine their positioning, and once all the research is done, it only takes a few hours of organizing your thoughts into a clear, coherent document.
Positioning needs to be done before you start with your brand messaging. Think of it like drawing a map. Positioning helps you understand where the hell you are. Then messaging is the process of sketching the map itself.
So, how do you do it?
The first thing is to go buy April Dunford’s book Obviously Awesome so you know more about the philosophy. It’s a pretty quick and easy read, but you’ll learn a lot.
From there, you can either do the work internally, or find a consultant to help you out.
I’m obviously biased, but I’d recommend working with an external consultant to define your positioning. It helps to have perspective from outside the business to eliminate bias.
Then you craft your core messages.
After defining your position, it’s time to craft the messages that support that main thesis.
The way I see it: messaging is a lot like one of those towers of champagne glasses:
You've got one core idea at the top that bleeds through into everything else you do...but everything else you do still supports that single glass at the top. 🥂.
The core idea at the top is your value proposition: it’s the single thing you want to be known for, and it’s where you invest (or pour) all your energy. When you do, eventually the benefits spill over and start filling up supporting glasses.
The glasses underneath are your supporting messages. They exist to provide evidence your “thesis” and value proposition. They’re things like:
Market trends
Your use case
Your differentiators
Your point of view
These supporting messages and where you shove all the other secondary ideas that are swirling around in your business — those things that are important, but which aren’t your direct value proposition.
Thinking about these secondary messages that exist to support your value proposition helps you frame your ideas. It gives you perspective on how to write about those trends, differentiators, and use cases.
Finally, you have to pull things together with an interesting brand voice.
Your positioning and messaging help you figure out what you want to say.
But, as I mentioned earlier on in the post — B2B brands now need to think about how they say it, too.
You’ve got to consider your brand voice and copywriting.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with a few people who actually *are* brand geniuses. And I've seen first-hand the difference a strong brand made.
And the biggest thing I learned?
Your brand and your company's positioning are two sides of the same coin. 🪙
Everything about your brand—from the typeface you use, to the punctuation you choose, to design styles you employ—should communicate your market position in an instant.
It's not just about creating a memorable personality that reflects your business (though that is part of it).
It's also about subconsciously reminding people of where you stand in a crowded market.
If you use brand strategically (and are *consistent* with it), it basically gives your marketing superpowers.
❤️ You become more trustworthy.
⭐ You stand out from the crowd.
💌 You create an emotional connection.
😎 You become recognizable.
💸 You can literally become more valuable.
See where I'm going?
So yes, brand is about ~~feelings~~
But it's also a business-critical investment. One that can have outsized returns (to the tune of 10-20% increases in revenue, according to a 2021 report from Marq).
Who wouldn't want that?
