If your brand messaging process is taking you ~6 months from ideation to rollout across all your marketing and sales assets, stop right now. Your market will have changed by the time you get out of the door. There’s a much quicker and more effective way to do this. Read on.
Oh boy, do you remember 2021? Everyone was scaling, everyone wanted to grow, start-ups and unicorns were knocking at our doors and windows en masse to get their messages out there and drive new customers in - all with deadlines set up for yesterday. Quite the show, right? I mean, just look at this chart!
Don’t get us wrong, we weren’t complaining at all - until it all was over quicker than anyone anticipated. Barely six months in to 2022 and all the companies who wanted to scale were suddenly struggling to survive. The messages they were sending out? No longer relevant. The moral of the story? Messaging is all about timing and time is of the essence.
So if your brand or product messaging process is longer than a few short weeks, you’re in for (relevance) trouble.
This is where the real fun starts.
Most B2B tech marketers hate working on their company’s messaging and branding. The fear that the outcome will be generic and downright boring is a real one, and so it should be. I mean take a look at these examples of company descriptions…
Bloody hell. I’ve read these all at least ten times before and I still have no idea what they’re saying. Buzzwords, useless jargon, and cliches are killing your messaging and marketing campaigns. You know what I’m talking about - “seamless”, “all encompassing”, “ML/IA”, “end-to-end”... you get my drift.
So we know we don't want to sound the same as our competitors, but what about looking like them? Well, take a look at these beauties…
I like to call this the blue screen of death.
I bet if you remove the logos and the colorful CTAs, you won't be able to tell them apart. The thing is, if you’re not memorable, nobody is gonna want to buy your product.
C’mon, you know what I mean. Not your actual grandma. I love your grandma. Let me explain.
You enter a messaging process with approximately 3-4 relevant individuals involved, and all seems fine. Everyone is content and satisfied. However, things take a turn when the CTO joins the discussion and offers her input. Subsequently, the VC catches wind of the discussion and chimes in with his viewpoint.
Oh, and we mustn't forget to mention the CEO's sister, who has recently completed her Master's in Marketing & Communications and feels compelled to share her thoughts on the matter. Before you realize it, 10 people have assessed and provided input on your messaging. If there's one thing you are lacking, it's time for 10 people to evaluate and provide feedback on your messaging strategy.
The second thing killing your messaging is time for validation. The validation process for messaging in an organization is crucial, but the time it takes can be a major obstacle. Many organizations face this challenge, and the process typically unfolds as follows:
This process can consume significant time, often taking around six months or more. Unfortunately, you don't have six months.
If you're a B2B marketing professional, your messaging process probably looks something like this:
Here are additional practices that you should first incorporate into your messaging process:
Only after completing these three steps should you begin your keyword research.
Hallelujah, the writer wrote the piece of content. Follow these steps to ensure an efficient approval process.
So the full process should end up looking like this:
By now, Wynter should be paying me commissions on a regular basis, because chances are there’s not a single person left that knows me and hasn’t heard about Wynter from me (PSST Wynter, this is your chance…)
Wynter is a fantastic tool that allows you to A/B test your B2B marketing messaging BEFORE you launch any campaign. Take a look at the example of one of our customers, Veriti, below. We’ve tested their messaging through Wynter and asked for opinions from CISOs, security leaders, etc. The results? When people see an image of a man and a woman with a question “am I protected?” next to it, they really can only think of one thing, but hey, turns out CISOs are human beings too.
But on a more serious note, where Wynter comes in extra handy is the actual reviews you receive from your tested audience. The feedback you can gather is priceless and adds to the success of your campaign before you even launch it.
Important thing to note, getting feedback from even 50 people from your target audience doesn’t mean the job is done. You still need to send your message out there for real-life testing, use paid channels like LinkedIn, Google, Twitter, etc. and try to get at least 100-200 leads to be able to even determine the success of your campaign. Because let’s do the math here, if you only get one person or two people through the funnel, it says nothing about the performance of your messaging. You know what they say: the more, the merrier!
Which is never – because your best shot is at constantly optimizing what you know is working already. But if no leads are converting, that’s your red flag to stop and reevaluate. Maybe you’re focusing on the wrong pain points or maybe something in your messaging is depicting them.
For your convenience, here’s a recap of everything I’ve said:
I hope this helps. I know it did for us and many other brands that reached out to us about their messaging. If you need help crafting the perfect message for your target audience, send us a message, and let's meet for coffee. I’m paying.