B2B brand messaging is the delicate art of knowing exactly what to say to inspire the desired action.

Needless to say, it’s easier said than done, especially in the crowded B2B space, all competing for discerning B2B buyers.

Besides, the target market is likely already bombarded with too many messages, so simply being heard seems like an impossible task.

In this in-depth guide to B2B communication, I will talk about how to create impactful messages that command the audience’s attention to generate real results.

Need help creating (or refining) your B2B messaging? Book a discovery call with me today to explore your options.

What is B2B Messaging?

B2B (or “business-to-business”) messaging is a marketing strategy that aims to capture the attention of businesses and organizations instead of individual consumers.

A B2B message aims to educate an individual purchasing on behalf of a company. It’s a way to communicate how you can be the solution to a problem they’re trying to solve or a need they want met.

B2B Messaging vs. B2C Messaging

While B2B messaging targets other businesses, B2C focuses on individual consumers.

For instance, Netflix may employ a B2C marketing strategy because it targets individual customers who like to watch movies on the go.

On the other hand, a company like Amazon needs B2B messaging to communicate with online sellers and companies.

B2B messaging is also driven by logic and results, whereas B2C marketing leans more toward appealing to emotion or entertaining an audience.

As B2B companies also weigh the long-term impact of their purchase decisions and consult with others before closing a deal, it takes longer to convert businesses into customers than individuals.

What is the Importance of Messaging?

Your brand message tells your audience who you are, what you offer, and why they need you. It communicates your relevance to them and what sets you apart from your competition.

Cliche as it sounds, differentiation is key to getting noticed in today’s hyper-saturated marketplace. Clear, coherent, and impactful messaging gets that done for you.

Benefits of Effective B2B Messaging

Carefully thought-out and on-brand B2B messages can help a business achieve the following benefits:

• Create Brand Awareness: When a brand displays its offerings on the landing page, blogs, and social media posts, it conveys its brand mission and values to the target market.
• Build Trust and Credibility: Brand messaging for B2B helps the brand highlight what differentiates them from the rest, and they can build brand recognition and trust over time.
• Educate the Target Market: Effective messaging helps explain the benefits of a brand’s offerings to show how the product or service can help businesses achieve the results they’re looking for.
• Drive Long-Term Sales: Messaging that leverages social proof, like case studies and testimonials, invites the B2B buyers to engage with and buy from the business.

What Are the Key Elements of Successful B2B Messaging?

How you craft your B2B messaging strategy will depend on your industry, the audience you target, and the channels you use. Though these factors vary, the following key elements are a must:

Clear Buyer Persona

A buyer persona represents a segment of your audience and will help ensure your message is relevant.

Based on the diversity of your target audience, their demographics, and where they are in the customer journey (the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision stages), you need to create buyer personas that clearly reflect each audience segment.

Doing so will enable you to know precisely how to craft messaging that resonates with your audience every time.

Audience Segmentation

A one-size-fits-all message just doesn’t work. A better strategy is knowing exactly who you’re targeting and shaping your message according to what you know about your audience.

You’ll need to divide your target audience into separate segments to accomplish this. These allow you to craft a specific message that resonates with every buyer group, whatever stage they are in the customer journey.

Unique Value Proposition

You’ll want your message to be attention-grabbing. For that, it needs to be original. You need to be unique. Tell your audience what sets you apart using value-based messaging–in other words, ask yourself, “Why should my audience choose me over a vast sea of options?”

Right Timing

A great story goes hand-in-hand with the right context. Amplify your message by knowing when to tell your story.

Knowing the right timing entails understanding the customer journey and taking advantage of recent events, cultural changes, and other happenings that affect your audience or interest them.

Data to Back up Your Claims

Anyone can claim pretty much anything online. What gets people’s attention is data, a proven track record, and proof of financial incentive. Use those to bolster your message and make it more attractive to your audience.

Examples of B2B Messaging Strategies

Explore the following types of B2B messaging strategies that you can use in your marketing plan:

1. Email Marketing

Unlike individual consumers, businesses are more inclined to find solutions and achieve their business goals, like boosting ROI.

An engaging and informative newsletter is a great way to introduce a brand to the audience and tell them how a business can address their pain points.

2. Content Marketing

Maximize the brand reach with articles, blogs, and case studies.

With SEO, educational and data-driven content can help broaden the reach and ensure that content is delivered to audience segments that are more inclined to engage meaningfully with a brand.

3. Digital Marketing

Digital strategies, which include paid ads and SEO, allow a brand to cover all the bases on the website.

Digital marketing strategies help a brand widen its reach into each target segment.

4. Social Media

Social media is great for building connections and establishing relationships.

It’s also an excellent tool for social listening and learning to speak the target audience’s language.

How to Craft a Powerful B2B Messaging Strategy

Developing a messaging strategy requires a deep understanding of the audience and skills to craft compelling copy.

Here’s a guide to get going:

1. Define Your Target Audience

Understanding the target audience helps in figuring out the message, how the message needs to be communicated, and what channels to use.

To define the target audience:

• Conduct market research
• Analyze the existing customer base
• Research the competition
• Develop ideal buyer persona(s)

2. Know Your Brand Position

The brand position shows how the target market perceives a brand.

Establish this by creating a brand positioning statement, which will help define the narrative around a brand.

This is also where a messaging hierarchy comes into play. The brand position becomes more relatable and convincing when a business adapts a marketing funnel (or a standard model of the customer’s journey) to fit the brand.

3. Establish Your Marketing Mix

Now, establish your marketing mix (also called the Four P’s of marketing):

• Product: What a brand offers
• Price: How much the product costs
• Placement: Where the products or services are available
• Promotion: How customers find the products or services

Pinpointing these areas before jumping to a marketing plan helps to identify the channels that suit the message and how to communicate the brand identity effectively.

4. Analyze Your Competition

Take a close look at the competition to see what can be better or different.

Essential things to look at are:

• Strengths: What strategies, platforms, and messages work for them? How well do their audiences respond?
• Weaknesses: These include audience segments they haven’t tapped or haven’t had success with, and platforms they haven’t maximized.
• Opportunities: What does the audience want or need that the competition doesn’t offer?
• Threats: What are the ways the competition may threaten the position in the market, and what can you do to secure the market position?

5. Create a Marketing Plan

Finally, create a marketing plan – the how of the brand messaging.

The marketing plan is a detailed roadmap for executing the messaging strategy, from the platforms to use (like LinkedIn and Facebook) to the campaign budget.

The plan should include the following basics:

• Budget
• Objectives
• Channels
• Strategies
• Performance indicators and metrics

6. Test and Revise

The right messaging usually takes several iterations. Don’t get discouraged if it isn’t accurate the first time.

Execute the marketing plan and test different versions of the message to see how they perform on various platforms.

Use the insights to improve the delivery or reshape the message to resonate better with the target audience.

Struggling to create an effective messaging strategy? Get expert eyes on your marketing strategy with me. Together, we will go through a comprehensive messaging strategy review and refine your messaging to drive more conversions.

How to Develop a B2B Messaging Framework

The messaging framework guides how to implement the messaging across various platforms and audience segments.

Here’s how to craft one:

Understand the Customer Journey

First, understand where the buyer is. As mentioned earlier, there are three stages in the customer journey:

• Awareness: The customer becomes aware of a problem and realizes they need a solution.
• Consideration: At this stage, they have understood what they need and started researching their options.
• Decision:The customer is ready to make a purchase decision.

How a brand interacts with the audience should depend on what stage they’re in.

For instance, someone in the consideration stage is weighing their options. That’s where a brand should invest time and effort in educating the audience on the benefits of choosing them.

Talk about their pain points, the advantages of the products over the competition, and what incentive they stand to gain.

Tell an Engaging Brand Story

A story humanizes a brand, which helps to connect with the audience. Although a brand is selling to a business, remember that there are decision-makers behind these businesses.

While an emotional connection is beneficial mainly in B2C messaging, some degree of it is still necessary in B2B communication.

The brand story should tell people how a brand started, its mission and vision, and what values it upholds. What makes a brand relatable to the target audience? Why should they pay attention to the business?

Let’s take Apple, for instance. Their brand story revolves around being different. They started telling it with the “Think Different” campaign in 1997.

The message was clear: Apple wanted to change the course of technology by being “the crazy ones” who did what others had never dreamed of.

Needless to say, it was a revolutionary approach to technology and design, and the message clicked. We know that because that’s still the way we think of Apple to this day. People buy their products for the same innovative appeal that they presented many years ago.

Show Proof

Most businesses make decisions based on financial incentives and ROI. They want less risk and more benefits. The way to address that is by proving that the brand can deliver by backing up your claims with numbers and data.

Case studies, testimonials, and success stories are more persuasive than the most creative marketing copy. They’re proof of the kind of results a brand is capable of delivering.

Be Authentic

It may sound counterintuitive, but casting a wide net instead of focusing on a specific market segment may result in lost opportunities.

A B2B brand can’t appeal to everyone. But given your values, unique value proposition, and story, there is a market segment that’s most likely to listen. As a business digs deeper into what makes them, they’ll find their audience and know how best to speak to them.

Be Consistent

A clear, coherent, and consistent core message throughout all the platforms is a sure way to make the message stick. This also goes with the tone, language, and personality.

It’s easier to be consistent when the messaging is:

• Simple: It’s easy to remember and adapt across different platforms.
• Direct: Avoid fluff, jargon, and complex concepts. People should remember what a brand said, even if they only spent a few seconds reading it.

B2B Messaging Examples

The real-world scenarios below show how top brands use clear communication of their value proposition to resonate with other businesses:

1. Slack

Slack’s messaging employs a concise, customer-centric approach that streamlines collaboration for teams.

They use the tagline ‘Where work happens’ to appeal to their ideal clients who are busy professionals seeking efficient solutions.

Another standout feature in their message is that they use percentages to show how many businesses have improved their productivity using Slack. This fosters trust in potential customers.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot uses a short, memorable headline that says ‘Where go-to-marketing teams go to grow.’

Its message addresses a specific audience (go-to-market teams) and their need to grow.

By addressing the growth pain point, HubSpot positions itself as the ultimate solution for businesses looking to grow.

How to Measure the Success of Your Messaging

By now, we already know that revisions are part of developing a powerful brand message. But how do you know when you’ve created the one?

Here’s how to know when your messaging clicks or when you need to try again:

Identify Your Goals

Before even starting a campaign, you need to know what you want to achieve with your message. These goals will not only direct your execution but also help you determine what metrics and tools are appropriate.

Establish Metrics Early

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals go hand-in-hand. Identify your metrics as you pinpoint the goals you want to achieve with your message.

Some of the main areas to look at are reach, conversion, and engagement.

Pinpointing metrics early on will also help you stay on course, even as changes need to be implemented throughout the campaign.

Analyze Your Results

Compare your data across various channels to analyze how well your message is received and its impact on your objectives.

You’ll also want to compare your data with industry standards, the performance of your previous campaigns, or your competitors.

Tips to Create Strong B2B Messaging

Developing a compelling brand message can be challenging, especially with too many competing voices online.

These tips will help shape the messaging that gets the target audience to pay attention:

Keep It Personal

It’s tempting to focus on attracting as many people as possible. There’s nothing wrong with broadening the reach. But remember not to sound impersonal in the process.

To avoid that, target specific audience segments, understand their position in the customer journey, tailor the message to their needs, and provide solutions to their pain points.

These help create a feeling that the company is listening and knows precisely what they need, instead of bombarding them with a generic message in the hopes that someone might notice.

Don’t Be Afraid of Change

A brand’s message will evolve, whether it’s growing with the customers’ needs or has new offerings.

Accept that revision is part of the creative process. It’s okay if the first few iterations turn out to be flops. What’s important is listening to the audience and constantly improving.

Include a Clear CTA

Be clear about how the business wants the audience to act upon the message, and make it easy for them to do it.

Direct them to a clear call to action (CTA), but avoid confusing them with too many choices.

Stay Consistent

The message should always be aligned with the brand identity and personality, regardless of the channels a brand uses.

The core message should also be the same throughout, or else the target audience may be confused.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in B2B Messaging

When creating a brand message, be sure to avoid these common mistakes:

Neglecting to Appeal to the Emotion

Brands often forget that it’s still people behind the businesses they market to. We usually hear about the appeal to emotion in B2C messaging, but it’s also vital in B2B communication.

Remember that it’s people who make decisions for their companies, and they will be impacted by their perception of the brand, too.

Delivering a Generic Message

A mistake that stems from a lack of understanding of the target audience is offering generalized messages.

Understanding the audience and providing personalized messaging is vital if the business wants to be relevant and engaging.

Not Mentioning the Benefits

Businesses are incentive-focused. They want to know what a brand can do for them and how well it can do it.

So, highlight the benefits and make them even more appealing with data, success stories, and testimonials.

Ignoring Feedback

Whether it’s data gathered from surveys, performance analyses, or social listening, feedback is crucial to improving the message and its delivery.

If something doesn’t work, don’t waste time and resources by sticking to it.

Best Practices for Effective B2B Messaging Strategy

When creating B2B messaging, these are the tips that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the communication strategy:

• Balance Clarity and Creativity: Aim to capture the audience’s attention yet maintain a straightforward tone and language that delivers the key messages.
• Test Different Formats: Conduct A/B message testing to gain insights into the most effective messaging approach.
• Segment the Messaging: Ensure the messaging is relevant and targeted based on the industry, the company size, and the audience’s specific pain points.
• Embrace Multi-channel Messaging: Understand where the B2B audience is most active and tailor the messaging for each channel, creating a cohesive and engaging approach.

Another key tip is to partner with a messaging strategist like me to create a unified messaging framework that anchors all your messages.

We will map your key personas and tailor the messages to their needs while ensuring all content reflects your brand identity.

Schedule a call now and let’s discuss clear, actionable strategies to create messages that resonate deeply with the B2B pain points.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I’ve answered some of the most commonly asked questions about B2B brand messaging below:

How Often Should B2B Messaging be Updated or Revised?

There is no specific time to update or revise your brand message.

But you’ll know it’s time to change things up when your performance metrics tell you your message is falling on deaf ears, you’re not seeing enough conversions, or when a major industry shift is taking place.

What Role Does Content Play in B2B Messaging?

Great content is key to successful B2B messaging, as it maintains and nurtures relationships with your audience, drives traffic (especially when partnered with SEO), and generates leads.

Can One B2B Brand Have Multiple Messaging Strategies?

Yes. B2B brands can have multiple messaging strategies when:

• Tailoring the messaging to different industries, highlighting the relevant products’ benefits to align with other use cases.
• Targeting multiple B2B buyer personas, each with unique needs and pain points.
• Adapting the messaging to varying regions without losing the brand essence.
• Targeting different channels and messaging formats.

What Are the Best Tools for Testing B2B Messaging?

Here is a list of the best tools for B2B messaging testing:

1. Typeform and SurveyMonkey to create surveys that ask customers to rank headlines, value propositions, and choose between two versions of messages.
2. HubSpot and Mailchimp to A/B test email subject lines and CTAs to increase click and open rates.
3. LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads to test multiple ad messages and see which one drives the most conversions.

Conclusion

The brand message is what sets a business apart in a highly saturated and intensely competitive B2B marketplace.

If you need dedicated guidance, you can schedule a strategy discovery call so we can collaborate to understand your audience, refine your messaging, and increase conversions.