Messaging plays a pivotal role in attracting and converting prospects. In fact, on average, B2B buyers engage with 13 pieces of content before making a purchase decision.

So, there’s never been a better time to develop your business’s messaging and content strategy to define and address your target audience’s specific pain points or needs. That’s where a SaaS messaging framework can help.

In this blog, we’ll take some time to better understand SaaS messaging frameworks and their application in the overall brand voice.

Why Most SaaS Messaging Falls Flat

Most SaaS companies struggle with converting prospects into buyers. Not because their product isn’t strong, but because their message isn’t connecting with the buyer.

This fact was confirmed by 51% of B2B buyers in a 2024 content preference benchmarking survey, who said that most vendor content felt too generic.

If potential buyers aren’t engaging, it could be:

• Leading with Features, Not Outcomes: Most companies’ messaging leans toward what the product does rather than how it benefits the buyer. They overly focus on their product’s greatest features and how it compares to competitors. The truth: what matters to buyers is the outcomes, not the isolated features.
• Not Relatable: SaaS companies miss the mark with their messaging. They tend to use heavy jargon and industry terminologies that confuse their target audience, pushing them to a competitor whose message is clearer. In the end, these companies fail to drive the kind of engagement that builds trust.
• Not Unique: Products in the same category offer similar capabilities. This creates a challenging environment for many, and differentiation in their messaging becomes difficult. It even becomes harder for prospects, as they can’t tell which company offers a solution that better meets their specific needs.
• Not Tailored to a Specific Need or Audience: Most SaaS companies struggle to identify the right buyers for their products. They serve different customer segments, from commercial clients to individual users. It becomes a challenge for them to tailor their messaging to this audience’s specific needs. They end up using an undifferentiated approach, which leads to low impact, as their ‘try to appeal to everyone’ message reaches unqualified leads, resulting in low engagement rates.
• Pricing not Aligned with Product Value: SaaS companies often use a tiered pricing model with a free trial. When the message fails to clearly communicate the value the user is getting from the specific tier, it’s perceived as too high. On the other hand, a low-priced tier model is often translated to low quality. Pricing misalignment causes product objections, resulting in a low conversion rate.
• Generic Testimonials: Most often, prospects’ purchase decisions are influenced by testimonials. Many SaaS companies are aware of this and usually publish generic testimonials as part of their B2B marketing strategy. They forget that prospects who check reviews from previous users seek tangible evidence that the product delivers its promises. Testimonials that don’t highlight quantifiable outcomes that the product has solved are translated as vague success stories, simply driving potential buyers to a competitor’s page.
• Messaging Tailored to One Decision Maker: B2B SaaS marketing messaging that does not address all decision-makers within an enterprise is likely to fail. Purchasing decisions in such settings involve several decision-makers: the IT team, which is entirely trusted to evaluate the product’s suitability; the finance team, which ensures ROI; and the leadership, whose primary concern is strategic alignment. When SaaS messaging speaks only to one team, it leaves the rest unconvinced, prompting them to look for alternatives.

Do you have any of these problems? Let’s connect and discuss how to create SaaS messaging that communicates your product’s value.

Schedule a discovery call today.

How Does a SaaS Messaging Framework Differ From Others?

A SaaS messaging framework centers on crafting your product’s unique value propositions (UVPs) by solving your audience’s problems.

SaaS messaging uses this pains vs. gains approach to resonate as specifically as possible with your target customer across all content areas.

From website copy to social posts, the messaging should speak to the ideal customer/client profiles (ICP). It should demand their attention and solve their problems before converting them to buyers.

SaaS messaging takes a similar approach by reviewing the business’s messaging and defining how to tweak the process to improve lead generation.

On the other hand, standard messaging features a more generalist approach based on brand tone and identity. It focuses on your business’s specific wording to attract your audience.

What is a Strategic SaaS Messaging Framework?

Strategic SaaS messaging frameworks should serve as the foundation for marketing content. The three core elements of this framework are positioning, messaging, and your ICP.

A strategic approach to B2B messaging speaks directly to the audience on every platform.

To that end, the best messaging framework examples include markers across locations like:

• Websites
• Social media
• Blogs
• Emails
• Sales decks
• Onboarding documentation
• Products

These business areas in a messaging framework make sure that everyone, from the target market to new employees, sees how a product makes life easier. It also means that sales and marketing aren’t kept in silos.

Positioning vs. Messaging

It’s important to consider positioning and messaging as two connected elements rather than separate entities. Like a flower in your garden, positioning is the strong stem propping up your messaging, acting as eye-catching petals.

Positioning is an internalized view of your business’s placement in the market. What does your product do? Who does it help? And why should your target audience choose you?

Meanwhile, messaging is how you take that view of your business offering and share it with the world via feature benefits backed up by social proof or peer reviews.

Why is a Messaging Framework Important for Businesses?

According to recent research by Exploding Topics, more than 30,000 SaaS businesses across the US are servicing around 54 billion customers.

So, getting your voice heard and differentiating yourself from the competition can be difficult. But without a clear messaging framework, reaching and engaging with target demographics is almost impossible.

With that in mind, how do you create a practical SaaS messaging framework?

Key Components of a SaaS Messaging Framework

As we’ve alluded to, there are four core components to getting the SaaS messaging right:

1. Defining your target market
2. Competitor research
3. Outlining your UVPs
4. Audience pain points

Define the Target Market and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Understanding the audience and their feelings is imperative for cutting through. One way to clearly define this intelligence is to create buyer personas.

Buyer personas are profiles to reflect the ideal client. To do this, focus on standard information such as their age, role, responsibilities, and the number of direct reports.

Use customer research to define:

• What’s important to them?
• What are their needs?
• Which SaaS brands are they using currently?
• How do they interact with suppliers and clients?

Conduct Competitive Research

With a clear idea of the audience, a brand must understand its competitors.

Look at the market and define the competitors and what they’re doing. Define what the brands do well and what could be improved.

Additionally, it’s ideal to view the messaging already out there and avoid hitting the same notes.

Outline the Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

The value proposition should encapsulate a brand. Understand and define what makes a platform or product unique in the marketplace.

With insights from the customer research, the next step is to highlight the product’s benefits.

To effectively leverage the competition when creating the UVP, it’s essential to define the:

• Points of Parity (POPs): Features that a brand shares with competitors. They are standard offerings that an audience wants but don’t set a product apart.
• Points of Irrelevance(POIs): Are there elements a brand offers that the prospects aren’t interested in?
• Points of Difference(PODs): Features of the platform that are important to an audience but that the competitors don’t offer.

Understand the Audience Painpoints, Claims, and Gains

Instead of thinking about the platform or products in terms of features and deliverables, focus on solutions to the target audience’s pain points and desires.

Their pains are more client-centric. They consist of fears and dreams to demonstrate that a brand understands their anxiousness because you think similarly.

However, the ‘Claims’ and ‘Gains’ elements are more closely aligned with the brand tone. The challenge with the former is showcasing the unique positioning and how you can help. While the latter highlights why your platform works. Luckily, there’s one way to hit both these markers: social proof.

Social proof is real-world testimonials from existing clients defining exactly how and why your product or brand worked for them. Recent studies show that implementing social proof tools can boost conversions by up to 15%.

Examples of High-Converting SaaS Messaging

Struggling to stand out? The SaaS market is overcrowded, and some brands have mastered crafting impactful SaaS content messaging that drives high conversion rates across channels.

Let’s see some of the top high-converting SaaS messaging:

Zoom: ‘Meet Happy’

This message is straightforward and makes clients feel valued. What Zoom communicates is a better experience for its users, which is built on trust and seamless interactions.

These 2-word memorable prepositions are not based on any technical features but on the emotional outcome the product offers.

Slack: ‘Where Work Happens’

Slack’s unique value proposition communicates a central place with no distractions that simplifies work life.

It clearly articulates its benefits to its audience, highlighting productivity, team collaboration regardless of location, and human connection in the modern workspace.

Dropbox: ‘Reducing Busywork’

Dropbox speaks clearly to individuals with a heavy workload who want time to focus on what matters. It promises liberation in simple, easy-to-understand language.

Mailchimp: ‘Turns Email into Revenue’

Here is another 5-word easy-to-memorize message that addresses the need, audience, and communicates value right away. It clearly speaks to those who want to create an email chain to generate revenue.

HubSpot: ‘There is a Better Way to Grow’

What matters to HubSpot is its customers’ growth in pain points.

The message speaks clearly and boldly to those who desire growth: no tech jargon, no hyped features, just a relatable solution.

Asana: ‘Work on Big Ideas Without the Busywork’

This straightaway communicates a tool that will help cut the clutter and get the users to deliver their tasks without feeling overwhelmed. It resonates with anyone who has a lot of work that drains their productivity. It also promises the ability to deliver on meaningful initiatives.

High-converting SaaS messaging speaks clearly to the target audience’s pain point in a compelling way while communicating the expected outcome.

How to Build an Effective Messaging Framework

Just like when defining the core elements of B2B messaging, building an effective messaging strategy should develop as a result of considered research, customer insights, competitive analysis, and solution offerings.

Gather Real-world Insights from your ICPs

Getting to know your audience is crucial to any messaging framework. However, when it comes to B2B SaaS messaging, it’s vital to get more granular in your analysis.

Define who your ICPs are, but then go one step further to answer questions like:

• What are their most infuriating pain points?
• What goals do they have, and what progress have they made?
• How can they begin/continue that progress?
• How do they normally enter the market for suppliers/vendors?
• Do they have any doubts about their customer journey?

Conduct Voice-of-Customer Research to Enhance Semantics

Once you have defined their pains and aspirations, you must craft your messaging to speak to them specifically. Get emotive and nail down the language that makes them tick.

Conduct a deep dive into their comms. 

What language do they use? 

Alongside this external approach, go one stage further and run a survey asking them the above questions. 

How do they answer?

You can then use extracts from their responses in your messaging to speak directly to their pains, anxieties, passions, or concerns.

One further step is to then create a brand lexicon. This can be a simple spreadsheet that defines the terms you’ll use to address certain emotions in your prospects.

Perform Competitive Analysis to Identify Differentiators

Go to the marketplace and define what sets your platform or service apart from the existing solutions.

Define the offerings from each competitor and list the commonalities and differences between you and the rest of the market. Then, go deeper by assessing how they communicate their UVPs. What language and tone do they use to cut through?

Build Your Messaging Around Solutions, Not Features

When finally building out your messaging, it pays to refer back to these five metrics for tonal success:

1. Brand: Is your branding in line with the messaging?

2. Clarity: Is your messaging clear? Can customers understand your offering?

3. Relevance: Have you managed to address their challenges or fears memorably?

4. Differentiation: Do you clearly define what makes you different or the best option?

5. Value: Does your messaging compel them to act?

The best way to define whether you have hit these markers is to ask your audience. Run and survey and get feedback from prospects. Industry events can be perfect for getting this candid feedback.

Aligning Messaging with the SaaS Buyer Journey

Buyers go through specific stages before purchasing, from problem recognition and evaluation to finding a suitable solution.

Crafting the right messaging at each stage improves engagement and increases conversion rate.

Let’s look at how to make this happen:

Awareness Stage Messaging

At this stage, the buyer identifies a problem that needs to be solved. They start researching a solution by reading blogs, guides, relevant industry articles, or watching videos. The goal is to understand their problem and the available solutions.

Messaging at this stage should focus on educating rather than promoting.

B2B SaaS messaging experts who educate and inform the prospects of their problem, and propose potential solutions at this stage, position themselves as an authoritative and trusted voice.

Consideration Stage Messaging

After the buyer is better informed about their problem and has identified possible solutions, they begin evaluating which option best fits their needs. They review product guides and feature lists, read comparison articles, and watch product demos.

Messaging at this stage should focus on differentiation: what sets the product apart from competitors.

Decision Stage Messaging

Here, the buyer has narrowed their options and is about to make a purchase, but still has doubts about whether they are making the right move.

The messaging at this stage should aim to reassure them about the product’s capabilities. It should also convey the product’s value (ROI) and some success metrics from previous users.

Onboarding Stage Messaging

Beyond the purchase, the buyer (new user) needs a good experience using the product to realize its actual value. Thus, the messaging should not be based on the product’s features, but rather on a clear guide to the app to help them set up their account.

This should be followed by an educational message highlighting the app’s tools and their benefits, tailored to the buyer’s needs.

What follows onboarding is the expansion stage, where the messaging focuses on persuading existing users to upgrade to a higher tier and access additional product capabilities. Then, the Renewal stage, where the messaging aims to reinforce the need to continue using the product.

What to Track When Testing Your SaaS Messaging

Messaging that does not resonate with the target audience results in high bounce rates and low conversion rates.

That’s why testing and tracking messages are essential to eliminate guesswork and provide tangible proof of what resonates and what needs refining.

Here are 11 metrics to monitor when testing the impact of SaaS messaging:

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC is a customer experience KPI that measures the cost of converting a prospect into a new customer. It’s calculated by dividing marketing and sales expenses by the total number of customers acquired over a specified period. This metric is critical in gauging messaging efficiency. For instance, an increase in CAC with a decreasing conversion rate is a clear indication that the messaging is effective.
2. Organic Traffic: The number of visitors to a website from unpaid sources. It is usually customer intent-driven and tends to draw high conversion rates. Besides building brand credibility, it helps to know which content resonates with the user.
3. Lead Velocity Rate (LVR): This metric helps gauge a business’s growth potential. It provides clear, real-time insights into business potential growth by focusing only on qualified leads. This allows the marketing team to adjust their sales strategies based on actual data.
4. Activation Rate: It tracks new users who move beyond the sign-up process and start realizing the value of the product they subscribed to. These users begin actively using the tool and invite others to collaborate on a project that requires its use. Calculated by dividing the no. of users who reach activation by the total no. of sign-up users, this metric helps.
5. Time to First Value (TTFV): The time it takes a user to experience a product’s value. If they start using it immediately, it indicates they can see its value. This can lead to higher retention and referral rates.
6. Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who successfully move through the sales funnel from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. Low conversion at any stage shows a lack of interest in the messaging.
7. User Activation Rate: The percentage of first-time users of milestones set by the SaaS company. It often meant to influence others to act. Ideally, this metric is used to measure users’ behavior and progress.
8. Time to Conversion: The time it takes a prospect to make a purchase. It helps in analyzing messaging clarity and persuasiveness. If the conversion time is short, then it means the messaging communicates value. Conversely, a long conversion timeframe indicates a need to improve the message.
9. Customer Life-Time Value (CLV): This is the most accurate for assessing revenue. It shows the total revenue a company has generated from a specific customer.
10. Customer Turnover Rate: Also known as the customer attrition rate, it tracks the number of customers lost over time. These metrics help track dissatisfaction levels in messaging.
11. Onboarding Completion Rate: The percentage of users who complete the setup of a SaaS product. They have to have gone through prior steps, like signing up, verification, and activation. Higher onboarding completion rates indicate better engagement. That means lower onboarding completion rates should trigger a business to reassess and improve its buyer nurturing journey.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some frequently asked questions about SaaS messaging frameworks.

What is a Key Message Framework?

A key messaging framework clearly defines what your business does and who they do it for. This should form part of your wide messaging strategy to be present across your prospect touchpoints.

What are Some Messaging Framework Examples?

Examples of strong messaging frameworks should include information such as:

What Role Does Brand Voice Play in a Messaging Framework?

Brand voice does play an important role across your messaging framework. Your brand voice should define the tone and language of your business across your marketing stack. Your tone should be unique to your business but curated with your target ICPs in mind.

What’s the Difference Between SaaS Messaging for B2B and B2C?

SaaS messaging for B2B audiences should be more tailored around business value and lead generation, while B2C frameworks are more defined by the personal benefits of the product.

When Should You Change Your Core Saas Message?

Before changing a business’s core message, it’s important to note that timing is key. Doing it too early can cause the message to lose traction, whereas changing too late can negatively impact growth.

However, prioritize revision if:

1. Qualified prospects consistently fail to convert.
2. The product has undergone a significant evolution.
3. The market experiences substantial shifts, such as regulatory and economic changes.
4. The target audience is constantly asking for clarity.
5. Messaging fails to communicate the value proposition clearly.

Is Hiring a SaaS Messaging Agency or Consultant Worth the Investment?

Yes, provided the external expertise adds value. For instance, they can help develop and implement effective growth strategies that are well beyond the internal team’s capabilities.

Conclusion

Building a practical SaaS messaging framework for a business is crucial for driving leads, improving conversion, growing an audience, and defining the brand voice in-house and externally.

However, the very best messaging frameworks are curated on a foundation of strong customer/client and competitor research. It pays to know who you’re talking to, who else could be in the conversation, and why.

As a messaging strategist, I start by reviewing your existing messages and defining your audience. We can also work together to craft SaaS messages that attract your customers, keep them engaged, and retain them as long-term subscribers.

Book your free 20-minute discovery call today, and let’s get you on the path to better messaging and more leads.