[00:00:00] Emma Stratton: I am Emma Stratton and this is Better Messaging. If you want to stop second guessing yourself and start writing better messaging today, you are in the right place.
[00:00:09] Emma Stratton: Before I got into writing messaging for B2B tech, I actually used to work in consumer. So kind of feels like a previous lifetime ago. I used to live in the UK, and I worked at a consumer branding agency writing copy and strategic messaging for all kinds of consumer brands. I did a lot of fast-moving consumer goods like toothpaste and shampoo.
[00:00:32] Emma Stratton: I did a lot of retail, like baby clothes. I did a lot of food. Uh, I did a train brand. I did all kinds of things. But I did a lot of work in that fast-moving goods, like toilet paper, for example, is one of our big clients. It was so easy to write about toilet paper. Like, everyone knows what toilet paper is.
[00:00:51] Emma Stratton: It's really simple. You know, it was really clear who I was writing for. I mean, everyone needs toilet paper, so it was really simple.
[00:00:58] Emma Stratton: Now, when I moved into tech and B2B, I was blown away by how much more complicated it was. Like selling a bottle of shampoo is pretty easy. You know, someone doesn't have to think too hard about that to decide whether they want to buy it or not.
[00:01:15] Emma Stratton: But when it comes to purchasing potentially millions of dollars worth of software, a lot of people get involved. You got to deal with the buying group, you got to deal with all sorts of different people. And really, I think this is one of the things that makes messaging for B2B tech so dang challenging, all the different people that you have to talk to in your messaging.
[00:01:37] Emma Stratton: So first of all, you've got the buying group situation, and depending on, you know, what you're selling and who you're selling to, that buying group could be like 14, 15 people. So lots of different people who are involved in the buying decision. But then a common thing with a lot of tech companies is you're selling to SMBs, you're selling to mid-size companies, and you're also trying to go upmarket as well.
[00:02:02] Emma Stratton: So you're dealing with different sizes of companies that you're selling to, and then you're selling into different industries, different audiences, different personas, and it can get really complicated. So one of the most common things that people ask me is like, "Emma, what do I do with multiple audiences?
[00:02:21] Emma Stratton: Like who do I talk to? Who's the right person to speak to? How do I balance having to talk to all these different people who have different needs and competing priorities? What do I do?" And so I wanted to spend this episode kind of talking about this problem, which is, you know, quite tough because there isn't a magic bullet answer here.
[00:02:44] Emma Stratton: one of the things you have to realize, like with anything when you make these types of decisions, there are trade-offs, there are pros and cons for different approaches. So I want to discuss talking to multiple audiences and ways that you can kind of think through this situation to kind of help untangle it because it can get really, really complicated.
[00:03:04] Emma Stratton: So the first thing that I just want to level set here is that the more narrow your messaging can be, i.e., the more defined it can be, the more specific to a specific audience that it can be, the more effective and resonant that messaging will be. So an example I always think about, just in a related space is say you have trouble with your heart and you go to two different websites.
[00:03:29] Emma Stratton: One website is for, you know, family medicine, some kind of general doctor who writes on the website about how they can help you with your overall wellness and help you in different areas, uh, you know, in your body. And then another website is for a heart specialist, and the message is all about how they are great at cardiac, uh, situations and they specialize in heart problems.
[00:03:56] Emma Stratton: Which one are you going to go for? Clearly, you're going to go with the website that is for the specialist that is speaking specifically to the things that you care about that you want to get solved. If you went with the generalist, you'd be like, "Hmm, I don't know. Can they really help me? It's not really clear.
[00:04:13] Emma Stratton: Like maybe they can," because the messaging is so general and so overarching covering lots of things. They're not sure if they're going to be as good. So they're going to look at that specialist and think, "Oh, absolutely, they're going to help me." So the more specialized your messaging can be and more specific it can be to, your customer's needs, desires, wants, the more effective it's going to be.
[00:04:35] Emma Stratton: The more narrow your messaging can be, the better it's going to be.
[00:04:39] Emma Stratton: Let me tell you, companies hate it when I tell this to them. "Sure, there is a magical way that you can write messaging that appeals to everyone equally." I think people are hoping I'm going to tell them that and then give them those magic words.
[00:04:52] Emma Stratton: And I wish I could. Honestly, I wish I could because it would make life a lot easier. But those magic words do not exist. There is no magical headline that is gonna resonate with absolutely everyone. So the more people you try to address in your messaging and the more different people you throw in the mix, the more generalized your messaging has to come to work for everyone.
[00:05:17] Emma Stratton: So you have to kind of go beige with your messaging in order not to offend anyone in that audience that you're trying to speak to. And so this makes your messaging general, it makes it less differentiated, it makes it less sticky, because you're trying to appeal to everyone, and in the end, you strongly appeal to no one.
[00:05:40] Emma Stratton: So this is the situation and this is the truth that we're dealing with. The more specific and narrow the audience is for your messaging, the more effective that messaging can be. And on the flip side, the more broad and the more people you're trying to speak to in your message, the less effective that messaging is going to be.
[00:05:59] Emma Stratton: Now, those are two sides of the spectrum, speaking to just, like, a very defined, narrow persona and trying to speak to absolutely everyone in the world, like, I don't know, your Salesforce or OpenAI, Or Amazon, right? They're marketing to everyone in the world.
[00:06:15] Emma Stratton: So those are two ends of the spectrum. Now, there's a whole kind of spectrum in between that we can explore when we think about managing multiple audiences and different personas. It's nuance, and that's what I want to kind of dive into. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing type situation. There are gradations along that, spectrum that you can do to make your messaging more effective.
[00:06:43] Emma Stratton: So I want to acknowledge why it's actually so difficult to narrow in on an audience and not write messaging for everyone. Because I mentioned before, companies hate it when I come in and tell them that they need to go more narrow with their messaging. They just don't want to hear that. And I get it, okay?
[00:07:03] Emma Stratton: There's a reason why people don't want to hear that. I think when I tell people to narrow their audience, they just think of all the people that they're leaving on the table, all the money they're leaving on the table, all the people that they're not gonna be able to sell to because I'm asking them to narrow in and exclude people.
[00:07:19] Emma Stratton: So I think people start going into scarcity mindset and think, "Oh, if I narrow my audience, if I speak to less people, we're going to generate less revenue," which is definitely not the case, especially if you are a startup or an earlier stage company, and I'll talk more about that later. Another reason why people don't like this advice that I give them is because they may not have a great handle on who their best audience is that they should narrow in on.
[00:07:45] Emma Stratton: So if you are maybe, again, an earlier stage startup and you don't really have a sense of who your best audience is, you might think, "Well, let me cast a wide net and go for everyone, and hopefully, you know, we'll win a few." And again, that's, not necessarily a great way to go about it because if you go to market with a very broad message that could apply to anyone, you are actually missing that advantage that startups have in going really specific and narrow around a defined customer set and proving to them that you understand them better than those big mature enterprises that are kind of forced to have that broad messaging.
[00:08:23] Emma Stratton: And the final piece why I think it's hard for folks to kind of stomach my advice about going narrow is because admittedly, everyone has really huge growth targets. In some cases I would even say unreasonable growth targets. It's bad to say that perhaps, but I've spoken to a lot of marketing teams and kind of heard the pressure that they're under to grow and it's, unreasonable at times.
[00:08:47] Emma Stratton: So you have these pressures to grow, and then I'm coming and telling you to narrow in your messaging on a specific audience, and it's like, how is that gonna help? And it's counterintuitive, but the power of narrowing in on your messaging, narrowing in on an audience, and being more specific to a specific persona or an audience, you now make your messaging more relevant to them.
[00:09:10] Emma Stratton: You can get really specific about how you can solve their problems, and you can make it so that you appear like the perfect solution for them.
[00:09:20] Emma Stratton: Now, when I talk about narrowing in on an audience, I'm really talking about positioning. Okay, so narrowing in on an audience in your messaging is where messaging rubs elbows with positioning.
[00:09:31] Emma Stratton: This is actually an act of positioning. You don't wanna position your product for everyone. You wanna position your product for a specific market that you believe will find the most value in what you have to offer. And you wanna message to them because they are gonna be your best shot at revenue. This is why we position around specific audiences.
[00:09:52] Emma Stratton: So I want you to think about this narrowing in as an act of positioning, as an act of increasing your chances of making your messaging resonate. Now, this idea of narrowing in on a specific audience is admittedly much easier for startups and much harder for larger, more established companies. And I would actually say this is one of the startup edges, okay?
[00:10:17] Emma Stratton: This is a competitive advantage for startups is they have this freedom to really narrow in on a specific audience rather than going for everyone. And, you know, there's a functional reason for that. They don't have the budget necessarily to go after absolutely everyone like Salesforce might have, for example.
[00:10:36] Emma Stratton: So you have to be more thoughtful and intentional with your budget, and it makes sense to start with a defined audience and really get that product, market fit there, really get a stronghold there before you start to expand into other audiences. And that's why you have startups popping into spaces who have amazing messaging, who can really kind of come in there and get really specific, talk specifically to what their customers are thinking about, caring about.
[00:11:06] Emma Stratton: And they can do that in a way that a larger, more established company that has more complicated product portfolios just can't do. Now this is why it also breaks my heart when I see startups, instead of embracing this advantage of going very narrow and defined on their audience, they try to emulate the Salesforces of the world.
[00:11:26] Emma Stratton: I've met many folks in startups who are trying to emulate how Intercom does it or how Salesforce does it. And I'm like, "No, no, no, no. Please don't do that. You're giving up your advantage of going narrow and specific." Because those larger, more mature companies, sure, when you're a startup you're like, "Wow, I wish I could be like them."
[00:11:47] Emma Stratton: But there's a whole bunch of other problems that come with being a larger, uh, more mature company with a diverse product set. And that is, yeah, how do you message to kind of cover all of these things that we sell to all these different people? It's really difficult. So if you're at a startup or an earlier stage company, I really want to ask you to consider embracing this advantage that you have of being able to go really narrow and define on an audience in a way that the larger companies, the incumbents can't do.
[00:12:18] Emma Stratton: Because that will make your messaging stand out and it will give you an edge. All right, so now I've kind of explained the theory behind this and, and why it's better to go narrow and, and some of the trade-offs. Now I wanna talk about how to think through your audience and who you're speaking to in your messaging.
[00:12:36] Emma Stratton: First I wanna, again, take it back to this idea of positioning, okay? Positioning is defining your audience, who you believe will see the most value in your offer. April Dunford's book, Obviously Awesome, does an incredible job of explaining the whole positioning process and how to kind of find that audience.
[00:12:55] Emma Stratton: Sometimes though, when we're writing messaging, we don't have the time to do a formal positioning process beforehand. I know this is something that I've come across many times, and that's why thinking through your audience kind of takes the place of positioning work.
[00:13:11] Emma Stratton: What I'd like you to do is to not think about writing for everyone, but writing for your A-plus customer.
[00:13:19] Emma Stratton: And this is something that is really helpful when you're a startup especially. You wanna write for your A-plus customer, not your B-minus customers, not your C-minus or your D-pluscustomers. You want to write for your A-plus customers, the best customers, the ones that you would happily have more of.
[00:13:38] Emma Stratton: So an A-plus customer is your happiest customers. They're the ones that renew every year. They love you. Um, they happily give you feedback. They refer you to other people without you asking them to do. They're raving fans. A-plus customers also find value in your product. They don't grumble about paying for it.
[00:13:58] Emma Stratton: They feel like they get good value for what you are charging them. In fact, I have spoken to many A-plus customers at startups who say, "They could charge me more and I'd pay it, but don't tell them that." Sothat's just a sign that they're an A-plus customer. They're seeing high value in your offer, and that's what we want.
[00:14:17] Emma Stratton: And finally, these A-plus customers are often super users. So they're using your product in the way that you hoped people would use it. You may have, C-minus customers that are just using real basic features and functionality, but then the A-plus customer is kind of using it the way you want. Their desires are aligned with your roadmap, and there's just an alignment there in vision.
[00:14:40] Emma Stratton: Again, that's another thing that points to an A-plus customer. You want to write for the A-plus customer. Why would you optimize for the D-plus customer? They're a harder sell, they're harder work, and they're probably gonna churn sooner. So we want to optimize our messaging for the A-plus customer. I'll share you a s- share a little story about finding your A-plus customer and what it can actually look like.
[00:15:03] Emma Stratton: So a while back, I worked with a startup who'd been around for maybe five or s- five years, I would say, and they were in fintech. They were selling to everyone, right? They were doing a good job making money by selling to everyone. So they would sell to large multinational corporations that were big and global, and they would also sell to faster-moving startups, mid-sized companies that were backed by PE companies that really wanted to grow quickly, and all sorts of other companies in between.
[00:15:38] Emma Stratton: So I ran customer interviews with a broad range of all of their different customers. And it was really interesting what I found out. When I spoke to people at the traditional multinational kind of large global organizations, they found less value in the product. A lot of them sort of complained about the price, and they were using really basic features.
[00:16:02] Emma Stratton: They were almost using the product for the first reason it was, created, which was around forecasting, cash and the cash forecasting process and automating it. So they were using it for a very simple use case. And they were not amazed by the value. Like, they were fine with it, but they were using it for very basic things.
[00:16:22] Emma Stratton: And when I asked them, you know, "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" They were like, "Ah, you know, I'd find another one or, go back to the way we were doing it before." They weren't getting super emotional about it. Well, I interviewed some other clients of theirs, customers that were in smaller, more mid-sized companies that were more focused on faster growth.
[00:16:41] Emma Stratton: So they weren't like the traditional companies that were kind of just trudging along and not a lot was changing. These were companies with large growth targets because they were backed by private equity firms and they really wanted to move faster. And I learned that these companies really valued this product because it actually helped them have a better handle on their cash flow.
[00:17:00] Emma Stratton: It helped them work with kind of tighter margins, which helped them, grow faster and be more nimble. And they found great value in this product. And they were some of the people that said, we would pay more for this because it's really great, but don't tell them." So after that, I brought this information back to the client and I said, "Hey, you know, you've got these two audiences here.
[00:17:23] Emma Stratton: The multinationals, let's face it, they're kind of like C-minus clients. And you've got these A-plus clients that see so much value that I think you could actually position your product more for them and charge more, and they would be happy to do it." And at first they were like, "Yeah, I guess I see what you're saying.
[00:17:41] Emma Stratton: It's hard to sell to those multinationals. In fact, uh, they're kind of a pain in the sales cycle and they always want discounts and it takes a long time." And they could see that, but they were scared. They were like, " But we still make a lot of money from those types of companies, and you're telling me that I shouldn't message for them?"
[00:17:59] Emma Stratton: And they were kind of freaked out. And I understood that because they didn't want to alienate their existing base. I said, "Look, there's actually some similarities between the benefits and value that the two get. But if we skew our messaging more towards the mid-size, the private equity backed companies, and speak more specifically to some of the things that they care about, you're going to get more of them.
[00:18:23] Emma Stratton: You're going to be able to raise your prices because the perceived value is going higher. It's probably going to have a knock-on effect and attract other like-minded companies who want to grow fast." And they said, "Okay, so let's do it." So we repositioned the company, tightened the focus around this more growth-focused company that wants to be more nimble with their cash flow, and it worked.
[00:18:45] Emma Stratton: They started to attract more of those companies. They were able to raise prices, and they were really happy with that change. And the cool thing that happened was there was a halo effect that happened. They started signing more multinationals as well because there was kind of like a cool factor around their messaging that was speaking to these growth-focused companies, and it was attracting other larger, more established companies that also wanted to grow.
[00:19:12] Emma Stratton: They were attracted by that messaging as well. There was a like-minded mindset there, and it attracted those companies as well. So they didn't have to say goodbye to that other type of company, but rather they were bringing in customers that had the right mindset for their offer, and it was more aligned and their marketing improved because of that focus.
[00:19:36] Emma Stratton: So that's what you want to do when we think about the A+ customer. You wanna go as narrow as you can.
[00:19:42] Emma Stratton: Now, if you are a larger company, you might not be able to hone in on just one persona, for example, or one industry. That might not be possible. But however, I want you to think about who is our best customer, and it could be a mindset, for example.
[00:20:04] Emma Stratton: If you have lots of different personas and you really can't choose one over the other, think, is there a mindset that connects them all, or is there any type of thread that connects all of these? So for the last startup, this idea of being a company that wants to grow, that is a bit aggressive, that is, looking to move forward and not sort of just protect what they have, but wanting to make moves forward, that was a mindset, and the messaging spoke to that mindset.
[00:20:33] Emma Stratton: Even if it's not just one persona you can pull out, perhaps it's a mindset or there's a maturity that spans your different audiences. That could be a way to kind of hone in on a narrowness rather than making it really specific.
[00:20:49] Emma Stratton: So the A+ customer works really well for startups. Now, if you are working at a larger company, the A+ customer gets a little bit trickier, right? So you want to look at A+ customer perhaps in terms of mindset or attitudes. One example that comes up when I think about attitudes for larger companies,
[00:21:09] Emma Stratton: well, a lot of companies are trying to get people to modernize something, modernize a process, modernize a way of doing something. There are people who are open to modernization, you know, who want to do it, who are the innovators, who are excited, and then you've got the people who are resistant to modernization, who don't want to change, the laggards.
[00:21:31] Emma Stratton: Sometimes you can narrow in on a maturity level and appetite for change and attitude. That can be something that you can use to narrow in on. You just want to go as narrow as you can.
[00:21:43] Emma Stratton: When we're talking about larger companies and big buying groups, you might be wondering, "Well, who do I speak to in the buying group?"
[00:21:52] Emma Stratton: We've got the head of IT who gets the final veto and say on absolutely everything in the tech stack. We've got the CEO who's got, you know, final veto on the budget. We've got, you know, the director who's also involved in this. Who am I speaking to? And this is a really good question. Am I speaking to the user?
[00:22:13] Emma Stratton: Now, there's not one set answer. It will be different depending on your product, depending on your audience, depending on your industry. It's different. But what you want to think about is who is the most important person to write for out of this group? 'Cause people always bring up the head of IT to me, and I'm like, "Yeah, I get it.
[00:22:35] Emma Stratton: Head of IT is part of the conversation, but we can't optimize our messaging for the head of IT." If we did, every message would sound the same. Everyone would be pandering to the head of IT. It's important to have some messaging for IT somewhere, but that is not gonna be the main message. Same with the CEO.
[00:22:54] Emma Stratton: Sure, CEO needs to see value in it, and the people who are trying to push the purchase through the company need to be able to talk about that value and perhaps convince their CEO. But the CEO is not gonna be the one looking at all the websites and comparing, solutions and making a shortlist and all that.
[00:23:13] Emma Stratton: They're gonna be relying on other people to do that legwork and to make those decisions and entrusting it in them. I think a lot of companies sometimes think, "Well, we want to appeal to the CEO," and their messaging goes woof all the way high altitude talking about business growth and productivity, and it gets too far away from what the product does and gets too far away from the people who are actually gonna be using the product, the people who are actually trying to push this product through.
[00:23:39] Emma Stratton: Typically, who do you want to speak to? You want to speak to the champion of the group. You want to speak to the person who is, you know, really doing the legwork, who is trying to push this through. Okay,sometimes it's the buyer, but sometimes it's kind of the user. Okay? This is what I mean it's not always this or that.
[00:23:57] Emma Stratton: So that's why I like to think the champion. Who's the person who's most invested? Who's the person that's going to be talking to other people in the buying group and convincing them and influencing them? We want to speak to them.
[00:24:10] Emma Stratton: So a story there about, focusing on the champion. I was working with a later stage startup who was in the sales space, and traditionally they had always spoken to the sales ops person.
[00:24:24] Emma Stratton: So they had always framed it as an ops conversation. Because the tool was loved by this audience. They loved it. But as we were working together, I realized that ops didn't have the larger say in the buying group. And if we really wanted to get this through, we needed to talk to the head of sales or the VP of sales.
[00:24:44] Emma Stratton: So what this required was a subtle shift in the message more towards the head of sales and a little bit away from ops. Now, this did not mean that we completely abandoned any message that would appeal to ops. That would've been silly and reckless because they were a very important part of the buying conversation.
[00:25:07] Emma Stratton: Skewing the value proposition more towards what the head of sales cared about made the messaging stickier and more effective. So again, it's not about abandoning other people. It is about angling or skewing your messaging in favor of a certain person versus the others.
[00:25:28] Emma Stratton: Now another question I hear from folks is, what do you do if you're trying to shift or evolve your audience?
[00:25:35] Emma Stratton: So maybe you have gotten where you were today with one audience, they've been your bread and butter, but maybe you've tapped it out and you've got your sights set on a new audience. Or you have gotten this far with SMBs, but you want to go upmarket. What do you do? Again, you don't wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater and just abandon the good people that got you where you are today and go throw yourselves at the feet of the new audience.
[00:26:07] Emma Stratton: And I feel like that's kind of what sometimes what people want to do. I really believe in honoring the people that got you to where you are and acknowledging that there are still other people in that market that you could still sell to, okay? I really think that, and I want to remind you of that. And I want you to consider taking a phased approach in moving into that new audience.
[00:26:30] Emma Stratton: So rather than jumping from one audience 100% to the next one and giving everyone a whiplash and alienating your old friends, you wanna take a phased approach, almost like a halfway approach where you're half in with the old, half in with the new.
[00:26:45] Emma Stratton: So I have a story about this. I worked with another fintech brand that was in this situation.
[00:26:50] Emma Stratton: They had gotten to where they were by focusing their messaging on bootstrapped founders. And they were really good at talking to bootstrap founders, and they could sell to them really well, and the founders loved them, and it was all very lovely. However, this startup had growth targets, and they couldn't hit them by staying in the bootstrapped founder bucket.
[00:27:10] Emma Stratton: And so they wanted to move into heads of finance at VC-backed startups. Now, heads of finance at VC-backed startups have different needs than a bootstrap founder. I mean, they're pretty different. However, there were still a lot of the same things that they want and needed out of this product. So what we did was look at, okay, what are the similarities between these two audiences?
[00:27:35] Emma Stratton: And we found the similarities there were they both needed quick access to capital, and they both wanted day-to-day efficiencies. They wanted to automate things that were taking a long time, and they wanted to be more efficient. So both audiences wanted that, which is great. The one thing that the new audience wanted that the old audience didn't care about was the ability to scale their financial operations.
[00:27:57] Emma Stratton: So scaling, really important to a fast-growing company, but scaling was low on the list of a bootstrap founder. So what we did was integrate the scaling message into one of their benefits, but kept a lot of the other messages the same, or tweaked them a little bit to include both audiences, and that was how we achieved a phased approach, encompassed both audiences.
[00:28:21] Emma Stratton: Now, when you do a phased approach, you can see how it goes. If you start moving into the larger audience and it becomes a bigger part of your revenue, you can shift the balance. So I always ask people if they have two audiences. Like maybe they'll have, "Okay, we sell to some startups and we sell to some mature enterprises."
[00:28:40] Emma Stratton: And I always say, "Okay, what's the percentage breakdown? Is it 50/50? Is it 70/30?" If it's really skewed in one direction, like70%, your messaging should probably skew there because that's where the majority of the business is coming in. If it's 50/50, you wanna take a more balanced approach. So really think through who are we actually talking to, who are we trying to get more of, and adjust your messaging accordingly.
[00:29:07] Emma Stratton: So I hope this has been helpful of just giving you some ways to think through complex audiences. And it's not easy. Like I said, this is one of the hardest parts of B2B messaging. This is why we have to be super smart people to do it because it is not straightforward. It is not like selling a stick of gum to someone.
[00:29:27] Emma Stratton: A lot of people are involved. It's complicated. A lot of people need to be convinced, and we're selling complicated software that is not easy to explain. So there's a lot of things to think about. But if you take away just one thing, it is get as narrow as you can. Define your audience as much as you can, even if it's just defining it in terms of mindset or attitude, or maybe it's defining it as two audiences, or just getting clear on who the champion is in your buying group.
[00:29:59] Emma Stratton: The more you can kind of hone in on who you are actually talking to and who it's most important to talk to, and then adjust your messaging accordingly, you are not going to go wrong. Where we go wrong is when we just cast that wide net or throw that spaghetti on the wall and hope something sticks with someone.
[00:30:19] Emma Stratton: It doesn't stick. Generic messaging will just slide down that wall and leave a greasy trail. Get narrow, get as specific as you can, and your messaging will thank you.
[00:30:32] Emma Stratton: Thanks for joining me for this episode of Better Messaging. If you like what you heard, go ahead and subscribe. Leave a review and share it with a friend. You can also follow me on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep it punchy, my friend.
[00:00:09] Emma Stratton: Before I got into writing messaging for B2B tech, I actually used to work in consumer. So kind of feels like a previous lifetime ago. I used to live in the UK, and I worked at a consumer branding agency writing copy and strategic messaging for all kinds of consumer brands. I did a lot of fast-moving consumer goods like toothpaste and shampoo.
[00:00:32] Emma Stratton: I did a lot of retail, like baby clothes. I did a lot of food. Uh, I did a train brand. I did all kinds of things. But I did a lot of work in that fast-moving goods, like toilet paper, for example, is one of our big clients. It was so easy to write about toilet paper. Like, everyone knows what toilet paper is.
[00:00:51] Emma Stratton: It's really simple. You know, it was really clear who I was writing for. I mean, everyone needs toilet paper, so it was really simple.
[00:00:58] Emma Stratton: Now, when I moved into tech and B2B, I was blown away by how much more complicated it was. Like selling a bottle of shampoo is pretty easy. You know, someone doesn't have to think too hard about that to decide whether they want to buy it or not.
[00:01:15] Emma Stratton: But when it comes to purchasing potentially millions of dollars worth of software, a lot of people get involved. You got to deal with the buying group, you got to deal with all sorts of different people. And really, I think this is one of the things that makes messaging for B2B tech so dang challenging, all the different people that you have to talk to in your messaging.
[00:01:37] Emma Stratton: So first of all, you've got the buying group situation, and depending on, you know, what you're selling and who you're selling to, that buying group could be like 14, 15 people. So lots of different people who are involved in the buying decision. But then a common thing with a lot of tech companies is you're selling to SMBs, you're selling to mid-size companies, and you're also trying to go upmarket as well.
[00:02:02] Emma Stratton: So you're dealing with different sizes of companies that you're selling to, and then you're selling into different industries, different audiences, different personas, and it can get really complicated. So one of the most common things that people ask me is like, "Emma, what do I do with multiple audiences?
[00:02:21] Emma Stratton: Like who do I talk to? Who's the right person to speak to? How do I balance having to talk to all these different people who have different needs and competing priorities? What do I do?" And so I wanted to spend this episode kind of talking about this problem, which is, you know, quite tough because there isn't a magic bullet answer here.
[00:02:44] Emma Stratton: one of the things you have to realize, like with anything when you make these types of decisions, there are trade-offs, there are pros and cons for different approaches. So I want to discuss talking to multiple audiences and ways that you can kind of think through this situation to kind of help untangle it because it can get really, really complicated.
[00:03:04] Emma Stratton: So the first thing that I just want to level set here is that the more narrow your messaging can be, i.e., the more defined it can be, the more specific to a specific audience that it can be, the more effective and resonant that messaging will be. So an example I always think about, just in a related space is say you have trouble with your heart and you go to two different websites.
[00:03:29] Emma Stratton: One website is for, you know, family medicine, some kind of general doctor who writes on the website about how they can help you with your overall wellness and help you in different areas, uh, you know, in your body. And then another website is for a heart specialist, and the message is all about how they are great at cardiac, uh, situations and they specialize in heart problems.
[00:03:56] Emma Stratton: Which one are you going to go for? Clearly, you're going to go with the website that is for the specialist that is speaking specifically to the things that you care about that you want to get solved. If you went with the generalist, you'd be like, "Hmm, I don't know. Can they really help me? It's not really clear.
[00:04:13] Emma Stratton: Like maybe they can," because the messaging is so general and so overarching covering lots of things. They're not sure if they're going to be as good. So they're going to look at that specialist and think, "Oh, absolutely, they're going to help me." So the more specialized your messaging can be and more specific it can be to, your customer's needs, desires, wants, the more effective it's going to be.
[00:04:35] Emma Stratton: The more narrow your messaging can be, the better it's going to be.
[00:04:39] Emma Stratton: Let me tell you, companies hate it when I tell this to them. "Sure, there is a magical way that you can write messaging that appeals to everyone equally." I think people are hoping I'm going to tell them that and then give them those magic words.
[00:04:52] Emma Stratton: And I wish I could. Honestly, I wish I could because it would make life a lot easier. But those magic words do not exist. There is no magical headline that is gonna resonate with absolutely everyone. So the more people you try to address in your messaging and the more different people you throw in the mix, the more generalized your messaging has to come to work for everyone.
[00:05:17] Emma Stratton: So you have to kind of go beige with your messaging in order not to offend anyone in that audience that you're trying to speak to. And so this makes your messaging general, it makes it less differentiated, it makes it less sticky, because you're trying to appeal to everyone, and in the end, you strongly appeal to no one.
[00:05:40] Emma Stratton: So this is the situation and this is the truth that we're dealing with. The more specific and narrow the audience is for your messaging, the more effective that messaging can be. And on the flip side, the more broad and the more people you're trying to speak to in your message, the less effective that messaging is going to be.
[00:05:59] Emma Stratton: Now, those are two sides of the spectrum, speaking to just, like, a very defined, narrow persona and trying to speak to absolutely everyone in the world, like, I don't know, your Salesforce or OpenAI, Or Amazon, right? They're marketing to everyone in the world.
[00:06:15] Emma Stratton: So those are two ends of the spectrum. Now, there's a whole kind of spectrum in between that we can explore when we think about managing multiple audiences and different personas. It's nuance, and that's what I want to kind of dive into. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing type situation. There are gradations along that, spectrum that you can do to make your messaging more effective.
[00:06:43] Emma Stratton: So I want to acknowledge why it's actually so difficult to narrow in on an audience and not write messaging for everyone. Because I mentioned before, companies hate it when I come in and tell them that they need to go more narrow with their messaging. They just don't want to hear that. And I get it, okay?
[00:07:03] Emma Stratton: There's a reason why people don't want to hear that. I think when I tell people to narrow their audience, they just think of all the people that they're leaving on the table, all the money they're leaving on the table, all the people that they're not gonna be able to sell to because I'm asking them to narrow in and exclude people.
[00:07:19] Emma Stratton: So I think people start going into scarcity mindset and think, "Oh, if I narrow my audience, if I speak to less people, we're going to generate less revenue," which is definitely not the case, especially if you are a startup or an earlier stage company, and I'll talk more about that later. Another reason why people don't like this advice that I give them is because they may not have a great handle on who their best audience is that they should narrow in on.
[00:07:45] Emma Stratton: So if you are maybe, again, an earlier stage startup and you don't really have a sense of who your best audience is, you might think, "Well, let me cast a wide net and go for everyone, and hopefully, you know, we'll win a few." And again, that's, not necessarily a great way to go about it because if you go to market with a very broad message that could apply to anyone, you are actually missing that advantage that startups have in going really specific and narrow around a defined customer set and proving to them that you understand them better than those big mature enterprises that are kind of forced to have that broad messaging.
[00:08:23] Emma Stratton: And the final piece why I think it's hard for folks to kind of stomach my advice about going narrow is because admittedly, everyone has really huge growth targets. In some cases I would even say unreasonable growth targets. It's bad to say that perhaps, but I've spoken to a lot of marketing teams and kind of heard the pressure that they're under to grow and it's, unreasonable at times.
[00:08:47] Emma Stratton: So you have these pressures to grow, and then I'm coming and telling you to narrow in your messaging on a specific audience, and it's like, how is that gonna help? And it's counterintuitive, but the power of narrowing in on your messaging, narrowing in on an audience, and being more specific to a specific persona or an audience, you now make your messaging more relevant to them.
[00:09:10] Emma Stratton: You can get really specific about how you can solve their problems, and you can make it so that you appear like the perfect solution for them.
[00:09:20] Emma Stratton: Now, when I talk about narrowing in on an audience, I'm really talking about positioning. Okay, so narrowing in on an audience in your messaging is where messaging rubs elbows with positioning.
[00:09:31] Emma Stratton: This is actually an act of positioning. You don't wanna position your product for everyone. You wanna position your product for a specific market that you believe will find the most value in what you have to offer. And you wanna message to them because they are gonna be your best shot at revenue. This is why we position around specific audiences.
[00:09:52] Emma Stratton: So I want you to think about this narrowing in as an act of positioning, as an act of increasing your chances of making your messaging resonate. Now, this idea of narrowing in on a specific audience is admittedly much easier for startups and much harder for larger, more established companies. And I would actually say this is one of the startup edges, okay?
[00:10:17] Emma Stratton: This is a competitive advantage for startups is they have this freedom to really narrow in on a specific audience rather than going for everyone. And, you know, there's a functional reason for that. They don't have the budget necessarily to go after absolutely everyone like Salesforce might have, for example.
[00:10:36] Emma Stratton: So you have to be more thoughtful and intentional with your budget, and it makes sense to start with a defined audience and really get that product, market fit there, really get a stronghold there before you start to expand into other audiences. And that's why you have startups popping into spaces who have amazing messaging, who can really kind of come in there and get really specific, talk specifically to what their customers are thinking about, caring about.
[00:11:06] Emma Stratton: And they can do that in a way that a larger, more established company that has more complicated product portfolios just can't do. Now this is why it also breaks my heart when I see startups, instead of embracing this advantage of going very narrow and defined on their audience, they try to emulate the Salesforces of the world.
[00:11:26] Emma Stratton: I've met many folks in startups who are trying to emulate how Intercom does it or how Salesforce does it. And I'm like, "No, no, no, no. Please don't do that. You're giving up your advantage of going narrow and specific." Because those larger, more mature companies, sure, when you're a startup you're like, "Wow, I wish I could be like them."
[00:11:47] Emma Stratton: But there's a whole bunch of other problems that come with being a larger, uh, more mature company with a diverse product set. And that is, yeah, how do you message to kind of cover all of these things that we sell to all these different people? It's really difficult. So if you're at a startup or an earlier stage company, I really want to ask you to consider embracing this advantage that you have of being able to go really narrow and define on an audience in a way that the larger companies, the incumbents can't do.
[00:12:18] Emma Stratton: Because that will make your messaging stand out and it will give you an edge. All right, so now I've kind of explained the theory behind this and, and why it's better to go narrow and, and some of the trade-offs. Now I wanna talk about how to think through your audience and who you're speaking to in your messaging.
[00:12:36] Emma Stratton: First I wanna, again, take it back to this idea of positioning, okay? Positioning is defining your audience, who you believe will see the most value in your offer. April Dunford's book, Obviously Awesome, does an incredible job of explaining the whole positioning process and how to kind of find that audience.
[00:12:55] Emma Stratton: Sometimes though, when we're writing messaging, we don't have the time to do a formal positioning process beforehand. I know this is something that I've come across many times, and that's why thinking through your audience kind of takes the place of positioning work.
[00:13:11] Emma Stratton: What I'd like you to do is to not think about writing for everyone, but writing for your A-plus customer.
[00:13:19] Emma Stratton: And this is something that is really helpful when you're a startup especially. You wanna write for your A-plus customer, not your B-minus customers, not your C-minus or your D-pluscustomers. You want to write for your A-plus customers, the best customers, the ones that you would happily have more of.
[00:13:38] Emma Stratton: So an A-plus customer is your happiest customers. They're the ones that renew every year. They love you. Um, they happily give you feedback. They refer you to other people without you asking them to do. They're raving fans. A-plus customers also find value in your product. They don't grumble about paying for it.
[00:13:58] Emma Stratton: They feel like they get good value for what you are charging them. In fact, I have spoken to many A-plus customers at startups who say, "They could charge me more and I'd pay it, but don't tell them that." Sothat's just a sign that they're an A-plus customer. They're seeing high value in your offer, and that's what we want.
[00:14:17] Emma Stratton: And finally, these A-plus customers are often super users. So they're using your product in the way that you hoped people would use it. You may have, C-minus customers that are just using real basic features and functionality, but then the A-plus customer is kind of using it the way you want. Their desires are aligned with your roadmap, and there's just an alignment there in vision.
[00:14:40] Emma Stratton: Again, that's another thing that points to an A-plus customer. You want to write for the A-plus customer. Why would you optimize for the D-plus customer? They're a harder sell, they're harder work, and they're probably gonna churn sooner. So we want to optimize our messaging for the A-plus customer. I'll share you a s- share a little story about finding your A-plus customer and what it can actually look like.
[00:15:03] Emma Stratton: So a while back, I worked with a startup who'd been around for maybe five or s- five years, I would say, and they were in fintech. They were selling to everyone, right? They were doing a good job making money by selling to everyone. So they would sell to large multinational corporations that were big and global, and they would also sell to faster-moving startups, mid-sized companies that were backed by PE companies that really wanted to grow quickly, and all sorts of other companies in between.
[00:15:38] Emma Stratton: So I ran customer interviews with a broad range of all of their different customers. And it was really interesting what I found out. When I spoke to people at the traditional multinational kind of large global organizations, they found less value in the product. A lot of them sort of complained about the price, and they were using really basic features.
[00:16:02] Emma Stratton: They were almost using the product for the first reason it was, created, which was around forecasting, cash and the cash forecasting process and automating it. So they were using it for a very simple use case. And they were not amazed by the value. Like, they were fine with it, but they were using it for very basic things.
[00:16:22] Emma Stratton: And when I asked them, you know, "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" They were like, "Ah, you know, I'd find another one or, go back to the way we were doing it before." They weren't getting super emotional about it. Well, I interviewed some other clients of theirs, customers that were in smaller, more mid-sized companies that were more focused on faster growth.
[00:16:41] Emma Stratton: So they weren't like the traditional companies that were kind of just trudging along and not a lot was changing. These were companies with large growth targets because they were backed by private equity firms and they really wanted to move faster. And I learned that these companies really valued this product because it actually helped them have a better handle on their cash flow.
[00:17:00] Emma Stratton: It helped them work with kind of tighter margins, which helped them, grow faster and be more nimble. And they found great value in this product. And they were some of the people that said, we would pay more for this because it's really great, but don't tell them." So after that, I brought this information back to the client and I said, "Hey, you know, you've got these two audiences here.
[00:17:23] Emma Stratton: The multinationals, let's face it, they're kind of like C-minus clients. And you've got these A-plus clients that see so much value that I think you could actually position your product more for them and charge more, and they would be happy to do it." And at first they were like, "Yeah, I guess I see what you're saying.
[00:17:41] Emma Stratton: It's hard to sell to those multinationals. In fact, uh, they're kind of a pain in the sales cycle and they always want discounts and it takes a long time." And they could see that, but they were scared. They were like, " But we still make a lot of money from those types of companies, and you're telling me that I shouldn't message for them?"
[00:17:59] Emma Stratton: And they were kind of freaked out. And I understood that because they didn't want to alienate their existing base. I said, "Look, there's actually some similarities between the benefits and value that the two get. But if we skew our messaging more towards the mid-size, the private equity backed companies, and speak more specifically to some of the things that they care about, you're going to get more of them.
[00:18:23] Emma Stratton: You're going to be able to raise your prices because the perceived value is going higher. It's probably going to have a knock-on effect and attract other like-minded companies who want to grow fast." And they said, "Okay, so let's do it." So we repositioned the company, tightened the focus around this more growth-focused company that wants to be more nimble with their cash flow, and it worked.
[00:18:45] Emma Stratton: They started to attract more of those companies. They were able to raise prices, and they were really happy with that change. And the cool thing that happened was there was a halo effect that happened. They started signing more multinationals as well because there was kind of like a cool factor around their messaging that was speaking to these growth-focused companies, and it was attracting other larger, more established companies that also wanted to grow.
[00:19:12] Emma Stratton: They were attracted by that messaging as well. There was a like-minded mindset there, and it attracted those companies as well. So they didn't have to say goodbye to that other type of company, but rather they were bringing in customers that had the right mindset for their offer, and it was more aligned and their marketing improved because of that focus.
[00:19:36] Emma Stratton: So that's what you want to do when we think about the A+ customer. You wanna go as narrow as you can.
[00:19:42] Emma Stratton: Now, if you are a larger company, you might not be able to hone in on just one persona, for example, or one industry. That might not be possible. But however, I want you to think about who is our best customer, and it could be a mindset, for example.
[00:20:04] Emma Stratton: If you have lots of different personas and you really can't choose one over the other, think, is there a mindset that connects them all, or is there any type of thread that connects all of these? So for the last startup, this idea of being a company that wants to grow, that is a bit aggressive, that is, looking to move forward and not sort of just protect what they have, but wanting to make moves forward, that was a mindset, and the messaging spoke to that mindset.
[00:20:33] Emma Stratton: Even if it's not just one persona you can pull out, perhaps it's a mindset or there's a maturity that spans your different audiences. That could be a way to kind of hone in on a narrowness rather than making it really specific.
[00:20:49] Emma Stratton: So the A+ customer works really well for startups. Now, if you are working at a larger company, the A+ customer gets a little bit trickier, right? So you want to look at A+ customer perhaps in terms of mindset or attitudes. One example that comes up when I think about attitudes for larger companies,
[00:21:09] Emma Stratton: well, a lot of companies are trying to get people to modernize something, modernize a process, modernize a way of doing something. There are people who are open to modernization, you know, who want to do it, who are the innovators, who are excited, and then you've got the people who are resistant to modernization, who don't want to change, the laggards.
[00:21:31] Emma Stratton: Sometimes you can narrow in on a maturity level and appetite for change and attitude. That can be something that you can use to narrow in on. You just want to go as narrow as you can.
[00:21:43] Emma Stratton: When we're talking about larger companies and big buying groups, you might be wondering, "Well, who do I speak to in the buying group?"
[00:21:52] Emma Stratton: We've got the head of IT who gets the final veto and say on absolutely everything in the tech stack. We've got the CEO who's got, you know, final veto on the budget. We've got, you know, the director who's also involved in this. Who am I speaking to? And this is a really good question. Am I speaking to the user?
[00:22:13] Emma Stratton: Now, there's not one set answer. It will be different depending on your product, depending on your audience, depending on your industry. It's different. But what you want to think about is who is the most important person to write for out of this group? 'Cause people always bring up the head of IT to me, and I'm like, "Yeah, I get it.
[00:22:35] Emma Stratton: Head of IT is part of the conversation, but we can't optimize our messaging for the head of IT." If we did, every message would sound the same. Everyone would be pandering to the head of IT. It's important to have some messaging for IT somewhere, but that is not gonna be the main message. Same with the CEO.
[00:22:54] Emma Stratton: Sure, CEO needs to see value in it, and the people who are trying to push the purchase through the company need to be able to talk about that value and perhaps convince their CEO. But the CEO is not gonna be the one looking at all the websites and comparing, solutions and making a shortlist and all that.
[00:23:13] Emma Stratton: They're gonna be relying on other people to do that legwork and to make those decisions and entrusting it in them. I think a lot of companies sometimes think, "Well, we want to appeal to the CEO," and their messaging goes woof all the way high altitude talking about business growth and productivity, and it gets too far away from what the product does and gets too far away from the people who are actually gonna be using the product, the people who are actually trying to push this product through.
[00:23:39] Emma Stratton: Typically, who do you want to speak to? You want to speak to the champion of the group. You want to speak to the person who is, you know, really doing the legwork, who is trying to push this through. Okay,sometimes it's the buyer, but sometimes it's kind of the user. Okay? This is what I mean it's not always this or that.
[00:23:57] Emma Stratton: So that's why I like to think the champion. Who's the person who's most invested? Who's the person that's going to be talking to other people in the buying group and convincing them and influencing them? We want to speak to them.
[00:24:10] Emma Stratton: So a story there about, focusing on the champion. I was working with a later stage startup who was in the sales space, and traditionally they had always spoken to the sales ops person.
[00:24:24] Emma Stratton: So they had always framed it as an ops conversation. Because the tool was loved by this audience. They loved it. But as we were working together, I realized that ops didn't have the larger say in the buying group. And if we really wanted to get this through, we needed to talk to the head of sales or the VP of sales.
[00:24:44] Emma Stratton: So what this required was a subtle shift in the message more towards the head of sales and a little bit away from ops. Now, this did not mean that we completely abandoned any message that would appeal to ops. That would've been silly and reckless because they were a very important part of the buying conversation.
[00:25:07] Emma Stratton: Skewing the value proposition more towards what the head of sales cared about made the messaging stickier and more effective. So again, it's not about abandoning other people. It is about angling or skewing your messaging in favor of a certain person versus the others.
[00:25:28] Emma Stratton: Now another question I hear from folks is, what do you do if you're trying to shift or evolve your audience?
[00:25:35] Emma Stratton: So maybe you have gotten where you were today with one audience, they've been your bread and butter, but maybe you've tapped it out and you've got your sights set on a new audience. Or you have gotten this far with SMBs, but you want to go upmarket. What do you do? Again, you don't wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater and just abandon the good people that got you where you are today and go throw yourselves at the feet of the new audience.
[00:26:07] Emma Stratton: And I feel like that's kind of what sometimes what people want to do. I really believe in honoring the people that got you to where you are and acknowledging that there are still other people in that market that you could still sell to, okay? I really think that, and I want to remind you of that. And I want you to consider taking a phased approach in moving into that new audience.
[00:26:30] Emma Stratton: So rather than jumping from one audience 100% to the next one and giving everyone a whiplash and alienating your old friends, you wanna take a phased approach, almost like a halfway approach where you're half in with the old, half in with the new.
[00:26:45] Emma Stratton: So I have a story about this. I worked with another fintech brand that was in this situation.
[00:26:50] Emma Stratton: They had gotten to where they were by focusing their messaging on bootstrapped founders. And they were really good at talking to bootstrap founders, and they could sell to them really well, and the founders loved them, and it was all very lovely. However, this startup had growth targets, and they couldn't hit them by staying in the bootstrapped founder bucket.
[00:27:10] Emma Stratton: And so they wanted to move into heads of finance at VC-backed startups. Now, heads of finance at VC-backed startups have different needs than a bootstrap founder. I mean, they're pretty different. However, there were still a lot of the same things that they want and needed out of this product. So what we did was look at, okay, what are the similarities between these two audiences?
[00:27:35] Emma Stratton: And we found the similarities there were they both needed quick access to capital, and they both wanted day-to-day efficiencies. They wanted to automate things that were taking a long time, and they wanted to be more efficient. So both audiences wanted that, which is great. The one thing that the new audience wanted that the old audience didn't care about was the ability to scale their financial operations.
[00:27:57] Emma Stratton: So scaling, really important to a fast-growing company, but scaling was low on the list of a bootstrap founder. So what we did was integrate the scaling message into one of their benefits, but kept a lot of the other messages the same, or tweaked them a little bit to include both audiences, and that was how we achieved a phased approach, encompassed both audiences.
[00:28:21] Emma Stratton: Now, when you do a phased approach, you can see how it goes. If you start moving into the larger audience and it becomes a bigger part of your revenue, you can shift the balance. So I always ask people if they have two audiences. Like maybe they'll have, "Okay, we sell to some startups and we sell to some mature enterprises."
[00:28:40] Emma Stratton: And I always say, "Okay, what's the percentage breakdown? Is it 50/50? Is it 70/30?" If it's really skewed in one direction, like70%, your messaging should probably skew there because that's where the majority of the business is coming in. If it's 50/50, you wanna take a more balanced approach. So really think through who are we actually talking to, who are we trying to get more of, and adjust your messaging accordingly.
[00:29:07] Emma Stratton: So I hope this has been helpful of just giving you some ways to think through complex audiences. And it's not easy. Like I said, this is one of the hardest parts of B2B messaging. This is why we have to be super smart people to do it because it is not straightforward. It is not like selling a stick of gum to someone.
[00:29:27] Emma Stratton: A lot of people are involved. It's complicated. A lot of people need to be convinced, and we're selling complicated software that is not easy to explain. So there's a lot of things to think about. But if you take away just one thing, it is get as narrow as you can. Define your audience as much as you can, even if it's just defining it in terms of mindset or attitude, or maybe it's defining it as two audiences, or just getting clear on who the champion is in your buying group.
[00:29:59] Emma Stratton: The more you can kind of hone in on who you are actually talking to and who it's most important to talk to, and then adjust your messaging accordingly, you are not going to go wrong. Where we go wrong is when we just cast that wide net or throw that spaghetti on the wall and hope something sticks with someone.
[00:30:19] Emma Stratton: It doesn't stick. Generic messaging will just slide down that wall and leave a greasy trail. Get narrow, get as specific as you can, and your messaging will thank you.
[00:30:32] Emma Stratton: Thanks for joining me for this episode of Better Messaging. If you like what you heard, go ahead and subscribe. Leave a review and share it with a friend. You can also follow me on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep it punchy, my friend.
