Many moons ago, I was a young editor at three of the top daily newspapers in the United States – Newsday in New York City, the Oakland Tribune, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Although my career eventually veered toward marketing and PR, at the time I unfairly judged the value of the marketing mix because of limited exposure. That one-dimensional glimpse into marketing and PR was not a great look.
Every day, marketers and PR managers faxed press releases to our newsrooms. (Email was just emerging, the Internet was AOL, and Netscape and IE were at war.) My colleagues and I would read the first sentence, scoff at poor grammar, misspellings, or cheesy marketing messages, and lament that there was no newsworthiness. They were wasting our time.
I can neither confirm nor deny that we would wad them up and play basketball with the nearby trash can – H-O-R-S-E and 3-point contests were allegedly the most common. All the time, people, and effort that went into producing a press release were crumpled within seconds and mixed in with coffee cups and pizza boxes.
This routine played out daily. I can’t count how many releases went from the fax machine to the trash can. What I can say is journalism has a higher standard than marketing/PR. For a media culture proudly beholden to AP style and perfect English, the press release parade can be agonizing to read.
As I moved into marketing, PR, and then back to Marketing, I realized that the fundamental difference in standard stemmed from the content’s atomic unit – messaging.
Thinking back to the press release parade, there was none. There was no message. It was a litany of mundane facts and self-serving claims. I had this image of two marketers sitting in their office writing marketing messaging while saying to each other, “you’re awesome, no you’re awesome, no you’re awesome, yeah, we’re both awesome.” I read marketing, but I didn’t read key messages. And that was over a fax machine.
As the Internet emerged, several trends took place that undermined the art of messaging. Chatrooms and blogging replaced print newspapers and magazines. Desktops gave way to mobility. Blackberry gave way to Motorola. Apple iPhones took over, unleashing mobile apps. Social media and texting replaced conversation. Communications became short, bite-sized phrases and emojis over countless apps.
This evolution changed marketing’s skillset to a mastery of digital channels and created a competency gap in storyboarding storylines filled with compelling messages. It also undercut the purity of writing, resulting in “fat-fingered” misspelling, no punctuation, and poor grammar.
B2B messaging is a lost art. Numerous colleagues agree off the record, especially executives looking for the next marketing superstar. Some admit they do not know how to develop messaging or are weak at it. This is dangerous for marketing’s reputation.
There is so much emphasis on demand generation – from the CMO, ELT, board, and VC/PE investors. But the focus is often on digital impact on lead generation, pipeline conversion, and revenue. What’s neglected is the source messaging driving those tactics and KPIs.
Demand generation is only as good as content marketing, and content is only as good as its underlying messaging. It must be relevant and compelling. It must reveal value and meaning. Marketing messaging is different than objective newsworthy messaging to media and value messaging to prospective customers. The difference is significant. Your audiences are at stake – whether they are customers, prospects, partners, analysts, or media.
Acknowledging this difference is step one. Bridging them is second. Here are eight characteristics of good enterprise B2B messaging development as you rekindle the lost art of messaging and storyboard corporate or product storylines.
- What?: Avoid solely describing what a company or product does. It’s self-serving and not customer-centric. Stress financial, business, and technical value as part of tactical features and function descriptions.
- Think like a customer: Approach messaging development outside-in. What are the top reasons why a prospect becomes a customer? Spotlight their key points, because they obviously worked. Focus groups are great engagements to solicit direct insight.
- Top and Bottom: Identify benefits to topline revenue generation and bottom line efficiency, such as EBITDA. Quantify the impact on profitability or growth – business metrics boards and investors care about. This strikes a chord with business decision makers, not just users.
- Numbers, not letters: Subliminally, the human brain prefers to process images before words. Second to images is numbers. Use numbers to represent business value – the percentage of cost savings or impact to revenue. Numbers are visual rest stops for reading verbiage.
- Cut to the chase: Use as few words as possible to convey a message. Cut superfluous words and jargon.
- Differentiation: Emphasize messages that are distinctive compared to competitors. Me-too messaging is not as important as stand-out messaging.
- Analogies: Humans understand concepts through relatable analogies. Have fun with messaging. Be creative and imaginative. Use similes and metaphors to make your messaging memorable and interesting.
- Friends: Have outsiders review your messaging. Use industry analysts and customer focus groups. They check and balance internal ethnocentrism. Also, they are willing to help. They are vested in your success.
Hope this provides some insight into reviving effective messaging. Your prospective customers, partners, and press corps will appreciate it. Your sales funnel and PR dashboards will too.
