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Horror Stories: B2B Tech Messaging

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B2B tech messaging tends to be big, broad, and vague. Which is the opposite of what savvy B2B buyers are looking for.

So often, B2B marketers leave customers in the dark in terms of:

  • The intended audience.
  • Relevancy to buyers’ “jobs to be done.”
  • How the product or service uniquely solves their business problems.
  • Whether the messaging is to be believed at all.

After conducting scores of B2B message testing studies, we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the truly horrifying.

Here are some common messaging mistakes to avoid before you launch your next landing page, product marketing initiative, or content calendar.

Horror Story 1: It’s Unclear Who It’s For… And Who It’s NOT For.

Tech companies, powerful visionaries that they are, have a tendency to go really broad with their messaging. For example: “Your vision. Your Cloud.” Or: “Cloud for all.” But is it really for everyone?

B2B products and services are rarely intended for the use of any and all. Unfortunately, it’s rare for tech companies to make it immediately clear who their intended audience is.

Buyers shouldn’t have to work to figure out whether a product or service is relevant to them. B2B messaging should make it really obvious. Whose life will be made easier by this B2B solution? Use visuals, smart layouts, and clever formatting to make sure the eye is easily drawn to copy that identifies and speaks directly to key buyers.

Horror Story 2: It’s Not Written In The Voice of The Buyer(s).

Is your target buyer technical? Do you have someone technical on your marketing team?  You should. At least make sure you get someone technical to vet your messaging.

Technical buyers will lose confidence in your solution if the messaging gets the jargon wrong or strings random concepts together in a way that doesn’t make sense. Or if it skirts specifics and stays vague. (Also, technical buyers will be turned off by anything they consider “fluff.” They don’t like marketing buzzwords.)

Context matters. Don’t message in a vacuum. Do what you need to do to author, edit, and verify that you’re writing messaging that resonates with your key buyer personas.

Here’s a place where understanding your target buyers’ “jobs to be done” really comes in handy. You’ll score lots of brownie points if you can speak to the specific issues your solution solves for the intended buyer.

And remember, B2B buying decisions usually happen by committee. In other words, you need to convince a group of stakeholders, not just an individual.

Your B2B tech messaging should speak to all the key buyer personas involved in making the purchase decision- not just the end-user.

Horror Story 3: The Messaging Is Stranded From The Brand Strategy.

The goal isn’t just for the customer to remember the product. You also want them to remember the brand.

If your product is part of a larger suite of solutions, your messaging shouldn’t make it sound like an isolated offering.

Graphics are often an effective method of demonstrating that a particular solution or tool is part of a holistic suite of offerings.

Your B2B messaging strategy needs to connect the product or service back to the company.

Horror Story 4: It’s Poorly Written.

Bad grammar creates an unnecessary obstacle for communicating the relevance of your solution. Especially if your target buyers are non-native English speakers.

In our B2B message testing studies, we’ve watched scores of buyers use the bulk of their energy trying to parse out the intention behind our client’s initial attempt at messaging. This prevents customers from moving down the purchase funnel.

Make things as easy as possible on the buyer. Communicate clearly. Don’t make them work to figure out why it’s smart to buy your product or service.

So. Use complete sentences. Simplify your wording. Amplify your main message so that it’s the most noticeable thing on the page, the paragraph, etc. Only attempt to convey one idea per sentence. Make sure you can get through a sentence without having to take a breath when reading out loud. Shorten the sentence if you can’t. Edit. Edit a lot. (More on this here.)

Horror Story 5: There’s No Hierarchy of Emphasis.

Tech companies love listing the attributes of their product or service. Unfortunately, they often neglect to explain how these features solve problems for their target buyers.

Also, lists are just plain hard to read. Reading a list gets monotonous and boring. Which of the many adjectives is the reader supposed to remember? What’s the main point of the product? What makes it special?

Say you’ve got five key selling points. Please do not pack all five key points into one sentence or even one paragraph. That will mute the impact.

Instead, give each key point its own space and separate emphasis. Add in supporting points as needed. Make sure the supporting points strengthen the main idea, rather than sounding like isolated factors.

Strategic messaging requires a hierarchy of emphasis. Your marketing team needs to be clear on the main selling points of the solution and the supporting, secondary factors.

Readers are more likely to remember what is given the greatest emphasis. If everything has the same level of emphasis, readers may struggle to remember anything at all.

What do you want the main takeaways to be? Emphasize accordingly.

Horror Story 6: Unsubstantiated Boasts, Vague Terms, & Marketing Buzzwords.

During our market research studies, we’ve watched many B2B buyers grow suspicious over broad messaging claims.

Unless you have substantial, authoritative backup for making such a claim, shy away from declaring yourself “the best” or “the leading solution.”  When such lofty claims are made, we’ve noticed that B2B buyers often take it as a challenge to think of a brand with a better solution.

Further, to be blunt, messaging that reads like marketing wrote it puts many B2B buyers off.

B2B customers often take vague terminology as a red flag, as it may indicate that the solution is being pushed by a company who doesn’t understand how it will actually be used.

Further, marketing buzzwords tend to scare off technical buyers. These customers will only be convinced by brands that get what their day-to-day entails.

So, be as specific as possible. What does your solution actually do? How does it do it? How will it fit into the work of the buyer? Specifically, what value does it bring to your key customers?

Also, marketers, make sure to run your messaging by someone who is well-versed in the business and technical context of your target buyers.

The Takeaways

To summarize: don’t make your buyers work to figure out your solution’s relevancy and value-add.

Make sure your B2B messaging:

  • Identifies the intended audience. It should be very obvious who the solution was built for.
  • Is written in the voice of the buyer. Messaging needs to get the B2B buyers’ business and technical context right.
  • Connects to back to the brand strategy. Give the reader an easy pathway to related solutions and information.
  • Is easy to read. Pay attention to good grammar and avoid run-on sentences.
  • Has a hierarchy of emphasis. Be clear internally on the top 2-5 selling points you want the reader to take away. The main value-add should have the most space, visual draw, ink, etc.
  • Is specific. Avoid vague terms, unsubstantiated boasts, and marketing buzzwords. Explain how your solution accomplishes the benefits you’re boosting. Back up your claims.

Need some help with messaging strategy? We offer B2B messaging upgrades and

Special thanks to Senior Consultant Colleen Clancy, Senior Research Analyst Hercules Randolph IV, and Research Analyst Courtney Bae for advising on this piece. 

With custom market research and marketing services, Cascade Insights helps companies seize opportunities in the B2B technology sector. We work with everyone from enterprise tech stalwarts to up-and-comers in fields such as FinTech, MarTech, Health Tech, and more.

Ready to Book It? Probably Not

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Mistaking a fancy title for thought leadership is a common mistake in the book publishing business. After all, a fancy title does not a good author make.

Writing books on professional topics can be a great marketing strategy or a wasted exercise in ego inflation. Before writing a book, make sure you have something worth saying that people will want to listen to.

In the latest episode of B2B Revealed, Sean Campbell interviewed Caleb Breakey, CEO of Speak It To Book. They discussed the best way to transform your business views into a story worthy of publication.

Building Your Business With a Book

For business leaders and aspiring thought leaders, books need to serve a purpose. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to turn your experience as a B2B sales leader or consultant into a career as a full-time author. Since that’s not a viable path, why write a book?

As Breakey told it, the book should be one piece of a larger funnel. Start by publishing a book for free. It’s much easier to do so these days with the proliferation of eBooks and services like Kindle Unlimited. Next, you need a plan for how you’ll connect with your readers.

“The book is just the start,” said Breakey. “Now, what’s the next step with you? Is it a video series…Are you doing speaking engagements? Do you want to host a retreat for this particular niche?”

The goal isn’t to be a full-time, best-selling author. Instead, the goal is to use the book as a door opener: to conversations with customers, partners, and people interested in your industry.

This planning should happen before any writing — or ghost-writing — begins on the book itself. Once you have the plan for how the book will be used, then it’s safe to begin your investment in writing a book.

“Writing Is So Easy a 10-Year Old Could Do It”

Once they’ve got a plan, many authors foolishly assume they’ll jump into the writing process and wrap it up in a month or two. For example, let’s say a VP of something at a Fortune 100 company for the last five years leaves her role to start a consultancy. To promote the business, she decides to write a book about her experiences in her past role. The book never makes it passed the outline.

Believing a book will come naturally is a common misguided assumption, according to Breakey. In his time helping people turn their book ideas into reality, Breakey has seen far too many Chapter One drafts sitting in a desk drawer, collecting dust.

Writing is harder than it looks, folks. Breakey shared this joke: “There’s a saying that goes around in the writing industry about a writer and a doctor who go out on the golf course. And the doctor says to his writer friend, ‘You wouldn’t believe it, I’m so excited, I’m taking off the summer from my practice to become a writer.’ The writer turns back and says, ‘That’s crazy, because I’m actually taking off this summer to go into brain surgery with you as well.’”

The moral of the story? That writing a book is going to take time, especially for people who are long on industry experience and short on crafting stories.

Imagine Your Audience Standing There — Bored

These words of caution aren’t meant to discourage all would-be authors. Writing is about communicating important ideas, not seeing if you can hit an arbitrary page count. Instead, focus on the value you’re bringing to readers.

To do this, Breakey recommends putting yourself in the shoes of the audience. “Is it giving you value in the first five pages? Check. Great, keep reading. Is the author giving you value in the next 10 pages? Great, check. Keep reading.”

Publish something that delivers value on every page so that you can keep the attention of your audience. If that means your “book” is just a 45-page PDF, that’s fine.

After all, it’s better to leave your audience wanting more than to bore them so badly they don’t want any more from you, ever.

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B expertise in your life? There are many ways to follow us.

Heat Up Your Cold Email

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How can sellers use cold email to engage rather than irritate?

In this episode of B2B Revealed, Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell chats with Replyify Co-Founder Ryan O’Donnell on how to use cold email to increase audiences and avoid the spam filter.

Obviously, cold email is more likely to be welcomed when it is relevant to the recipient. But Campbell mentions how common it is for him to open a cold email that has nothing to do with his work. “…It wasn’t targeted, it wasn’t relevant, there wasn’t appropriate research done, [and] it wasn’t packaged correctly,” he said. Clearly, the seller hadn’t bothered to make sure their outreach was of value the recipient. This is a big no-no.

Instead, start with those who already have demonstrated an interest in your product or service. “The easiest place to look, if you already have clients, is your existing client base,” O’Donnell explained. These folks are much more likely to find your outreach applicable to their work than someone contacted out of the blue.

O’Donnell provides some helpful guidelines to prevent sellers from flooding customers’ inboxes and trying their patience. “We like to see 3-5 sentences per email. We like 5-10 emails delivered over the course of 30-45 days, with a mix of give-and-take. You’re giving the [audience] something of value,” O’Donnell said. Make sure buyers can quickly grasp the point of your communication and how it relates to their work. While an occasional follow-up is OK, don’t just keep bugging people who haven’t replied. Instead, focus your energy on those who have chosen to engage in a conversation.

Streamlining your cold email processes is possible through automation platforms such as Replyify. “Replyify helps you manage replies and to-do items, automatically send emails, manage unsubscribes, update contact information, and move folks around,” O’Donnell said. “Once you actually create these different sequences, and you put a strategy around reaching out to these different segments, or personas. It becomes really easy to keep that going because once the automation takes over on the email side, you’re just feeding the beast.” This platform allows sellers to monitor all of their cold emails for legal compliance as well as assess and hone targeting efforts.

In essence, cold email shouldn’t be a shot in the dark. It should be a clear, targeted message with direct relevance to the recipient. Aim to start a conversation, not bury the buyer in a deluge of unwanted email. Add value, not spam.

Defrost Your Cold Email Writing Skills

Want to improve your cold email writing skills, but don’t know where to begin? Listen to the full episode for more on this topic and check out our guide to sending legal cold emails along with tips for effective written communication.

Do you need more B2B brilliance? Check out the many ways you can follow us.

Write Right: Convincing Content

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The tech world is currently undervaluing an absolutely crucial skill: writing. As a result, your average B2B content marketing is kind of a snore.

Most B2B tech jobs involve some form of writing. Content marketing roles obviously require mad writing skills, but so do emails, presentations, PowerPoints, messaging, etc. And yet, our industry tends to neglect the key ingredients for good writing.

Writing-heavy jobs are even monetarily undervalued. (To be fair, that’s not unique to the tech industry.) According to PayScale, marketing assistants in the U.S. earn an average salary of $35,880 a year and marketing managers earn an average salary of $62,128 a year. Until you hit the director level, you’re unlikely to be pulling in a lot of dough, and even then, your earning potential is highly dependent on your company.

It may be falsely considered a soft skill, but don’t make your writing soft.

Writing is powerful. Or did I mistake the importance of the Declaration of Independence, Letter From a Birmingham Jail, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Hunger Games craze, the Harry Potter global phenomenon, etc.? Gone wrong, writing can have potentially dire consequences, as with this awful example and the rest of that particular Twitter account. Or Mein Kampf.

My point here is that words have power. Use them wisely. And don’t waste them.

There are far too many marketing fluff pieces filled with indecipherable buzzwords and no discernable meaning. Out-of-the-box is now in the box. With the lid closed. Don’t pretend like your work day isn’t filled with sentences like these: “Going forward, it’s time to act with value-added face time and monetize our team enterprise.” That came from the Wall Street Journal’s Business Buzzwords Generator. Uncanny, isn’t it?

Everybody, let’s strive to write better than a bot.

Dredge up some passion. Make it worth the read. Sharpen the blade of your metaphorical pen and make every word count. Here are some suggestions for anyone writing anything in the tech world.

If you have a point, make it.

Don’t subject your audience to stream-of-consciousness business blogging.

You need a thesis. You do.

Ask yourself, is the point of what you’re writing to demonstrate that you know some jargon and are up on the trendiest marketing buzzwords? Or is it that you have something important to say about the B2B tech world? Hopefully, it’s the latter.

Lead with the point you’re trying to make. Open with your controversial claim, your revelatory insight, your unique observation.

Spend the rest of the piece supporting that point. You’ll probably even get to draw some jargon in, except, this time, it will mean something.

Stream-of-consciousness writing works if you’re Jack Kerouac or Hunter S. Thompson, but I suspect that drug-fueled journeys to find oneself probably aren’t what most people seek out business blogs for. You’re at work. Your office-life musings just don’t work in the gonzo genre. Remember where you are, and set the appropriate tone for your message. Your business readers want your expertise, not your disconnected musings.

  • Have a point. Put it in your thesis.
  • Give arguments to back up that point.
  • Get to the point in a timely fashion. Don’t derail your piece by following tangents unrelated to your thesis.
  • Let your readers know why the point you’re making matters. What should they do with this new insight that you have so kindly bestowed upon them?

Start a fire.

B2B content marketing should not put you to sleep.

Your passion, or lack thereof, shows in your writing.

If it’s boring to write it, it’s boring to read it.

Content marketers especially, if the topic of your piece bores you, don’t write it. Find something you care about in the business to write about.

Here at Cascade Insights, we just killed my content baby. It was the first series that felt like it was semi-mine at this job. At first, we had fun making it, even though it took a lot of effort to produce. Then, that effort became tedious and we weren’t having fun with it anymore. Engagement statistics reflected that a reader or two may have noticed. You can’t fake fun. So, we killed it. It was a crime of lack-of-passion.

No remorse though. Now we have more time to focus on pieces we are really enthused about. My boss just schooled B2B tech for getting sales all wrong. We have a devious scheme to reinvent the case study with a social justice flair. With projects as cool as these, I’m actually quite excited to sit in front of a computer to write for hours on end each day. Generally, I assume, that’s how most companies would prefer their writers to feel.

Use fewer words.

Don’t send the reader on a wild goose chase looking for your point.

You all work in B2B tech. You’re smart. That has already been firmly established. Don’t feel like you need to prove your massive IQ every time you write a thing.

This common but ill-advised pursuit often leads to a plethora of excessively verbose verbiage in which the essence of the composition, the raison d’être of the text, if you will, drowns in the depths of a word sea as deep as the Mariana Trench. (Don’t do this.)

Too many words and your point gets lost.

Back when I was a reporter, the best writing lesson I learned was to say what I meant in as few words as possible. As a writer, this principle forces you to:

  • Know exactly what you’re trying to say.
  • Carefully select words to communicate clearly.
  • Keep the reader from getting sidetracked with excessive gobbledygook.

I get it, tech is complicated. B2B is complicated. Writing crisp, catchy sentences about complex business issues isn’t easy.

How do you enthrall while writing about a new processor? How do you keep it short and sweet when explaining a network load balancing service without ditching any relevant detail?

It’s hard, yes, but worth the effort. No one likes reading a page-long sentence packed with obscure references, asides, and unnecessary qualifiers.

The point you’re trying to make should be effortlessly easy for your reader to grasp.

Otherwise, you’ll fall into the TL;DR trap, or just the “didn’t read” one.

Get real.

You’re most convincing as yourself.

As we’ve just covered, trying to sound smart often leads to being ridiculously wordy. Similarly, trying to be funny appears awkward and forced. Trying to look cool comes off as pretentious.

Write with your natural voice. If you’re naturally smart, funny, or cool, it will come through. If you’re not, that’s okay too. There are less sung qualities that make for equally good reading. I promise you, there is something worthwhile in your unique voice. Maybe you make excellent observations and can find patterns other people wouldn’t normally see. Perhaps you’ve been in the industry for decades and can bring valuable context to the table.

You have a natural voice no matter what. Own it. It’s the only way to sound like you mean what you’re saying.

Destroy your crutch word.

You know you have one.

If you spend a lot of time writing and editing, you probably have a fall back word that you use frequently for tone or transitions. It’s a little busy-body of a bad habit that inserts itself into all the paragraphs where it has no business being. 

Many people get annoyed with us millennials throwing “like” all over our speech. Check your writing for a similarly obnoxious repetition, you probably have one.

Right now, my crutch word is “obviously.” I have to do an “obviously” check for every piece we publish to make sure it’s not in there more than once or twice. My boss likes “frankly.”

In general, content marketing brethren, I think these are also crutches:

  • Cutting-edge.
  • Ground-breaking.
  • Thinking outside-the-box.
  • Innovation.
  • Empower.
  • Synergy.
  • Intuitive.
  • Forward-thinking.

Banish them from this realm.

Transitions, people.

Flow matters.

Crutch words frequently appear disguised as pleasant transitions. I am here to tell you that you are better than “thus.” You are better than “hence.” (I’m still trying to convince myself that I’m better than “however.”)

These words are kind of a cop-out. If you’re struggling to make a smooth transition to the next section of your piece, reread your thesis. Connect the new section back to the overall point of the piece.

The thesis is the great unifying purpose for why you’re writing at all. Let it be your literary north star.

Fight for a byline.

Credit where credit is due.

Entry-level marketers, demand a byline. Marketing supervisors, hand out bylines like candy.

Abolish Mad Men era relics of females ghostwriting for male superiors! (Sorry, my politics crept in. Because I’m writing about something I’m passionate about. See what I did there? Okay, off my soapbox.)

I promise you times a zillion that people are more likely to care about the quality of their work when it has their name on it.

Credit is a pretty good motivational factor too.

Procrastinate.

No, really.

Stare at something long enough, and it will lose all meaning. That’s not the best brain space to produce riveting writing.

Taking the breaks you need will actually help you make your piece better. Sometimes you just need to go outside. Do something else. Have a non-productive chat with a co-worker. Get a sudden flash of inspiration while playing with your dog, dancing around your apartment, or driving to work the next day. That’s how creativity works. The muse isn’t at your beck and call. She’s there when there is room in your head for her.

Curiously, I’ve encountered several professionals who think sitting and staring at a problem is the “work ethic” thing to do. Beating yourself up for not solving the problem is just as unproductive as going for a walk or spending some time in line at the best taco truck in town.

Procrastination and creativity are friends. For more on this topic check out our review of Adam Grant’s “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.” There is also a great NPR TED Radio Hour on the subject.

Of course, deadlines often remove the possibility of taking a break and coming back to the piece. Sometimes, sure, it’s just tough cookies and you gotta push through.

However, if it’s a big, important, or controversial piece, you have to ask, “What’s more important, deadline or quality?” Yeah, you and your boss may disagree on this question a time or two. On the other hand, I’m sure your boss doesn’t want to put false, incomplete, or embarrassing content out there for the world to mock. Using that angle may buy you some time.

Edit. Edit. Then Edit Some More.

Once is not enough.

Most successful writers I know assume their first draft will be terrible. They’re pretty zen about that too. A terrible first draft is the raw material for sculpting a great draft or even a masterpiece.

The way I see it, the point of a first draft is to get your ideas out on paper. Get em’ all out there so that you have something to work with. Think of it like potters’ clay before it becomes a bowl. It’s just a lump of gunky brown stuff at first.

So, for the first draft, just write it. Your next drafts are for molding, honing, and polishing.

This is often a great time to procrastinate. Editing is much more effective after a mental separation from your initial creation. You need fresh eyes. Your eyes can be fresh if you build breaks and time away from the piece into your editing process. It’s also great to have actually fresh eyes, as in another person or two, to give the piece a read as well.

Unfortunately, there will be times when you have to work on a deadline that is way too tight to afford ideal writing and editing conditions. The stranglehold of the ticking clock will probably squeeze out some quality, but you can still produce something good.

Remember that your writing will never be perfect, even in the best circumstances. At some point, you just have to declare it “done!” and move on. Sure, no matter when you submit, there is always going to be a little something you could have done to make it better. You just have to learn to recognize when it’s good enough.

How to streamline your writing & editing when in a time crunch…

For those blasted times when you are racing the clock to turn in a piece, I have a few suggestions for streamlining your process:

  • Write the thesis you think you want.
  • Get your terrible first draft done.
  • Double, triple, super check that you have a fantastic thesis. Maybe it changed in the course of fleshing out the piece.
  • Clarify your thesis if necessary.
  • Editing Session 1: Make sure everything is relevant to your thesis. Anything not related or meaningful gets the chopping block.
  • Editing Session 2: Read it out loud. This should give you a good clue for when you’ve become too wordy. Also, it will give you a sense of the flow of the piece. If you get lost in the middle of a sentence, rewrite it so the point is clear and easy to grasp.
  • Editing Session 3: Scan for crutch words and bad transitions. Get rid of them. A thesaurus is your friend here.

If there’s time, I recommend taking a break somewhere in there and adding on a few more read-throughs. In a pinch, the three editing sessions above should suffice for a short piece, though more editing, especially after some time away from the piece, is ideal.

You’re Welcome, Readers.

Conclude With Confidence.

With your conclusion, convince your audience that they just got something valuable out of sticking with your piece through to the end. Their time was an investment. Remind them of what you’ve given them to make that investment worthwhile.

Rekindle your thesis. Demonstrate why your point matters to your reader. Let your reader come away feeling smarter, inspired, or like they just got a fantastic new set of tools. Give them something they can use, and they will be grateful to you. They’ll want to read more from you. They may even want to hire you. Writing can be just that powerful.

This blog is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a hybrid market research and marketing firm. We offer content marketing services to the B2B tech sector.