Go to Market Messaging

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Consider this: A study by market

research firm Yankelovich

estimates that a person living in

a city 30 years ago saw up to

2,000 advertising messages a

day. They estimate the number

today to be 5,000. Hard to

comprehend isn’t it? Multiple and

possibly random marketing messages

blasted at your prospects every minute

they are awake. That’s a horrendous

amount information and general

nonsense you need to break through

in order to get heard.

Going to market with an

undifferentiated message, or one

that is so generic that it could easily

describe the service of your

competitors, is a recipe for getting

relegated to the marketing margins.

Yet, many companies continue to

pump out messages that immediately

blur to the background. Ask yourself:

How much of the information you

receive through email, internet, radio

or TV do you actually remember? I’d

guess on a good day two to three

messages from that pot of over 5,000

―and on a bad day, none. Most of the

stuff we receive is immediately trashed!

In talking with a technology company

about their go-to-market messaging,

I asked: "What makes you unique and

how do you communicate that to the

market?" Their response: “We’re the

number one provider of data storage

services in the greater Los Angeles

region.” To me that sounds more like

a goal, or a mission statement at best.

It’s certainly not a compelling message

that differentiates them from the

crowd. Think of those receiving this

message, the buyers. Just what does it

mean to them if you are number one?

Better service, lower prices, a higher

value engagement? It’s not clear.

If your go-to-market message doesn’t show how you solve a business challenge or address a pressing issue, no matter how grand it sounds, it will probably go unnoticed.

GO TO MARKET MESSAGING To grab the attention

of potential buyers your

message needs to be

striking, relevant and

engaging―otherwise it

will get lost in the clutter

and noise of everyday life.

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Espresso B2B Marketing www.espressob2b.com

A friend of mine has worked in

customer service functions for

twenty years. She now works

for a huge internet services

company whose name you

would immediately recognize.

Every working day she deals

with issues that deeply impact

customers. Her experience of

the challenges customers face

surpasses almost all in her

company. Yet, in twenty years

of service and support roles,

not once has anyone from the

marketing department met

with her to learn about the real

issues faced by the people who

keep them in business―the

customer. That’s a mine of

incredible marketing material

completely wasted.

It’s what keeps your buyers awake at night that really counts

Each day, your target buyers face a

host of business issues―large and

small, urgent and mundane, problems

that need immediate attention and

things that can be placed on the back

burner. Task prioritizing takes place in

the prospect’s work-a-day-world, of

which you get glimpses but can only

guess at importance and relevance.

To get the attention of your buyer

you need to understand their most

pressing issues; the problems that

impact them most. To achieve this you

must distinguish between the

objective business issue (the things

that happen at work) and the person’s

response to these issues (how the

issues impact the buyer). If the

problem is pressing enough to deeply

impact your target buyers, so much so

that it keeps them awake at night,

chances are you’ll gain their attention

if you offer a relevant solution. They’ll

hear your message and they will

remember it.

Many companies miss this point.

When creating sound-bites or building

content they often focus on the

observable, surface business issues

and not the impact these issues have

on their target buyers―and as a result

they remain a step or two away from

creating a stellar go-to-market

message. Producing content or

engaging in a dialogue that recognizes

subjective pain points will resonate

more powerfully with your buyers

than a message aimed at a general

business issue.

Digging into the subjective and the

emotional need not be hard―but those

in your marketing team are not the best

people to do this. Generally, they are

too far removed from the everyday

problems that your buyers face.

To get to the blood-and-guts issues that

keep buyers awake at night you need to

talk with the team in the trenches―the

folks in customer service, your service

and support team, and the people who

implement your company’s solutions.

They are the ones who see buyers at

their most raw. An email written at

4AM, the heated conversation, or the

voice mail left in a moment of extreme

frustration―that’s the material for

messaging. Yet I’ve worked for a number

of large organizations where the

marketing department didn’t even know

the location of the customer service

department―where you can find the

real-life, tell-it-as-it-is material that

could launch a thousand successful

marketing campaigns!

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Below is a chart that shows the difference between objective business issues and subjective responses to those issues. Ask

yourself―are the messages you send to market aimed at the subjective or the objective realities of business life?

OBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE

It takes too long to gather all the

information needed to produce

monthly reports.

I am personally responsible for delivering monthly reports to the

Board of Directors. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get it done

with the tools and people available. This is driving me crazy.

Our IT costs are constantly rising

and service levels are not

meeting expectations.

As CIO, I have to provide an agreed level of service to my end users

and our customers. That’s not possible when so much of my budget is

tied up in keeping the system running.

As Marketing Director, I am

responsible for generating leads

for the sales force.

If I can’t generate more leads, the company will miss its sales target

and people may lose their jobs―myself included. I need to find a way

to improve the return we get on marketing investment – and soon.

We’re behind on getting the

documents in place for the

upcoming merger.

As head of the legal team I’m responsible for finding ways of making

my team more productive. We’ve got a backlog of contracts that

need reviewing and even if we work 7 days a week, we’re not going

to get this done in time.

Organizing the pain points

Once you’ve tapped into the personal and pressing pain points of your prospects, start organizing these vignettes of business

life into a form that can be used to create a marketing message. Here’s one way of doing this―the sales frame. It’s a standard

way of breaking down customer pain points and building tools for both the sales and marketing teams.

Here’s how it works:

• Position is your target buyer. This needs to be a specific position within an organization―the CIO, CFO or Head of Sales for example.

• Critical Issue is the subjective response to a business issue that we spoke of earlier.

• Cause is the reason for the critical issue, or the objective business issue.

• Impact refers to how this business issue affects others both inside and outside of the organization.

• Vision is what it will take to solve the problem.

Building a sales frame for each of your target buyers will help create a targeted message. The message needs to be

personalized and appropriate―as if tailored to the individual. It needs to separate you from the crowd, showing buyers that

you can solve their specific critical issues.

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Saying that you solve critical issues is

not enough―you have to convince

the buyer that you do it in a way that’s

unique and differentiated. For this you

need to look deep into your own

organization and seek out the assets

and resources that differentiate you.

In the diagram below are the typical

corporate assets used to bring a

product or solution to market. There’s

your internal team, company specific

business processes, intellectual

property rights and the finished

products and services you sell.

You have a list of existing clients

and their testimonials that may

differentiate you as a provider of

top quality services.

Your office location, or locations, may

put you in a unique position to better

serve clients. Years of experience, the

number of certified experts and the

geographies that you cover are all

assets that can be configured to build

a value proposition that is unique.

Most companies I work with use a

combination of assets to arrive at a

unique value proposition―each asset

used as a building block to create a

complete and unmatched articulation

of value. What differentiates you need

not be big; it just needs to be relevant

to your target buyers in their quest to

solve business challenges and issues.

I recently worked with a company

that sells servers and storage in the

Canadian market. We went through

the process of identifying buyers’ key

pain points, and used the company's

assets to build a value proposition. In

the process, we discovered that they

were one of only a few that could

assemble and stress test solutions in

a formal lab environment prior to

implementing them at a customer’s

site. We also discovered that their lab-

tested solutions failed less than those

of the competition. We found the

unique differentiator. This became the

core of the go-to-market message.

Since their customers are mainly

hospitals and banks, a well tested and

reliable solution is essential. Building

a hardware infrastructure in a lab

environment and running exhaustive

stress tests prior to delivery is a key

differentiator.

Using your articulation of value to

gain the attention of potential buyers

is just the first step of the journey.

To move them forward you’ll need a

series of messages that resonate at

each and every step of this journey.

Buyers' challenges and issues are not

static. They evolve and change as you

move through the buying cycle.

The questions buyers have of a

potential vendor will morph and

modify through the process of

learning about potential solutions

and educating themselves as they

move toward a buying decision.

Think about the messages you currently take to market. Are they

about you and how well your company performs, the old “we’re

the number one provider of ….” variety, or do they focus on ways

that you uniquely resolve clients’ pressing pain points?

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As mentioned, the pain points and the

buyers' responses to the pain points

are the foundation of your value

proposition and your value proposition

the core of your messaging. A

compelling message will get the buyers'

attention and encourage them to

engage with you. But, while a single

message will grab your audience’s

attention, it’s a dialogue that will move

them toward a sales win.

In recent years, buyers spend more

time on the internet researching

products and services, and less time

face-to-face with a sales person.

Marketing analysts, CSO Insights,

found that buyers progress through as

much as 80% of the buying cycle

without contacting a sales person.

The bulk of the decision making

process takes place before a sales

person gets the opportunity for a

face-to-face conversation.

The changing conversation through the buyer’s journey

Without the advantage of the face-to-

face sales engagement you have to

rely on electronic content to progress

and advance the sales opportunity.

Each touch point with the buyer

needs to be architected in a way to

move the buying process forward.

No longer can you simply hurl a white

paper or a reference story at every

opportunity that raises its head!

You need to share different types of

information at different stages of the

buying process. The content you

share needs to be appropriate and in

step with the stage in the buying

process, and at each stage you need

to be imparting the same core value

proposition.

Today, the power lunch and the in-person PowerPoint

presentation has been replaced by websites, blog publications,

social media discussions, white papers and ebooks as the main

form of communication during the early stages of the sales cycle.

I’ve seen some organizations launch a

marketing program with a well thought

out message, but not update their

website to reflect that message. Or

they’ll publish blogs that do not tie into

the current marketing campaign. This

leads to confusion and sometimes a

contradiction of messages.

Your buyer will most likely be

evaluating you through multiple

sources not just the email you send or

the white paper you write. The

following diagram illustrates this. A

consistent value proposition must be

presented through whatever channel

you take to market. To do otherwise

would simply confuse the buyer.

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STAGE ACTIVITY

• Acknowledge problem

• Explore Solutions

• Selection

• Finalizing the decision

• Probe pain points and identify business need

• Create vision with educational content

• Solution definition

• Value proposition and ROI

Think about the purchasing process in a

complex B2B environment. The buyer

goes through a number of stages:

acceptance of a problem, agreement to

explore solutions, examination of

various solutions, assessment of one or

two solutions in detail, proof of concept,

and finally a selection. Each stage in the

buyer’s journey requires a different type

of message.

SiriusDecisions, a marketing research

and services provider, identifies six

stages in the buyer’s journey.

These are:

• Loosening the status quo

• Committing to change

• Exploring solutions

• Committing to solutions

• Justifying the decision

• Making the selection

At each step of the journey, the

buyer is faced with a new set of

questions and a new set of issues.

The content you use and the

messages you send need to reflect

the changing interests of the buyer.

Matching the information you share with

the stage in the journey is at the heart of

lead nurturing. Giving the right information

at the right time will establish you in a

thought leadership position and in a strong

position to win the business.

To simplify things, Espresso B2B

recommends a simple four-step

journey―as seen in the diagram below.

Each stage of the journey is represented by

a distinct content “milestone”.

http://www.espressob2b.com/

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Imagine the buyer’s journey as a

digital conversation you might have

with a potential customer. Walk

through that conversation considering

the types of questions the buyer might

ask at each leg of the journey. This will

help you develop the right content for

the right step in that journey.

For the buyer’s journey to be successful

your electronic conversation needs two

components―the conversation

(content shared) and provocation to

move the buyer to take the next step

(the call to action). We’ve found it

extremely helpful to map the whole

journey out in a draft mode before

building the content map and the

journey provocation points.

A tool that I’ve found effective is

borrowed from the movie industry

―the cinematographer’s story board.

Sketching out the whole journey ahead

of time is a great way to build a digital

conversation with the buyer.

More information on this can be found in one of our recent blogs:

http://www.espressob2b.com/blog/bid/55655/Go-to-market-messaging-just-like-in-the-movies

Mapping the journey

http://www.espressob2b.com/blog/bid/55655/Go-to-market-messaging-just-like-in-the-movies

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A final few words

With widespread use of the internet,

today’s buyer has access to an

immense amount of information. In

fact, it’s an overwhelming amount of

information―think back to those

5,000 marketing messages that

bombard them every day.

Sifting through this mass of

information, your prospective buyers

are looking to be informed and

educated. They are looking for

solutions to the problems they wrestle

with in the day, and that keep them

awake at night. They care little about

chest-slapping claims to fame by

vendors, or the speed and feeds about

your products; instead they look at the

value of your solution.

Seeking sellers who provide thought

leadership and guidance, buyers will

reward them with their business.

Thought leadership, a unique value

proposition linked to buyer’s

challenges and issues will prevail.

According to one source, thought

leaders win the business more than

70% of the time. It does pay off!

Stages in the Buyers Journey (our thanks go to Ardath Albee author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale for help with the buying stages.)

About Espresso B2B Marketing

Going to market with an undifferentiated message will invariably produce mediocre returns. Espresso B2B

Marketing works with clients throughout the complete lead-to-win cycle enabling organizations to create a

unique value proposition that separates them from the crowd.

As a result of working with us, organizations ranging from small businesses to global corporations have improved

marketing ROI, increased revenue and improved sales win rates.

To learn more visit us at: www.espressob2b.com or download our e-book: Seven Steps to Marketing Success

http://www.espressob2b.com/

http://www.espressob2b.com/seven-steps-to-marketing-success-e-book/

Documents

Go to Market Messaging