Here are four tips to make your B2B PR messages resonate across your organization and priority audiences.
What do you tell people when they ask you what your company does? The variety of responses, even from employees of the same company, can be startling. And often reactions to those responses sounds like, “That just told me absolutely nothing.”
How do you make sure your message is unified and your team is singing from the same songbook? Take your messaging by the reins with these four steps.
1) Review B2B PR messaging quarterly
The rate at which growth stage companies evolve can be astounding. New vertical market opportunities often cause a course shift away from previous areas of focus and previously developed messaging. Taking a quarterly look at top line company messaging is a real need. Time should be spent reviewing, adjusting and refining top line company descriptors, proof points and highly succinct vertical market messages. Take into account company goals and needs, and focus on creating the key messages that resonate with your target audience- what engages, what converts and what does not.
2) Engage a variety of team members
Every team member knows what resonates with their constituent audiences. They all have something valuable to add to top line messaging that might not have been previously heard or considered. Adding new members of the executive team to these meetings, including leadership, sales directors and more brings new expertise, insight and fresh perspectives to the table. There are eloquent nuggets to be mined for certain, but there are also succinct, fact-based, straight to the point messages that are essential to development and dissemination of effective B2B PR and marketing communications programs.
3) Challenge the suggested B2B PR messages
I respond to given answers about who a company is and what they do in the same skeptical way a journalist would. Journalists have heard it all. They possess the most acute, accurate B.S. radars of any humans on Earth. They loathe marketing speak. They don’t have time to waste. And for any tech, healthcare or B2B startup or growth stage company looking for coverage, they are one of the most important audiences for building awareness.
Consider the following scenario which took place in a messaging meeting I led. When discussing messaging, one of the members of the team read something along the lines of:
“We are a transformational company committed to being a leader in therapy management. As the national thought leader in this specialty we are a disruptive force to our industry.”
Many eyes in the room began to glaze over.
I nearly leapt from my chair and started dancing when the CEO took the words right out of my mouth and said, “You just told me absolutely nothing.”
Who are you and what exactly do you do?
We are a group of more than 100 healthcare professionals including 10 specialized clinicians, 22 registered technical professionals, 30 board-licensed patient service professionals and 6 engineers. We generate and deliver medical services proven to improve outcomes for more than 10,000 of the most difficult and costly to treat chronically ill patients across the United States.
Yep. That’s it.
4) Socialize, incorporate, train and repeat.
Once you have developed two or three of your top line messages, socialize them with the team and enlist input. I recommend giving this only one round of input unless there are heavily dissenting opinions and then go with it. You can always adjust next quarter if necessary. For all staff authorized to speak publicly on behalf of the organization do a thorough messaging training session. Check in with this every quarter to ensure everyone is still singing from the same songbook.
Need a marketing messaging refresh or keeping it real in B2B PR checkup? We’d love to help you make sure you’ve got messages and proof points that resonate. Give us a call at 404-900-7722.
Twitter: @pdsnyder @write2market LinkedIn: Paul Snyder | Write2Market