How to Create Powerful B2B Messaging That Converts | Douglas Abbott | EP 191

How to Create Powerful B2B Messaging That Converts

In today’s competitive B2B marketing landscape, where trust gaps are widening, convincing and demonstrating to a buying committee that you’re the right partner has become more challenging than ever before. It requires a deeper understanding of a company’s challenges, the demand triggers, the selection process, and decision-making dynamics. So how can marketers craft B2B messaging that influences and engages with every member of the buying committee?

That’s why we’re talking to Doug Abbott (CEO, Contrasted Marketing), who shares proven strategies on how to create powerful B2B messaging that converts. During our conversation, Doug discussed the importance of B2B marketers tailoring messaging to address the specific concerns, needs, and priorities of the different buying committee members. He also emphasized the value of audience-led messaging and recommended leveraging internal and external research to develop a robust messaging matrix. Doug shared some common mistakes and warned against relying solely on AI for messaging. He also explained why human expertise and strategic differentiation are paramount to crafting messaging that truly stands out.

https://youtu.be/XltT_ALUGLI

Topics discussed in episode:

[2:04] The importance of targeting different members of the buying committee in B2B marketing

[2:45] Where most marketing teams struggle regarding the buying committee

[4:08] How to craft effective messaging tailored to different buyer personas

[5:17] Key pitfalls B2B marketers need to avoid when approaching the buying committee—and what to do instead:

1. Focus on audience-led messaging over product-led messaging
2. Research and identify pain points
3. Segment the audience and target based on needs
4. Position the products to address the pain points and needs

[11:00] Strategic positioning and how to influence the buying committee

[14:46] The role of AI in messaging and competitive analysis

[22:51] Actionable tips for B2B marketers on improving the effectiveness of messaging:

1. Identify the buying committee members 
2. Understanding their pain points through customer and sales insights
3. Build a messaging matrix to align messaging with the specific needs of each buying committee member
4. Test the messaging through A/B testing

Companies and links mentioned:

• Doug Abbott on LinkedIn

• Contrasted Marketing

• G2

• Capterra

• ChatGPT

Christian Klepp  00:00

We all know that in B2B marketing, convincing and demonstrating to a buying committee that you are the right partner and company of choice is no small feat. It requires a deeper understanding of a company’s challenges, the demand triggers, how they buy, how they make decisions, and their selection criteria. So how can B2B marketers develop the right messaging that speaks to different members of the buying committee. Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Douglas Abbott, who will be answering this question. He’s the CEO and Founder at Contrasted, which helps B2B companies not only generate leads, but also get the right results. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. All right, and I’m gonna say, Mr. Douglas Abbott, welcome to the show. 

Douglas Abbott  00:55

Thanks. Great to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:57

Great to have you on the show. Douglas, I’m really looking for this conversation, because, man, this is something that I think B2B marketing teams really need to pay more attention to. Let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long. Let’s just dive right into the topic. If we can, let’s do it all. Right, fantastic. Okay, so Douglas, you’re, I’m gonna say you’re on a mission to combine strategy, execution and proprietary AI to drive real pipeline. But for this conversation, I’d like to focus on the topic of how B2B marketers can develop messaging that speaks to different members of the buying committee. And I know a lot of people, they probably glaze over that, or they probably feel that that’s someone else’s job, but I have been in situations as I’m sure you have, where I’ve seen that go, all right, right, so let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. Okay, so question number one is, why do you think it’s so important for B2B marketers to understand who the different members of the buying committee are? And number two, where do you see most marketing teams struggle regarding the above?

Douglas Abbott  02:04

Yeah, so you know, I think the reason it’s so important is that in most of these, you know, large B2B purchase decisions, it’s going to touch multiple departments. So you know, those decisions to buy a product like they rarely rest with one person. There is the buying committee. So when you talk about the buying committee, you know each person is going to care about different outcomes, and they’re going to want different things from a product, from a software. So, you know, the CFO might want cost efficiency, the head of ops might want usability. The CIO might care about how it integrates with their current tech stack. 

Douglas Abbott  02:45

So and I think where I see people struggle is that they will focus on a generic message that might be relevant to an organization, but they’re not actually speaking to the needs and outcomes that those individual members of the buying committee want.

Christian Klepp  03:04

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s absolutely right. It’s, it’s this whole, I hate to use this, because I feel it’s so overused, but like, one size fits all right. Like, it’s one of these. Like, okay, well, let’s just have this very top level generic messaging that that appeals to everybody. But yeah, guess what? No, it does not to your point. It’s the CFO. One of my favorite people is, yeah, is going to look at something? It’s going to look at it from a different lens, as compared to somebody who’s in operations, who is in procurement. I imagine procurement, slash purchasing. Who is in it, or the CSOs, etc, etc, right? So… 

Douglas Abbott  03:48

Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Christian Klepp  03:50

Okay. And why? Why do you think it’s all so based on, based on that and based on understanding that all of these people have different roles and responsibilities. What role will the marketing team have to play in investigating and finding out who those people are and what they’re looking for? As a follow up question.

Douglas Abbott  04:08

The marketing team should know who, everyone in the organization should know who the members of the buying committee are. If that’s not happening, then you know the marketing team should be talking to leadership, to sales, to everyone about, you know, understanding who those people are when it comes to, you know, marketing’s role. That’s where we can talk about, you know, how to focus messaging. So I think in overall kind of message about your company, what your product does, like one broad message, it’s okay, but when you think about how to actually move people through the pipeline, you need to speak to each one of those people individually. So that’s where marketing can help craft what those messages need to be to each one of those people on the buying committee.

Christian Klepp  04:59

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next question, which is about these you know, if we’re talking about crafting the right messaging, right for members the buying committee, what are some of these key pitfalls that B2B marketers need to avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Douglas Abbott  05:17

I would say that people are probably focusing a lot on product led messaging. My product does this. It does that. It can save X amount of time, X amount of money. All those things are good, but they need to be applied to the right person. So it should be focusing on audience led messaging. And then, you know, later, that’ll bring us into how do you segment your audience? How do you target them differently? You’ll need to figure that out, but you can have an overall message that goes to everyone, but you also need to supplement that with, you know, the key benefits, values, outcomes that each person is going to get. Who’s on that buying committee?

Christian Klepp  05:58

Absolutely, absolutely. What are some of these other pitfalls that you think they should be avoiding, or perhaps what should they be doing instead? Is rather understanding, like what each of the pain points of these members of the buying committee are, because that way they would understand, okay, so the finance guy has a different pain point from the operations guy, which almost sounds like table stakes, but in reality, if you dig deeper to understand, okay, so that’s what their challenge is. That’s what they’re mandated to do, and therefore, that’s what the