Strategy first, understandable message, strong CX.
Life sciences. Fintech. Healthcare technology. Enterprise software. All industries with highly sophisticated and often extremely technical messaging, sales cycles, and customer journeys. All with the need to turn their complex B2B products, services, and solutions into simple selling points. Why is this so crucial?
- Customers are discerning and experts in their own fields. They’re hungry for the details that will help them work through their (typically) committee-driven decision-making process.
- Messages can get overly technical and confusing – especially when about hard-to- convey or disruptive and new ideas.
- Creative will become confusing, cluttered, and even boring – making the story (and the brand) easy to ignore.
Here’s the challenge: create B2B marketing strategies that are relevant and resonate but also engaging, and keep your story as simple as possible to differentiate your brand and break through the boring.
STRATEGY FIRST
Simplicity starts with a customer experience strategy – locking down an understanding of the situation, setting objectives, and doing a deep dive into profiling everything there is to know about your target customers.
- Who are they? (Demographics, psychographics, title, income)
- What do they care about? (Job responsibilities and how they define success)
- What keeps them up at night? (Business pains, career aspirations, organizational roadblocks)
While understanding current perceptions is essential, mapping out the customer journey and evaluation criteria is as well. It’s important to take a close look at competitive brands, features, and a full SWOT to understand how to best position your brand against both category leaders and up-and-comers.
SIMPLIFY THE MESSAGE SO THE CREATIVE CAN SHINE
It’s hard work to make a complex message simple. By understanding what’s most meaningful to your customers (truly meaningful), you have a good chance of narrowing in on the key ideas that speak to them most.
- Developing core value propositions – clear, compelling messages that connect your brand to ideas that resonate with every stakeholder throughout the process, from gatekeeper to decision-maker
- Building out key supporting points, or reasons to believe, that prove and reinforce the core value propositions
- Creating a strong narrative – getting the wording and tone just right so it translates across all types of media
- Potentially getting feedback (a reality check) against current customers and prospects – catching any ideas or words that might be confusing; prioritizing ideas for impact
The goal is to create a story that orbits around a targeted and compelling idea that’s meaningful and easy to digest – showcasing your differentiators and separating you from the competition.
CREATE COMPELLING CONTENT ACROSS THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
According to Salesforce, 80% of senior-ranking marketers state that a cohesive customer journey is absolutely critical for success. The Customer (or Buyer’s) Experience is about delivering that right story, at the right time, through the right channel. Providing decision-makers with the information they need to move from initial awareness through to consideration, evaluation, and, eventually, to a decision.
Creating a Customer Journey Map allows you to simplify and break down what information and data prospects will need at each stage of their purchasing journey. Starting with a focus on the user’s tasks, goals, and expectations, and homing in on fixing the problems that occur most frequently, you can craft powerful stories that work consistently across owned (website), earned (public relations), and paid media (search and display marketing).
SIMPLER STORIES. BETTER BRAND ACTION.
In the end, making the complex simple is not all that complicated. With a strong strategy, a deep understanding of your audience, and a commitment to continually refining your program, the benefits of simplicity will deliver real impact for your brand.
Here’s our own complex message, whittled down to 24 words and a simple takeaway:
At BNO, we are a passionate group of diverse individuals who have a talent for simplifying meaningful decisions, inspiring a brand’s audience to act.
And here are a few case studies where we had the opportunity to rewrite complex stories about fintech, data, healthcare, and life sciences and elevate them to a new level of simplicity: https://dev.stage.bnoinc.com/expertise/fintech/
