How to write clear messaging for b2b websites | Emma Stratton (Messaging Expert, Make it Punchy)

0:07Welcome to Who Invited Marketing, the podcast that gives marketers the inside scoop on how to level up and stand out. Today's guest is Emma Stratton. Emma is a messaging expert for B2B tech and an author. Her book Make It Punchy is a favorite amongst B2B folks. In this episode, we are diving into Emma's early career, her publishing journey, messaging exercises that improve communication, how to balance aspirational messaging with credibility, and more. But before we get into the good stuff, if you're watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. If you're listening on Spotify, drop a rating. It helps more marketers like you find these gamechanging insights. Here's

0:50presenting Emma Stratton. Hi Emma, a very warm welcome to who invited marketing. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me Priyanka. I'm happy to chat with you today. Same here. So you started your career as a graphic designer at Penguin Random House. I too interned at a publishing house uh Harper Collins and um I'm curious to know about your

1:14experience there and from there to here. How did you get into being the messaging expert that you are today? Wow, you really dug into the back catalog of my career there to pull out when I was a graphic designer. I love that thought. Yeah, I think probably my story is similar to a lot of people who are creative, born to write or draw and you think, what am I going to be when I grow up beyond an artist? I think for a very long time I was really just trying to find a home for my skills growing up. I was always a writer. I could always

1:54write. That was the thing I was really good at. But I wasn't sure how I was going to make a living doing that. Back I finished my um college in New York. So I was in New York City and that's one of the most competitive places to get a writing job. if you wanted to work at one of the big magazines. You basically had to intern for free for a year and then hope you get an lowpaying entry-level job. And so I enjoyed graphic design and I loved publishing and I wanted to write a book one day. So

2:25I thought, "Oh, wouldn't that be cool? I'll I'll do design and and I'll work amongst books." And I really enjoyed that. But right away I knew I was like, "This is not the job for me. I don't want to work in a building like this every day. I want something else. And so from that point on, after I left that job, I went on a journey of just trying to find a way to make money writing. And I I did a lot of things. I I moved to the Caribbean for six months and I started doing travel writing, writing, reviewing hotels for as freelance and then I got

3:07into journalism. I moved to the UK and I was an editor of a teen magazine and I wrote a lot of articles and I learned a lot about writing. And it wasn't until I got a job in brand marketing where I was a writer creating tone of voice for consumer brands and learning this idea of having a voice for a product and trying to connect with people. And that was the first time I was like, "Oh, okay. This is cool. I can do this. This is something that I can do with my writing skills and I really enjoy." So, I got into marketing and then I

3:47eventually fell into B2B marketing. I worked at an agency that only did B2B and I got a tech client and I I knew nothing about tech. In my old consumer days, I was writing about toilet papers and shampoos and toothpaste and now I'm writing about enterprise data management and the difference was shocking. I was reading their messaging and I was like, "Oh my god, what is this? I don't understand. It's so complex. I don't see any humans in here. It's like the computers are taken over. And that was when I first saw that there was a real problem in this industry of communication that a lot of companies,

4:29marketing teams were struggling to really simply communicate the value of their products and even communicate what their products were. So, I got obsessed with that problem. I realized I could solve it. I just had a knack for making things simple. And I drew from a lot of my consumer background in connecting with customers. And so I followed that problem and I said, I'm going to just start a business where I just do that. I don't want to do anything else. I just want to do this. And a lot of people told me it wasn't a great idea. They're like, no, people would expect that to come from a full service branding agency

5:06or startups wouldn't pay for that. But I was like, I don't care. I believe that this is a meaningful problem and that people will care. And it took time. I started doing it and it took time to to grow my following and and my business. But over the years, we've all seen now that messaging is a thing that people are talking about now. And I will say back when I started my business in like 2016, not a lot of people were talking about messaging, but I was shouting into the void. So really I got here I would say by following my curiosity, following my interest and continually trying to

5:44find what was right for me as a creative person, as a writer ultimately. So you started as the Carrie Bradshaw because New York and writing job. So yeah, I did. I think my first published pieces were concert reviews. So I was really into music, really into the music scene. I would go see live music all the time and so I would write reviews of concerts for I don't even know who it was, I can't remember now, but blogs, online blogs. My first published piece I think was writing about the miniis player, which is like an old obsolete technology. But I was very much just writing like I didn't

6:24know where it was going to take me, but I knew that I I wanted to write. So yeah, I had a cool New York years very long ago. And because you worked in publishing, I think everyone who works at a publishing house has this feeling that I want to become an author one day because I know I had that and was editing the manuscripts and I I wish I could be one day. So yeah, it's funny because I interned at Penguin and I I got my first technically my second job was at Random House which has since acquired Penguin but when I interned Penguin was separate. They were down on

6:59Hudson Street and I loved it. that I interned with these three amazing editors. They were just so cool and smart and I loved them. But they taught me if you actually want to be a writer, don't get into publishing. Don't become an editor. And I saw that right away. So right away I knew I do not want to become an editor because I would like to be an author one day and I don't I'm not sure if I'll get there if I am editing manuscripts. So that's when I decided no. But then I thought, oh, graphic design, I enjoy that and I can still write and I can still get lots of free

7:35books and be around books, which is fun. Yeah, that was the first uh thing for me, first reaction for me when I went into the office of Harper College. There was so many books and it was so amazing to just see the books. It's like a dream. It is. It is. And then you could get there was like a book room and you could just get books. I'm like, "Oh my god, I can just get and I've since given them away cuz I've moved so many times, but I used to have just everything." I used to have the best collection. You

8:04have a very lovely bookshelf behind you. I do. So, I just Yeah, I just moved to this house a couple months ago and I'd given so all my books away and now I'm like, "Oh, great. I have an excuse to buy tons more books cuz I got to fill up these bookshelves." Yeah. Amazing. Getting back to the conversation, what's the most unconventional way you've seen a B2B tech company differentiate itself

8:29successfully? I think when it comes to messaging, it's hard to differentiate these days. If we're just talking purely about messaging because everyone is copying what everyone else says, it's unique to see a company that's whoa, they're totally standing out. One company that I love and it's not unconventional what they're doing. They're really just being honest and true and that is a company called Less Annoying CRM. I've shared about it before. They are a CRM that is fully positioned on small businesses and their positioning and messaging. If you look at their website, they just go very hard around why they're different. And they're different because they're not VCbacked. They're

9:23not a light version of a bigger product. And they're wholly focused on this one specific audience. And they talk about it in their messaging all these reasons why. And they they are completely differentiated because of that. Very few I actually I've never seen a company be so bold and honest in their website copy. No one wants to tell the whole truth because it's scary or we don't want to do it. So I think that's

9:51something that really stands out. Otherwise, I think companies now they're differentiating. They might differentiate through their broader marketing mix like the way they show up at events or maybe their social media is really interesting or maybe their customer service and their people and their support is really stand out. Those are ways that I actually hear people saying, "Oh, wow. That brand's really

10:15awesome. They're really standing out." But it's that broader mix of marketing or their customer support, the actual human connection piece that I think truly differentiates. I think it's hard to just differentiate with your messaging document. I think it's getting harder and harder every day. Absolutely. Talking about your fantastic book, Make It Punchy. So, here's a review I found really interesting. It says, "I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of business books. I rarely read

10:46them and I definitely never review them. That speaks to how helpful Make It Punchy is." So, that's amazing. That's a great review. What was the hardest part to write and why? Oh god, the first draft was awful. So, it's funny. I tell people, hey, write a bad first draft and don't worry about it and revise and it will get better through the writing process. But I had to give I had to remind myself of that because I found that the first draft was awful. Like I really hated I'll be honest, I hated writing it. I felt so insecure. I felt like everything was garbage. I could not

11:26see clearly. But I just trudged through chapter by chapter. So I would write how I wrote the first draft was I would write each chapter chronologically. I would write a draft. I would send it to my editor. She would give kind of highle suggestions and then I would edit them and then once I was done all 12 chapters that was my bad first draft. So I would write I was writing a chapter a week. It was during the summer and I hated having

11:55to do it but I forced myself to do it. And every time I would write a chapter, I would send it to my editor and I would think she's gonna write back and be like, "Emma, I think you should not write this book because it's so bad. I hate to tell you, but I just don't I don't think it's going anywhere." That's how bad the self-doubt came. And it's because I was doing the thing that I've always wanted to do, which is write a book. And I think when you face your deepest dream and you finally go for it, your subconscious mind starts throwing all kinds of negative talk at you

12:31because it wants you to just keep doing what you've always been doing, right? It it triggers this old ancient survival instinct where it's if you do something new, you're going to die. So I had a lot of just like negative um talk in my head which made the writing process very painful. So it was like pulling teeth the whole first draft. But what I found was the second and the third and the fourth drafts were really fun cuz I had something to work

13:01with and I knew how to make it better. But man, it was a good lesson. It was very humbling to go through the torture of that first draft. Great story. How should brands think about emotion in messaging? How much is too much? I think emotion is really important. And I'm not saying throw it on and make people cry and talk about their pain and trauma. I think it's like there's a midpoint which is really just acknowledging the human and acknowledging that human's emotional reaction to the challenges they're facing, etc. So it's not so much about make people cry, but it's about make people feel something. Okay? So it

13:49depends on what industry you're in. But I have an example. I worked with a cyber security company a couple years ago and they had a type of protection and the people that they were working with were companies that weren't super sophisticated. They didn't have huge security teams. And so this company brought in a great product, but they also brought in a service that came with it. So people that would be watching 24/7 and making sure nothing bad got into their environment. And when I interviewed all the customers, like these are technical people, but the overarching most common thing they would talk about was like, "Oh my god, I have

14:32weekends and nights back." They're like, "Oh, that's the best thing. I like no longer just get those awful calls at 2 a.m. or that kind of fear that I always have in the back of my mind that we're vulnerable somewhere. I don't have that anymore. It's so nice to have my nights and weekends back. And it was just such a common thing that people said that we made it one of their benefits about getting your nights and weekends back and not having that fear. And so that was not about making people scared or tapping into like negative emotions. It was just connecting and relating to the

15:09audience to where they were. It's, hey, we get you. We know this is where you're at right now. Here's how our product is going to help you transform that. So, it's not about making people cry or feel happy or whatever, but it's connecting to the emotion that your buyer is feeling and seeing if you can mirror

15:29that in some of your messaging. Acknowledge it. Just acknowledge it. I think that's the first step. Understand what is the emotion they're feeling. That's step one. Then step two is how can you acknowledge that in your communications? And that's really how you want to think about emotion. Yeah. What I have seen is most companies are just so superficial that coming back to the point that you said earlier that talk like humans and it's just like computers talking to each other. So mostly it's just that. So yeah. Yes. One yes. One robot talking to another robot which is is worse now right with everything. My next question is when

16:08should a company completely throw out its messaging and start from scratch? I think to throw it out is when you know it's not working. And in my experience, companies know when it's not working. The signs are like, "Our marketing isn't isn't landing at all. We don't have as many demos or we're not getting as many calls." Sometimes if the message is something that sales are using in outbound sequences, that they'll know,

16:35hey, our outbound emails aren't working. That's one that's one time when you want to throw it out and try something new. And then the other time is when there's a significant shift in your positioning. So I'm not talking about like a a new feature that you've added, but when you are changing who you're talking to or you're changing the core value that you're putting forward for your product, that's the time when you want to think about new messaging. So when it's not working, that's definitely toss it. But number two is there's a strategic change at the business level, product level, there's been a big acquisition or you're

17:18shifting focus or you're pivoting or you're going after a different audience. Those are all times when you likely want to revisit messaging. Amazing. What's a messaging exercise that almost always sparks an aha moment for teams? Yeah, I think my famous not famous but it's definitely the most popular with people that I train. So, I've trained at this point I've trained over 2,000 marketers at teams around the world in my method. So, this is the one that everyone loves and it's say like you would at the barbecue. So, say like you would at the barbecue is whenever you have some messaging that just is jargony, it's got that techy talk, it's

17:59long, it's not really saying anything, you know what I mean? anything like that. You just want to think, okay, how would I how would my buyer say this at a barbecue to a smart friend? How would they say this? And it's an exercise that helps you cut all that jargon and corporate talk and helps you use more casual, natural phrasing, which makes it more easy for someone to understand. But it also helps you connect with your buyer and tap into how they actually describe their problem and how they describe benefits and how they describe the value because the way customers perceive our product is almost always

18:39completely different from how we perceive and how we talk about it. So, say it like you would at the barbecue is a great way to not only have more clear and casual conversational writing that's easy to understand, but it also helps you go deeper into what your customer cares about. So, I have an example. Um, we played this game with a company that was training with me and they were a data customer data platform. And so they were talking about their buyer would be the head of customer experience and they were saying in their messaging, oh, they would want to drive alignment across their stakeholders. And I was like, or

19:19sorry, I think it was like get their teams aligned. And I was like, "Okay, I get what you mean, but how would they actually talk about this problem at a barbecue? Would they really say I need to get my teams aligned?" And they were like, "Oh, no." They'd probably say, "Oh gosh, all my teams have different data sets that they're looking at and they're they don't connect." And so they're just chasing different metrics. And I just wish I could stop all my teams chasing different metrics and get them all on the same page. And I said, "That is so much better than your than you saying

19:56they just need to align departments." Like need to align departments as well. No one's getting excited about that. Even if you do have that problem, that phrasing is just not human. We can't really relate to it because we're not walking around talking like that. But we changed the message to finally get all your teams chasing the same metric. That is really immediate. that's really going to catch a buyer's attention who has that problem who is thinking that same way. So say like you would the barbecue just really can improve most messages quite quickly. So that's my favorite one that that works really well. In fact, I

20:36did have another team that I trained about a year or two ago and they were running all kinds of campaigns, digital campaigns like social media and they were very corporate and jargony. That's how the company like to be. But they did this. They did the barbecue on all of their inplay campaigns and and social media posts and they saw a lift across the

21:00board just by implementing that one tip. It's that's why it's popular and it's my favorite one to suggest. Love that. I'm going to try that because as a PMM I I think it's also really great way and I'm definitely going to try that. So yeah, please do tell me how it goes. Absolutely. My next question is, what's the best way to get sales and marketing teams stop saying completely different

21:24things? Yeah, I know this is a big one. So, I come in and I do messaging engagements with companies. So, I'm essentially the consultant doing the messaging and I always involve sales. I love involving sales. And part of how I get people aligned and bought in on the messaging work we do is by creating a cross functional team that goes through the whole process together. So I just think that sales and marketing need to talk to each other more because personally for when I do the project sales are like my secret weapon. I always have a separate call just with a couple great salespeople and I just ask them like

22:06what resonates with people what doesn't what do you know because if you think about it a good salesperson like they are messaging testing all the time they are just they go rogue they say what they want to say and they are also seeing what works and what doesn't and so I want to know from their experience like what makes prospects eyes light up

22:27and what makes them totally switch off. That's going to give me a head start. They always have, if they're good, they always have their finger on the pulse of the prospect. I'm like, what's the most common problem people are talking about? So, I get that information and then I use that in my own messaging work. I talk with customers as well, but the data that they bring me is amazing. So I think if sales and marketing could get on the same page and share maybe they just have a standing meeting every month where they share here's what I'm hearing from prospects and this is what's worked

23:03and what hasn't and marketing can take that and put it into work it into messaging or some marketing and then feed back to the sales team hey that worked or actually that didn't work and just have that dialogue so that you can go forward with a message. I think it's I think it's a missed opportunity to be to have the two siloed. I think it's a lot of doubled effort when together you could better find that one message that resonates and everyone could be putting it out there and you could be getting a

23:37stronger perception in the market. You have worked with high growth B2B companies. How do you get founders to stop talking in feature lists? It really it depends on the founder. That's where personalities come in. I found in my work, the people that come to me have already raised their hand because they know I my company stands for. It can be very hard to convince a founder who is technical and is obsessed with the features to get out of it. So that's a tough one. you could read my book. And I quite honestly the number one reason I wrote the book was I wanted to help people write messaging with more

24:20ease and confidence. But the secondary reason was I wanted to get this idea out into the market more that simple human messaging is the way to go only because I've had so many marketers come up to me over the years and say the same thing like how do I convince my leadership that this is the way to go? We're engineering. They love talking about

24:41features, like how do I convince them? And you're not one person isn't always going to be able to convince a CEO to to step out of features. It's really hard. Let's be realistic. So, I wrote the book just hoping that the conversation might arise. I think the other thing is if you have a competitor in your space or adjacent a company that your CEO admires that does not take that approach. It can help to be say like, hey, look how so

25:13and so, look how Salesforce is doing it. Look how they message it now. Compare it to how we do. Wouldn't it be great if we could emulate be more like them? It's working for them. That can sometimes work, but it is hard. It can be cultural too. It can be like culturally we're engineering. And so that's very hard to shift. It's tough. And I know a lot of

25:36great marketers are are up against that. And it can feel like swimming upstream. Loved your answer. My next question is, how do you balance aspirational messaging with credibility? When does it go from inspiring to unrealistic? Yeah, I think you want to be credible. So, I don't like marketing fluff. So, I don't like the words transform or reimagine or game change. I think we are trying to always communicate innovation and newness. It's too far ahead of where your buyer actually is. I think in many cases tech companies live in the future. They're always they're they're like five ten years sometimes ahead of their customers. And we message ahead into the

26:23future. And it doesn't land because people are like, "Okay, sure. You want to transform my workflow, but I'm just here dealing with a spreadsheet that takes too long to update." for example, I I'm not ready to transform my workflow or my enterprise. Can you just tell me with a spreadsheet? So, I think it's really important. You want your messaging to meet your customer where

26:46you're at? And you want to be honest. Are they just dealing with a spreadsheet? Likely, they are. In many cases, the competitor is a spreadsheet. So, you want to talk about how you can solve the problems they feel today. and you don't want to go and spend all your time talking about a big problem that they're not even equipped to even look at or care about. Now, aspirational vision message I know is important when you're trying to attract investors. So, I know that's slightly different if you're an early stage company, you're trying to get VCs. I understand that you want to be more aspirational and share

27:24that vision. So, that's a side note, but for the most part, don't just lean on fluff or these innovation terms to try and tell people that you're doing something new and exciting. It's far more exciting for someone to understand how you can meaningfully help them with something that they know they need help with. So really think about where are they and be honest and then make sure your messaging connects with where they are today, not some future state that they may or may not get to. Amazing. Do you think B2B tech brands play too safe

28:03with uh creativity? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that people think that you can't be creative in B2B. There are some companies that are doing it. I can't think of any now, but I know there's some companies that do creative things with social media and their tone of voice, etc. But I think in general B2B

28:27has a a lot of room to be more creative. And I think that creativity, like that humanity as well, connecting with people and being human and real and authentic, I think that's something that companies can do. Let's stop hiding behind the business facade like the serious formality all the time and can we not talk about our shared human problems and and how we can solve them. So I think there's still plenty of room to be more creative and human in B2B. Amazing. So we have arrived at the last question. So what's one company that is killing it in

29:06messaging at the moment? I I feel like I don't have a good answer. And I don't have a good answer because I'm actually not looking around at other companies a lot these days. I will do it if I'm working with a customer and I'm doing kind of competitor research and then I will dive

29:26into their competitors and their market. It's funny because I I should have the I'm a messaging person and so I should have a list of five, but I don't. I've had ones in the past and then they've changed their messaging since. I used to say Intercom a couple years ago. I loved Intercom's messaging and they they went really close to the buyer and they even used this sort of like handwritten script and you read the messaging and it was like I could see exactly who they were talking to and it was so clear that they understood and they were writing more on a persona level almost. I think

30:04they had ways you could toggle to who they were speaking to and it was just spot-on and I loved it. But then they went away from that so I I couldn't use intercom anymore. That's my example. One of these days I'll find one and then I'll use that. But for now, that that is the honest answer. Please let me know if you have an answer to this. Just text me

30:23or anything. Of course, I will. Okay. All right, Emma, we end it on this note. Thank you so much for finding the time and be here today with us. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Same here you. Bye. Bye, everyone. If you found this episode helpful, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button on YouTube and drop a rating on Spotify. It really helps more marketers discover these expert insights. For episode updates and even more marketing wisdom, follow the Who Invited Marketing page on LinkedIn. That's where all the action happens. And hey, if you have any guest suggestions or topics you'd like to hear

31:02more about, let me know in the comments or connect with me on LinkedIn. Thanks for tuning in to Who Invited Marketing. I'll see you in the next episode.