Applying The Golden Circle To B2B Marketing - Approaches And Benefits

This is one of those rare articles where I attempt to apply a common business concept to the entire spectrum of B2B marketing. And what makes it even sweeter is that the idea of The Golden Circle was developed by someone I follow closely in the world of business and leadership - Simon Sinek.

There are already a few pieces of content that discuss how the concept can be applied to marketing. But we go one step further to:

1. Look at The Golden Circle through the lens of B2B marketing.
2. See how it can be applied to the entire spectrum of B2B marketing (not just content or messaging).

As we do this, we will look at real examples that demonstrate the impact of this idea in everything you do in marketing.

So, let's roll. Shall we?

What is The Golden Circle?

The Golden Circle is an idea developed by leadership coach Simon Sinek to help individuals and organizations achieve better outcomes. He says that some leaders and organizations are able to better inspire others when they start with 'why', and not 'what' or 'how'.

As you can see in the figure above, WHY is at the center of everything. Leaders and organizations who know why they exist tend to inspire others more, and in the process, they do much better in the long term.

In a nutshell, this is what the three elements of The Golden Circle mean for businesses and leaders:

• WHY: the very reason you exist as a leader or business - your purpose.
• HOW: the things you do to help fulfil your WHY - from capabilities to processes and people.
• WHAT: refers to what you offer as a business - your products and services.

Simon bases this on his research as well as neuroscientific principles. The neuroscientific principles state that how humans respond to certain actions depends on the part of the brain that deals with it. Apparently, we respond the best when we see, hear, or feel things that communicate emotions and behaviours.

For example, it is the limbic system in the brain that controls emotions. It encourages us to make decisions based on our gut feeling, which is why we end up buying the same toothpaste repeatedly despite seeing stupid and unrealistic ads. They appeal to our limbic brain. On the other hand, the neocortex is responsible for making rational decisions.

How The Golden Circle applies to B2B marketing in general

The main intention of this article was to look at how the idea can be applied to specific areas of B2B marketing. But before we do that, we need to first understand how we can look at B2B marketing through the lens of The Golden Circle in general.

As mentioned earlier, the very foundation of this principle is that you need to identify your WHY. From a B2B marketing standpoint, you need to ask the following questions:

1. Why does the business exist? What is its purpose (it can't be making money, according to Simon)?
2. What cause does your business stand for?
3. Why should others (your customers, partners, vendors) care?

Let us take the example of an AI writing assistant. One of its target customers is busy B2B marketers who wish to scale content creation. The usual messaging (without the WHY) would look something like this:

"We use generative AI and GPT-4 to help create content from scratch for blog posts, PPC ads, video scripts, and more. It can make your content creation 2X faster. Want to try out the product for free?"

While there is nothing really wrong with this messaging, it doesn't;t reflect WHY the company wants to do what it is doing.

Now, what if the messaging was redefined as below?

"We want to reimagine content creation by empowering marketers to do more with less. We use generative AI and GPT-4 to help create content from scratch for blog posts, PPC ads, video scripts, and more. It can make your content creation 2X faster. Want to try out the product for free?"

Which one of the two sounds more appealing to you? The second one for sure, isn't it?

Some might opine that saying the same thing differently doesn't make much difference. But the reality is that, it does appeal more to a vast majority of people - including B2B buyers whom we think always make logical (and not emotional) decisions.

Long story short, always start with your WHY!

Applying The Golden Circle to almost everything in B2B marketing

In this section, we will move much beyond the theory and see how the framework can be applied to various areas of B2B marketing. We will also look at some practical examples of implementing the idea.

At the same time, it goes without saying that it has to reflect in everything you do as a business (not just marketing). It needs to show in:

• Marketing campaigns
• Sales conversations and pitch decks
• Board and management meetings
• Investor presentations
• Discussions with partners
• Customer success initiatives

With that in mind, let us look at the areas in B2B marketing where The Golden Circle can be applied.

1. Positioning and messaging
2. Content marketing (blog, videos, customer success stories. etc)
3. Ad copies and creatives
4. PR (Public Relations)
5. Email marketing
6. Website copies and creatives
7. Podcast appearances and talks

1. Positioning and messaging

Simon Sinek took the example of Apple as he explained how companies should start with their WHY. He demonstrates how positioning and messaging that focus on WHAT and HOW alone is dull, and how a WHY mindset can make a significant difference.

If Apple were to start with their WHAT, the messaging would go like this (according to Simon):

"We make great computers. They're user-friendly, beautifully designed, and easy to use. Want to buy one?"

Not bad right? But look at how the messaging elevates when you start with the WHY:

"With everything we do, we aim to challenge the status quo. We aim to think differently. Our products are user-friendly, beautifully designed, and easy to use. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?"

This is exactly how you need to think about your positioning and messaging (think about the AI writing assistant example we discussed).

One common mistake I see many companies - especially in the tech space - make is that they develop complex terminologies to explain the tech behind their product. The reality is that your customers don't care about your tech. They only look for whether your products or services can solve their problem. And the best way to do it is by applying The Golden Circle to the way you communicate the benefits of what you offer.

Let's understand this using another example.

Imagine you are selling a data analytics and visualization tool. If your messaging goes like the one below, it's time to rethink.

"We help solve complex data problems by leveraging AI-enabled data orchestration for new-age businesses."

Rather, something like the below would be easily understood by your customers:

"Our mission is to make data accessible and usable for everyone. We do this by helping businesses make sense of complex data using easy-to-understand visualizations."

Did you see the difference? We made the messaging simpler and started it with the WHY.

2. Content marketing

Content is a vast area. And the number of areas where you can make a difference using The Golden Circle principle is endless.

When I say that we have to apply the idea, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do this every single time - for sure not in every blog post, video, or social media post. But you should incorporate it wherever it makes sense.

To illustrate this, let us look at 1 example each for a couple of content types. For this, let us consider a company that sells a SaaS management platform that helps businesses optimize their spending on SaaS subscriptions.

Assume the company is writing a blog post on '7 reasons why you should consider using a platform to optimize your SaaS spends.'

This is an ideal topic for storytelling where the company can stitch together a narrative that goes like this:

"We have been there, and we have seen the pain. The pain of overspending on tools and platforms that we don't really need. It hurts. Not to mention the difficulty in consolidating all the subscriptions in one place, given the size of the organization and siloed teams.

We wanted to fix this problem for once and ever. This is why we created [product name] - a SaaS management platform that saves you money by optimizing spending across your tech stack. The SaaS spending revolution is here. And in this article, we discuss 7 key reasons why you should consider having a tool like [product name]."

Wouldn't this be a far more effective way to connect with your target audience than starting with a boring intro? Did you also see how I carefully inserted the WHY of the business into the narrative?

Next, let us take the example of a social media post for the same SaaS management tool. Imagine the CEO writing a LinkedIn post about how the company started, and let's say it goes like this:

"One day, I was researching platforms that can help manage different SaaS platforms we use at my company. Suddenly, I realized that there aren't many offering such a solution. This led me to start [company name]."

I mean, this is not bad. But you need a stronger WHY. and a deeper way to communicate it. Now, look at how we could rephrase it if we were to focus on the WHY first.

"It was just another day at work. We were all following our routines. Just the same stuff we do every day.

But I wanted to break the monotony of the job, and do something more than what the job description demanded. Given the number geek I am, and being responsible for the company's revops function, I looked through all our expenses for the financial year. Interestingly, many not-so-familiar tools popped up. When I checked with the respective owners, I realized that over 60% of them were unused.

As a revenue management professional, this was a painful finding. It was money being spent for no reason, and could potentially be easy wins when it comes to revenue optimization.

This kind of encouraged me to research solutions to help manage SaaS platforms and subscriptions. To my surprise, I found out that there aren't many offering one, especially focusing on optimising spending.

This got me thinking. Someone has to solve this problem. And that someone turned out to be us. This is how [company name]'s journey started."

Here, you are stressing on your WHY and using a storytelling approach to explain your WHY. And that's how you stand out in the noise and the clutter. That's how large and successful brands operate.

Similarly, you can extend this to any other content type, including videos, case studies, newsletters, or even webinars.

3. Ad copies and creatives

This is my favorite and sadly the most overlooked. But starting with your WHY and following it with your HOW and WHAT requires a shift in mindset. And that mindset shift is somewhat similar to what we discussed in my article on creating a demand gen plan for B2B businesses.

I am referring to using ads to build awareness and demand for your business. I spoke about this concept more deeply in another article Using Paid Ads For B2B Demand Generation - Doing It The Counterintuitive Way.

Spreading the word about what your business stands for (your WHY) is equally important for new and mature businesses (Apple continues to demonstrate this. HubSpot is a good example in the B2B space where it evangelized inbound marketing over outbound and built its business around it). Using paid ads is an excellent way to do this and reach the right target audience.

This approach involves using more top-of-the-funnel content to build a cold layer than running conversion-oriented ads as the first touchpoint. This would mean using videos and other content about your company's founding story, vision, mission, values. etc., as the first layer of targeting (which you can later retarget using other types of content). Another example is including creatives and copy demonstrating your CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities - as long as these activities align with your overall WHY.

But you may ask, how can you run ads on your company's story, vision, mission, and related items? Here are a few ways to do it:

1. LinkedIn video ads
2. YouTube ads
3. Google search/display ads

I wanted to pick Google search ads and share a tiny hack to help you run search ads effectively by applying The Golden Circle principle.

It involves two things:

1. Targeting the different variations of your brand keywords and making your about us (or the relevant page that covers the elements we mentioned) the landing page.
2. Using copy that reflects your WHY.

Here is an example of how the headline and description for a search ad can look like for the SaaS management business we spoke about earlier. Let us take the company name as SaasSpend for the purpose of counting characters (Google search ad has a character limit of 30 for headlines and 90 for descriptions).

Headline:

SaasSpend – Spend less on SaaS

Description:

We exist to avoid unwanted SaaS spends. User-friendly platform to manage your SaaS spends

You can come up with a better copy. But you get the point here.

4. Public Relations

If you read this far, you could easily guess how to apply The Golden Circle to PR. It all lies in the narrative you build and how you say it.

One thing to note when it comes to running PR campaigns by incorporating your WHY is that you have to nail it in the first go.

Let me explain.

Given the effort you put into building a narrative for a PR campaign and the boost they can give your business, you need to ensure that your messaging reflects a strong and relevant WHY. This is particularly important for startups trying to get their name out there using PR in their initial years.

Devising the perfect messaging is important because you can never take it back once a PR campaign is executed. So your WHY has to be compelling, should connect with your target audience, and has to be relevant to what you offer. Of course, you could rebrand the business later, but you only do that once in a few years. So get it right the first time.

As far as building the narrative is concerned, you could follow the same approach we took in the case of messaging and content (go back and read the examples we discussed if you need). In short, build a strong WHY first. Then lead to your HOW and finally the WHAT.

5. Email marketing

Applying The Golden Circle to email marketing - does that help?

In my opinion, it does. As mentioned before, do it only when it is relevant. And don't overdo it either. Make sure you do it only as frequently as it is needed.

One of the best and easiest ways to do this is to modify that boring company description you have either at the beginning of the email or as an addendum at the end.

Instead of saying:

"I am [sender name], [sender designation] at [company name] - a world leader in IT infrastructure management services."

Try something like this next time:

"I am [sender name], [sender designation] at [company name], [Company name] was founded to make IT infra management hassle-free for banks and other financial institutions - whether it's cloud or on-premise."

You might not be able to tell a long story in the short intro line of an email. But you can definitely give it the flavor of why your company exists. However, there are other sections in an email where you can go a little further - like I said, the company description.

Let's say your usual company description goes like this:

[company name] offers security and compliance management solutions, including hardware and software to help companies prevent cyber attacks and minimize data risks. We have 150+ customers across 10+ countries in the healthcare, life science, banking, insurance, education, and travel industries.

You would know how a company description like this would continue. But this looks dry and doesn't really stand out from the thousands out there. Using The Golden Circle framework can be useful here (and this is one area where you can easily incorporate all three elements of the circle - WHY, HOW, and WHAT).

Let me try to modify the above description by applying The Golden Circle:

"A cyber attack is never likely until you face one. But dealing with one without the right precautions can be bad - even forcing you to shut down your business, not to mention the pressure from governments and other regulatory bodies. [company name] was founded to take that burden off your shoulder - to protect you when you need it the most, to prevent you from the unwanted, and to automate the entire process of securing your data. We do this by managing your security with an end-to-end compliance and security management suite."

Did you find that more compelling?

The essence here is, always think WHY first.

6. Website copies and creatives

The Golden Circle applies to website copy and creatives in the same way as we discussed for the other aspects of B2B marketing. Some of the website-related items where you can apply the idea are:

• The about us page or the company story page
• Press releases that discuss the company story
• Website landing page content
• Popup banners, infographics, and other notifications

As already discussed, incorporate the idea only when it makes sense.

7. Podcast appearances and talks

Given that B2B companies are trying to leverage dark social and collaborations more, it has become common for founders, CEOs, and key company leaders to appear on podcasts, LinkedIn lives, offline events, webinars, etc. They use these channels to improve brand awareness and reach more people in their target audience.

This is an excellent opportunity to talk about your WHY since you have the liberty to lead the conversation in the direction you want in most cases - only that you will have to pick opportunities relevant to what your business offers.

Final words

Frameworks are useful only when we apply them the right way. I believe The Golden Circle is a great idea that can fundamentally change the way we look at marketing. At the same time, success depends on how we integrate it into our daily marketing activities.

One common misconception is that storytelling or discussing vision and mission doesn't help in B2B. But as someone said, B2B is always H2H (Human to Human). A human touch can definitely make a difference.

With all the examples we discussed, what do you think about the practicality of using this framework in B2B marketing? Let me know your thoughts in comments. You could also send me a DM on this. Also, feel free to reach out if you want help implementing the idea in your business.

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