How to make your messaging bolder (with Grace Baldwin)

Hi beautiful people,

The state of B2B tech messaging, as Pink Floyd might put it, is:“Not the worst and not the best, and just the same as all the rest”.

It's no wonder we've arrived here, considering the challenges in:

• Measuring the effectiveness of your messaging
• Achieving internal alignment?
• Ensuring messaging echoes back across all customer-facing activities.

That’s the conversation I recently had with Grace Baldwin ?? , my friend and editor in chief of this newsletter. Grace is a copywriter who specializes in helping founding PMMs bring their messaging to life on their website.?

This time she will take the spotlight as a copywriter obsessed with brand voice, tones, and memorability.?

In today’s article, Grace will share some tips on how to make your messaging a bit more bold — and how to empower your team to keep pushing the boundary so you stand out.?

Let's crack on.

Breaking free from “We Help You Save Time, Cost, and Drive Revenue” messaging:

AB: I believe B2B marketing can still learn a lot from B2C. One key lesson is remembering that we’re selling to people (at least for now). Even the most serious people still crave stories and products that feel relatable and make sense to them. The usual lines like “we help you save time and cost” or “we drive revenue” just don’t hit home. We all know it, yet we still keep using them. Why do you think it’s happening??

GB: Oooof, you’re coming out swinging with some big questions, Anna!

I don’t have all the answers, but my thought on this is pretty simple: the reason we end up with boring messaging is because we treat copy and messaging as two separate things.?

From my experience, a PMM will do the hard work of creating the foundational messaging. It’s really important to do that first step where you figure out the core of what you want to say.?

But then they make the fatal mistake and show their internal team that messaging and get it approved. They’ll tell the team that it’s internal use only. They’ll tell the team it isn’t copy… but once everybody internally has approved messaging like “Use automation to save your team 5 hours a week,” it’s hard to take that and put a creative spin on it.?

When you start thinking about creative and brand after you’ve done the messaging, the CEO often steps in and asks why we’re deviating from what was already approved.?

My clients that are able to take bigger creative swings though? They’re the ones that have defined brands, voices, perspectives, and personalities. They incorporate the creative strategy from the start, and only show “messaging” to the team that’s as close to the final copy as possible.

Laser focused messaging: from targeting everyone to speaking to the audience that will care.

AB: I am reading Emma Stratton ’s recently published book Make it Punchy. One thing that stood out to me was, “When you try to stand for everything under the sun, people don’t know what to think about you.” Do you have any tips on how to make messaging focused and resonant without trying to be everything to everyone?

GB: Oh girl I’ve got loads. But my Number 1 tip for ‘louder’ messaging is simply to have a few hills you’re willing to die on.?

I think Chris Orlob said this best on Devin Reed ’s podcast a few months ago when he said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that authentic brands are the ones that people can trust — and people trust brands that are willing to defend their position on a topic, no matter what. They’re brands that have conviction in what they’re saying — and that conviction bleeds through into their copy.?

So the first step to having bolder messaging is actually simple: you have to get the team fired up about what it is you’re doing.

That starts with strategic narratives that explain:

• Who you are
• What you do
• Why you give a sh*t about it
• What hills you’re willing to die on related to the topic

All of this should come before you start talking about features and benefits. It’ll make your messaging automatically more emotional simply because you as the PMM know deeply why you care — and it’ll help your company come off as more authentic.

37signals does a pretty good job of choosing the hills they’re willing to die on. These are the top-level company messages that thread through everything the company does.

37signals does a pretty good job of choosing the hills they’re willing to die on. These are the top-level company messages that thread through everything the company does.

Say yes to emotions in B2B!

AB: I am a big fan of Anthony Pierri ?? (who isn’t?) and everything he does with Fletch. His approach to website copy is down-to-earth, structural, reasonable and totally spot on. But there is one thing I often miss in his approach and it’s related to my earlier point on what we can learn from B2C - evoking emotions. Practical and functional messaging is good, but it’s already proven that emotions in B2B totally have a place to be. How would you recommend going about that?

GB: There’s TOTALLY a place for emotions in B2B. That’s why I have a job!

I think there’s two parts to this answer:

1. You have to be able to do it technically. Like, at a sentence level. This is where the art of writing comes into play.?

The good news is that it isn’t actually all that hard to do. I actually just wrote a 1300-word blog post that gets super tactical about it:?

All it takes is a little time and practice to go from something like “Managing and monitoring thousands of data points and maintaining multiple strategies can be overwhelming.” to something closer to “Stop white-knuckling your way through thousands of data points across multiple strategies.” It’s a skill that literally anybody can learn.

2. What makes all of this easier is having a great creative concept. It’s kind of like what I said earlier — thinking through how you’ll present it gives your team direction.?

Look at Goldcast’s upcoming event, which has a great creative concept behind it. The idea of a Content Resurrection is pretty genius.

They didn’t push the copy on this post very far, but that’s not the point here.?

The point is that this concept has created a sandbox for writers and designers that feels fun to play around in. They could take their boring messaging and hand it over to any creative team, and the writers would know what to do.?

If it were me, I’d write a LinkedIn post like this:??

Don’t let your content rot in the Google Drive graveyard. On October 23rd we’ll show you how to use AI to reanimate it and give any campaign a second life.

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but having a strong brand identity and personality can really help you do this in a way that feels ?authentic. ?

Helping content creators overcome the fluff stereotype

AB: As you know, I spend a lot of time with sales teams, and it’s tough to hear them describe marketing content as “fluff,” “superficial,” “marketing jargon,” or say things like, “we’re no different from the competition.” I get where they’re coming from, and I don’t blame them. But it makes me wonder—how can we help content creators break those stereotypes?

GB: Honestly? Make room for brand, and specifically brand voice. It’s really that simple. If you want to have great content, you need to give your team the space, time, and permission to do it.?

I get really frustrated when a brand gets painted as a “nice to have” (or worse, labeled as a bandaid for a bad product) in the PMM space. The truth is that brand is your positioning incarnate. It gives all of your messaging wings.?

Voice, specifically, has been largely ignored in B2B. But if you think about it, voice is how you give your messaging personality and perspective? — and that’s how you create something interesting.?

I personally like to create a Brand Character that writers can cosplay as when they’re working (which is fun to do, which makes it more effective and emotional). I find it useful, because when you create a “person” around your brand, your team can give your messaging and positioning a better hook.?

I wrote another blog post about the idea of brand characters — you can read it here.

I think the main point is that if you want interesting, creative content, you need to make creativity and differentiation a priority in your business strategy. That’s not something a single copywriter can do, or even a freelancer — it’s an internal mindset change that has to happen.?

Bringing copywriters closer to business

AB: I’ve noticed that there are plenty of talented copywriters out there, but sometimes they’re too far removed from the business to really understand what they’re writing about. How can we help bridge that gap and make things work better for them?

GB: This is a reeaaaaallllllyyyy common problem that I hear, especially from big enterprise businesses that are very “B2B”. I had a meeting with a marketing team the other day that said, “We need to work with someone on retainer because they need to learn all the details of EU carbon emissions policy.”

I think a lot of the tips we’ve already discussed so far should help:

• Get your team fired up.
• Think about your creativity from the start.
• Add emotion to your language.
• Dare to define your brand voice.

All of these things will help you set your writers up for success.

But another, really practical (and really important!) thing is to just make sure you’re briefing them well!

Once again, I have a blog post on the subject, along with some free templates. But what I learned when I was managing Content at Hiber (an industrial Internet of Things company in Amsterdam) was that a great project brief worked wonders when it came to getting freelancers on board. I had to help them understand WHAT they were writing about first, before I started schooling them on features and benefits.?

The best way to do this is with a stupid-simple 1-2 page messaging document. Not a 28-page “guide” that’s hard to read.

Bolder messaging is a PMM’s job — not a writer’s.

AB: Do you have any final bits of wisdom for anyone reading?

GB: I could talk about this subject for days… but as a final little tidbit, I just want to say that the key to bolder messaging lies with the PMMs, not their copywriters.?

If you want your team to go bolder, you need to empower them to do it. You need to give them a defined sandbox where they can play, and the freedom to actually do it.?

That doesn’t happen magically. It’s actually a really important strategic decision that should come from the top. And while I know you’re busy managing everything under the sun, it pays to think through the creative from the start.

After all, if you can’t get an executive to sign off on bold and interesting messaging, they’ll never sign off on bold and interesting copywriting.?

At the end of the day, bold messaging isn't just about being loud or shocking.

Bold messaging is about having the conviction to say something meaningful, the creativity to say it in a way that resonates, and the consistency to keep hammering it home.

The good news is that all it takes is a little practice. ??

May the Messaging force be with you,

Grace and Anna

Hi! ?? I am Anna Borbotko. I help grow product marketing and enablement teams. ????

Product Marketing Pulse is my monthly newsletter for aspiring and established product marketing leaders. I share practical product marketing and leadership tips drawn from my day-to-day experience.

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Hi, I'm Grace Baldwin ?? . I'm a copywriter and brand strategist that's here to help growing B2Bs translate their messaging into copy that your audience can't help but love. Reach out to me if you would like to work together.