Marketing Messaging is Not Sales Messaging

Marketing Messaging is Not Sales Messaging

There's a broad assumption in B2B software sales that marketing messaging is the way to position and close software opportunities. We're perpetually on a cliff's edge waiting for it to be launched so that we can update our selling decks. That's wrong for a one particular reason...marketing messages are designed to bring customers into the top of the selling funnel while sales messaging is meant to provoke a customer to buy. Let's start with an example.

At Databricks, we drew potential customers by marketing the lakehouse as a single platform for all data and analytics needs. This is a very effective message for organizations struggling with built-in latency, data duplication and cost across multiple platforms.

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An account executive, however, would have a very steep hill to climb in convincing a prospective customer to consider re-platforming on our software. The inherent cost, risk and disruption of such a bold move typically outweighs the perceived benefit in a customer's mind.

This message opens up the market to a single data platform, but a much more effective strategy when trying to start a selling cycle was to ask for the customer's toughest use case. From that moment, "Bring us your toughest problem" became the messaging that would appeal to someone wanting a single platform but hard pressed to solve a big problem first to build credibility in Databricks as a solution. This "land and expand" approach was a far more effective tool for moving quickly toward an eventual big picture solution.

Keep in mind that the biggest problems are often also the ones where the greatest transformation is happening in the modern organization. These are the leading edge problems that are most likely to differentiate a product or service from the competition, bringing more revenue, lower the risk of business failure and/or heavy fines, or significantly lower infrastructure cost while maintaining or increasing productivity. This last sentence is the definition of B2B software value.

Marketing and selling messages need to be coordinated but do not need to be the same. Often, they should not be the same.

Mike Mangan

Director, Business Development - Business Applications

2 年

Chris- Thank you for sharing..

Amit Likhyani

Helping customers with Observability, Complex Cloud Deployment, Real User Monitoring, automation and Application Security

2 年

I’ve worked at orgs that felt sales was simply repeating marketing’s message. A flawed approach and enjoyed reading you articulate the distinct messaging.

Sean O'Shaughnessey

I help company owners realize the maximum value of their company by improving their revenue generation capability. I help owners enhance their sales management, methodologies, processes, teams, and messaging.

2 年

This is so true, Chris Taylor! I am constantly telling my clients that they need both marketing and sales messages. The two need to be aligned, but they are different because they try to appeal to two different listeners and be delivered in different ways. The biggest mistake in this area, IMO, is companies that do not have a website or marketing collateral that backs up and give more detail to the sales message. We all know that when a salesperson's lips move, it is assumed that the salesperson is lying. The sales message that comes from the salesperson needs to be aligned and backed up by the marketing message (which due to its forum, can be more complete and have more verifiable references for the claims).

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