It may seem like a bit of a challenge to put together messaging documentation that runs the full gamut of the products and services you sell and addresses your primary audience(s). But in the long run, it’s worth it.

Here are 3 reasons why it makes sense to use a formal messaging kit in your B2B marketing

1. Ensure everyone understands WHO you’re talking to — or should be talking to.

This includes creating buyer personas, which are [verbatim HubSpot definition] semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivation, and goals.

Demographics can include things like gender, age, level of education, geography, job title, industry, etc. Psychographics talk more to the motivation and buyer behavior patterns: what do they like to do during off-hours, what are their strengths and weaknesses at work, what keeps them up at night (pain points) regarding the business objectives. And understanding the sales cycle (phases, timing, methodology) can help pinpoint what resources are needed when and where throughout the sales conversation.

2. Change the conversation from features to benefits.

Often times in sales conversations, especially when a competitive discussion ensues, the gut-level reaction is to go to features. But, we all know the long-held wisdom of helping the prospect understand the benefits to them is much more crucial. The messaging kit can help prospect-facing team members easily translate the features into benefits, rather than having to craft a scenario themselves. This helps them to understand how their pain points (identified in the psychographics) are allayed with the use of your product or service.

3. Ensure people are saying the same thing, consistently communicating your primary messages and positioning.

This probably goes without saying, but building on the sentiment of the previous features-to-benefits discussion, it’s important that people within your organization know just how to position your products and services, and clearly communicate your primary messages, your positioning, and also don’t under- or over-sell what you have to offer. It’s important for prospects to read/hear/get the same information from whichever source with which they interact: website, collateral, salesperson, support person, email, etc. Having the messaging spelled out helps ensure this consistency.

B2B marketing can be tough enough, so ensuring your sales team and marketing team are speaking the same language is a good step in alleviating some of that toughness.

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