How to make your messaging punchy with Emma Stratton, Founder at Punchy
Sep 13, 2024
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Emma Stratton, the Founder of Punchy and dubbed the 'Queen of B2B messaging,' shares her expertise on making B2B messaging more personable and impactful. She discusses the evolution of marketing communication towards a human-centric approach and stresses the importance of cutting out jargon. With anecdotes from her writing journey, Emma emphasizes crafting clear messages that resonate with both technical and non-technical audiences. Her insights promise to transform how product marketers engage with their customers.
Emma Stratton emphasizes the importance of crafting B2B messaging that is clear and relatable, moving away from jargon to connect with audiences.
The 'barbecue test' is introduced as a practical exercise to simplify complex messaging, ensuring communication resonates with potential clients effectively.
Deep dives
The Journey to Human Messaging
Emma Stratton's background as a creative writer uniquely informs her approach to B2B marketing, highlighting the need for human-centered messaging. Having transitioned from traditional creative writing into marketing, she discovered that clarity and relatability should drive successful communication in the tech space. By embracing a writing style that resonates with real-world conversations, marketers can better engage their audience and alleviate the abstraction that often plagues industry messaging. Emma emphasizes the importance of simplicity and authenticity, encouraging marketers to reflect everyday language and context in their scripts.
The Barbecue Test: Simplifying Communication
One of Emma's core insights is the 'barbecue test,' which serves as a practical exercise to simplify complex messaging. By envisioning how one would explain their product at a casual gathering, marketers can break away from jargon and communicate more directly with potential clients. This method aids in transforming fluffy corporate language into straightforward, relatable phrases that are easily digestible. Emma's approach fosters a culture where simple, clear messaging can lead to more effective internal communication and enhance customer understanding.
Understanding Your Audience
To truly resonate with potential clients, Emma advocates for understanding the audience's language and concerns through active listening and feedback. By analyzing customer dialogues, marketers can identify the specific terminology and phrases that express the challenges their products solve. This insight allows them to align messaging with what customers actually want, leading to a more impactful narrative. Emma's process encourages companies to conduct messaging audits, which can clarify how existing communications might be misaligned with customer needs.
Overcoming Messaging Challenges
Emma discusses the common challenge of messaging approval processes that dilute the original intent and punchiness of communications. Engaging a cross-functional team with a shared understanding of strategy prior to wordsmithing can counteract this issue effectively. By gathering insights from various departments and ensuring alignment on key messages, marketers can create copy that retains its clarity and focus, without becoming a product of committee. This structured approach can lead to messaging that not only feels authentic but also stands out in a crowded marketplace.