S5E8 – Mastering Message-Market Fit: Essential Strategies for B2B SaaS Success With Diane Wiredu 

What is message-market fit, and what are the essential strategies for B2B SaaS success? In this episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast, host Joran Hofman sits down with Diane Wiredu, a messaging expert and founder @ Lion Words, to dive into the concept of message-market fit. She emphasizes the importance of crafting messages that resonate with prospects and succinctly articulate the value and uniqueness of a product. Diane argues that achieving message-market fit is crucial for B2B SaaS companies, as it ensures that growth doesn’t stall and makes marketing more effective.

Defining Message Market Fit

Diane explains that message market fit is about ensuring your messaging aligns with and resonates with your target market. Unlike product market fit, which is about gaining traction and proof that your product solves a problem, message market fit focuses on how well you articulate your product’s value to prospects. It’s about using the right language and messages to ensure that your product’s value is clearly understood.

Common Mistakes in Messaging

Diane highlights several common mistakes SaaS companies make in their messaging. One major issue is “fluff syndrome,” which involves using vague, jargon-filled language that doesn’t resonate with prospects. Another mistake is being too product-focused, neglecting to translate product features into customer benefits. Overloading messaging with too many points can also overwhelm prospects, leading to confusion rather than clarity.

Crafting Effective Messaging

To create effective messaging, Diane suggests SaaS companies focus on customer language and prioritize clear, concise messages. She introduces the concept of an “OKM” or one key message that serves as a North Star for all communications. This message should encapsulate the core value proposition and be the central takeaway for prospects.

Steps to Achieve Message Market Fit

Diane outlines a structured approach to achieving message market fit. The process begins with evaluating existing messaging and beliefs, followed by conducting research to understand customer perspectives and competitive messaging. Synthesizing these findings helps identify the one key message and build a coherent messaging strategy.

The Role of Customer Interviews

Customer interviews are a cornerstone of Diane’s approach. She stresses the importance of asking open-ended questions about the entire buyer journey, not just the product. These interviews provide valuable insights into customer language and help identify what truly resonates with them.

Frameworks and Methodologies

Diane discusses frameworks that can aid in developing messaging, such as the “jobs to be done” framework. She also outlines a five-step process for crafting a compelling value proposition, focusing on the transformation from the old way of doing things to the new, better solution offered by the product.

Best Practices in Messaging

Diane cites companies like Superhuman and Butter Docs as examples of effective messaging. These companies have successfully positioned themselves by focusing on a singular, compelling idea that resonates deeply with their target audience. She emphasizes the importance of clear, resonant messaging that attracts the right customers while repelling those who aren’t a good fit.

Messaging and SaaS Growth

Diane argues that good messaging not only aids in acquisition but also supports retention. By setting clear expectations and attracting the right-fit customers, companies can reduce churn and improve overall customer satisfaction. Messaging should align with the product’s value and help set the right customer expectations from the outset.

Advice for SaaS Founders

For early-stage SaaS founders, Diane advises focusing on solving a genuine problem that customers are willing to pay for. Understanding the real competitors, which might not always be other companies but alternative solutions, is crucial. For companies aiming to scale beyond 10K MRR, she stresses the importance of maintaining message clarity and resisting the temptation to broaden messaging too much.

Conclusion

Diane Wiredu’s insights into message market fit highlight the critical role of effective messaging in SaaS growth. By understanding customer language, focusing on a clear value proposition, and using structured methodologies, SaaS companies can achieve message market fit and drive sustainable growth. Her approach emphasizes the need for alignment, clarity, and customer-centric messaging to resonate in a competitive market.

Key Timestamps

• (0:38) – Welcome and Guest Introduction
• (1:09) – Topic Introduction: Message Market Fit
• (1:17) – Defining Message Market Fit
• (2:04) – Evolving Nature of Message Market Fit
• (3:15) – Difference Between Message Market Fit and Product Market Fit
• (4:16) – Common Mistakes in Messaging
• (5:41) – Importance of Customer-Centric Messaging
• (6:50) – Translating Product Features into Customer Benefits
• (8:04) – The Jobs to Be Done Framework
• (9:35) – Messaging Bloat: Too Many Messages
• (10:40) – Finding the One Key Message (OKM)
• (11:50) – Example of Effective Messaging: Superhuman
• (12:13) – Sponsorship Break: Expandee
• (12:29) – Steps to Achieve Message Market Fit
• (13:37) – Evaluating Existing Messaging
• (14:45) – Research and Discovery Phase
• (16:54) – Synthesizing Findings and Identifying Opportunities
• (17:13) – Building Messaging Blocks and Value Proposition
• (18:42) – Conducting Customer Interviews
• (19:58) – Importance of Follow-up Questions
• (20:11) – Additional Frameworks for Messaging
• (21:29) – Developing a Value Proposition
• (22:26) – Examples of Good Messaging Practices
• (24:22) – Messaging’s Role in SaaS Growth and Retention
• (27:10) – Messaging and Churn Reduction
• (29:24) – Importance of Repelling Bad Fit Clients
• (30:35) – Challenges in Redoing Messaging
• (31:48) – Building an Internal Feedback Loop
• (32:18) – Advice for Early-Stage SaaS Founders
• (34:25) – Transitioning to Growth: 1M to 10M ARR
• (36:07) – Summary of Key Takeaways

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Diane Wiredu

There’s a really big difference between, Here’s what our product can do, and, Here’s what you can do with our product. Every SaaS company out there should really know what that one key message and what that North Star message is, and then leading with that and having a clear priority and hierarchy of messages so that your messaging isn’t overwhelming for prospects. Achieving product market fit at some point relies on you having message market fit because you can have the best product in the world, but if no one understands what it’s about, no one cares, it doesn’t matter. You’re having the right the right product, the right platform with the wrong message will ultimately fail.

[00:00:38.770] – Joran

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about message market fit. I’m going to do this with Diane Wiredu. Diane is a messaging expert and the founder of the messaging consultancy firm Lionwords. She helps B2B tech and SaaS companies achieve message market fit so they can cut through the noise market more effectively and sell more. Next to Consulting, she speaks at big tech conferences. She’s the host and of the marketing meetup in Barcelona that still writes and translate content for Amazon. Welcome to the show, Diane.

[00:01:06.440] – Diane Wiredu

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[00:01:09.140] – Joran

Cool. We’re going to talk about message market fit. First of all, what is it and why is it crucial for B2B SaaS companies?

[00:01:17.080] – Diane Wiredu

When I talk about message market fit, I’m usually really in the most basic form just talking about how much your messaging resonates with prospects and how much does your messaging land? Message Message market fit, it’s all about articulating the value, the uniqueness of your product, but making sure that you do that in a clear, relevant way and a differentiated way as well. The reason that reaching message market fit matters is that if you don’t, you get to a point where your growth stalls. It’s crucial to get that right. Obviously as well, the right messaging means marketing becomes more effective and a lot easier. Yeah.

[00:01:52.410] – Joran

I guess product market fit has a really clear thing saying if people start recommending you, everybody has their own terminology on what is product market fit, but How would you define message market fit? When would you achieve it?

[00:02:04.480] – Diane Wiredu

It’s interesting because I think it’s almost like this thing that you’re constantly evolving a little bit. I think I’m in the camp of product market fit and message market fit being a bit more like a flywheel than this thing that like, okay, cool, we’ve got it now. We’re good. Check the box and keep moving. As you grow, often your positioning at some point will change and shift, whether that’s internal decisions, external marketing, market factors. There’s been a shift in the category and or AI came along and everyone’s saying it, and now that’s not your unique differentiator. The same way that your positioning will shift, messaging is the layer that sits on top of that. I think that it will shift throughout different times, different points of your growth journey. But one thing that the camp that I’m really in is that you do need to have a message market fit. I think that achieving product market fit at some point relies on you having message market fit because you can have the best product in the world, but if no one understands It’s what it’s about, no one cares. It doesn’t matter. You’re having the right feature, the right product, the right platform with the wrong message will ultimately fail.

[00:03:07.960] – Diane Wiredu

Having a strong message market fit can actually take you from a commodity to standing out and leading in your category as well.

[00:03:15.200] – Joran

I think there’s two terms some people don’t know that much. I’m going to take a one step more to the basics. Message market fit, product market fit. How would you say that they’re different? They’re different in many ways, but how would you explain the differences between the two?

[00:03:30.770] – Diane Wiredu

The product people and founders probably have better definitions than me for product market fit. For me, that’s usually the point of traction. You have traction in the market, you have users, you have customers, you have validity that you’ve solved a problem and people care about it. Message market fit is really about now when it comes to expressing that, when it comes to actually telling your story and articulating the value of your product to a subset of that market, so to clients and prospects, how does that messaging Does that resonate? Does it resonate with them? And do people care? That’s really what I’m talking about with message market fit. Are you using the right words, the right messages to really simplify and explain a very clear, different, relevant way what it is that you do?

[00:04:16.710] – Joran

You’re a real ambassador for message market fit. It also often means that there’s a lot of mistakes happening within the industry. Maybe start with the fun one. What are the biggest mistakes you see right now happening? For the next question, how can they be have avoided?

[00:04:30.540] – Diane Wiredu

I think that just the prevalence of SaaS tools and the pure competition in most categories means that there are a lot of companies making quite a number of avoidable mistakes. One of the biggest ones that I see is what I call fluff syndrome. When I talk about fluff, I’m often talking about the one side, just overuse of buzzwords and corporate jargon speak, over emphasis on benefits, unlock your revenue, unleash your sales power, super powers, I think is something that I read yesterday. And fluff on the other side of things often as well is just really vague and generic language. I think I read a headline recently that was reimagined engineering for the digital world. The problem with this fluffy language is it’s not really how your prospects speak, first of all. A lot of SaaS companies are often trying to sound professional or smart or innovative because often we’re pushing the boundaries and doing something different. But using this fluffy messaging, we tend to do is really stifle the actual value of the product. One of the easiest ways to get around this is using customer language. Usually vagueness comes from a lack of specificity, and that boils down to really knowing your audience.

[00:05:41.890] – Diane Wiredu

A few of the other problems that I see as well, particularly in SaaS, I work with B2B SaaS, but also B2B tech companies and B2B digital services, but particularly with SaaS, it’s been really just too focused on the product. Really focusing only exclusively on our Our platform does this. Our tool does this feature, does this, and just leading with the product in everything. When you do that, you’re forgetting about the audience, and you’re forgetting about the value that it actually delivers and why anyone should care. Leading with the product in some instances makes sense, but you have to remember to translate that into, Here’s what you can do with our product. There’s a really big difference between, Here’s what our product can do, and Here’s what you can do with our product. One of the things I often say marketing teams and founders is, firstly, just get rid of we, an hour, an us, across the board and start translating that into you and figuring out what are those clear initial capabilities that your product can offer customers and buyers as well, and then also what that actually means in terms of business impact and value beyond that as well.

[00:06:50.600] – Joran

I love it. I think that already now maybe some SaaS founders are going to their own site and checking if they use we and us and they should replace it to you. What can the product actually bring value? How does it land? How does it resonate, as you mentioned? What value is it going to bring for them?

[00:07:05.860] – Diane Wiredu

What’s interesting is depending on a number of factors with your SaaS, whether the category, the saturation, the awareness, and also size, different SaaS companies that I work with have different problems. Like I said, that product-centred, way too focused on we, us. It happens at one end of the spectrum. Then sometimes companies can really go the opposite end and they go so far away that it’s just all about It’s, Okay, we grow your revenue, we do this. It’s really about finding that sweet spot and making sure that we translate that because your customers, your buyers are looking for a product like yours. The product is still valuable, but it’s not everything. They’re also looking and shopping for something that will help them get a job done. I think one thing as well here is jobs to be done framework. We might have had people talk about this before, but that’s really key. Making sure this is always front of mind. What is the job that my prospect is trying to get done? How can we help them get that and bring that to the forefront in our messaging as well?

[00:08:04.000] – Joran

We’re going to link towards the framework so people can check it out. It has been mentioned quite a few times already now.

[00:08:09.780] – Diane Wiredu

It’s the North Star, I think, of all SaaS companies knowing the jobs to be done framework and Bob Moester as well. Brilliant champion of that.

[00:08:17.330] – Joran

I think you mentioned you have two sides of the spectrum, so either overusing the buzzword to benefit and then on the other side being maybe too focused on the product.

[00:08:26.550] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah. Another thing that I also really see a lot is just too many messages as well. We have fluff syndrome, and here I’m talking about over stuffed syndrome. Your listeners are probably aware of the concept of a feature bloat and product bloat. One of the things I often talk about is messaging bloat as well. Stuffing message after message in your marketing assets, like your website, your homepage, whatever. I often relay this a little bit like when you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet. When you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and there’s just so many things that you can choose, and so you end up picking a bit of everything. You have this plate piled high of just all this stuff that doesn’t go together, and you feel rubbish. It’s never the best meal that you’ve ever had in your life. You go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, it sounds amazing. You pick everything and afterwards, you’re like, That was rubbish. We do the same with our messaging. We want to say that our tool is the fastest, but also it’s the most secure, and it’s the most efficient tool on the market. What happens is when you say all of these things, then your prospects actually go away having remembered nothing at It puts the onus and the effort on them to figure out, Hey, what’s the priority here?

[00:09:35.290] – Diane Wiredu

What’s the key thing you guys are all about? One of the key things is being much more disciplined in your messaging and actually prioritizing. One of the things I talk about is the idea and the concept of an OKM, one key message, having a North Star and really dialing your messages down to if our buyers were going to take away one key thing and remember one thing about our product, what would that be? I think that every SaaS company out there should really know what that one key message and what that North Star message is, and then leading with that and having a clear priority and hierarchy of messages so that your messaging isn’t overwhelming for prospects as well, because that’s a really big problem for buyers, is just being overwhelmed The one key message, would that be something towards the value the product can bring or what the platform actually does or can do? Yeah, I think it can be either, really. I think with one key message, what I’m talking about is really nailing down that value proposition. So that core offer value for your customer. Or also the concept, you can also look at this from a different angle, which is the idea of a big idea.

[00:10:40.380] – Diane Wiredu

So this overarching key big idea for your product, what is it that overall everybody needs to understand. For example, I was actually writing about the big idea the other day on LinkedIn, so I have an example fresh in my mind. Superhuman. So if we think about email marketing platform, Superhuman is a really brilliant one because they have gone all in on this idea of speed. I think that if I remember correctly, a lot of their messaging was around being the fastest email experience ever. A lot of their messaging leads to and all stems from this concept of being the fastest, so that it’s fast, it’s enjoyable, it shifts your inbox from being this chore. So you can get in there, get what you need to get done, and then you can go out and do more with your life. But everything comes down to that big idea of a singularity as well of speed. And so for different companies, that one big idea or key message can be many different things. It might even be positioning against a competitor or the incumbent, but usually it’s this one thing, this one umbrella thing that everything else sits under, and it just makes everything a lot easier when it comes to marketing and sales and demand gen and everything.

[00:11:50.280] – Joran

It’s going to be super hard, but once you have it, then it makes things a lot easier.

[00:11:55.270] – Reditus Ad

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[00:12:13.020] – Joran

Let’s try to see if we can break it down. You already mentioned discipline and messaging, your OKM, one key message, which is going to help you achieve message market fit. But if we take it step by step, what steps should SaaS companies follow to achieve message market fit?

[00:12:29.380] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah, so I can walk through high-level my process of helping companies figure out their messaging or reevaluate their messaging strategy. Usually, I come in and work with early to growth stage companies. Let’s first imagine that you have a pretty good product. We’re going to take some things for granted here. You have a product, let’s say you’ve established product market fit and you have customers, because figuring out what to say when we’re hypothesizing and figuring out your messaging when we’re pretty We’ve established are two different things. I’m going to talk about that. We’ve got product market fit phase. Step one for me usually is coming in and documenting and evaluating everything already. Evaluating your existing messaging and your existing beliefs about the product, about the market. The key reason we do that is because with messaging, you’re never really starting from scratch, usually. You’re often saying the right things. You know your product inside and out, but usually you’re in the jar. Sometimes you’re in the jar and you just can’t see the label. Usually, you know that something is not right. Either there’s a mismatch of our customers are saying this thing or we’re hearing this on sales calls and we’re not expressing that.

[00:13:37.730] – Diane Wiredu

Getting everybody in a room, sitting down. We’ve got a head of marketing, head of revenue, head of customer success, whatever that structure looks like at the size of your organization, and sitting down and evaluating, where are we at? What are we saying? What do we think works and what do we think doesn’t? What are the opportunities and what’s our hypothesis here? That’s really key to give us a starting point. Also because having those discussions about what you believe and what you’re saying so far, usually there will be some gem. If I’m sat down interviewing a founder, I’m like, Cool, tell me everything. Why does this product even exist? What are you guys trying to do? What do you hate about the industry? What’s working? What’s not working? Usually, something there, there’s a little gem that will end up being the cornerstone of the messaging as well. We start there with step one. Step two or step two and three is then now doing some research and discovery. Firstly, finding out what are your customers saying. My approach to messaging, message market fit is really customer-led and really customer-focused. I know different people have different approaches, but I really don’t think that you can come up with incredible messaging just in a brainstorming session or just in a workshop.

[00:14:45.280] – Diane Wiredu

Your core messaging, creating messaging that’s actually going to resonate with customers, it makes sense that we have to go out and speak to customers. Voice of customer research here is key. Ideally, customer interview is getting on the phone with them, getting on video calls them, surveys if we need, whatever it is to actually understand the language and what your customers are saying. And not just about the product, because product people tend to think, Yeah, we talk to our customers. We have loads of information. But no, you’re just asking them about the features, and you have an NPS score of seven or 70, that doesn’t help in terms of messaging. We want to ask open-ended questions about the whole buyer journey, the before, the during, and the after. And then the other part of that research and discovery as well is looking at the market. What are competitors saying? So I often do a a competitor messaging audit. And this is key because your product does not exist in isolation. I know that when it comes to building a product, a lot of founders follow advice. Don’t forget the book credit, don’t look at what the competitor is doing.

[00:15:44.130] – Diane Wiredu

But messaging is key because if everyone is saying, Oh, we go with the AI-enabled sales enablement platform, and then you’re also saying, Cool, AI-enabled sales. We need to know what’s the white space, a little bit of what everyone else is doing, what is oversaturated about, and what opportunities do we have? Definitely competitive messaging. Then the step after that is looking through those findings and then synthesizing that and looking for opportunities, looking for our priorities. This is where that one key message comes out. Finding our focus when I sit down with the leadership team and founders after having done the customer research and after having worked together some ideas, it’s pretty clear the avenue that we need to take, or it’s pretty clear, Hey, everybody has been… We’ve been calling ourselves this thing and talking about this as our differentiator. When we spoke to our customers, none of them cared about that. They all said, We chose you for this reason. Synthesizing and looking through and looking at, Hey, what are the opportunities? How can we start talking about these key messages? Then that leads very simply and easily into that final step, which is laying out those messaging blocks and putting those pieces together.

[00:16:54.070] – Diane Wiredu

What have we identified? What key messaging pillars have we built out? Building a key value proposition based on the information and feedback that we got from customers, and then building out key feature and feature benefit and capability in messaging as well. In a nutshell, that’s my process, and that’s the process that the SaaS founders and teams follow as well.

[00:17:13.690] – Joran

It sounds easy. I think the four steps, and I think the biggest one, as you mentioned, is talking to the client, asking open questions about the entire buyer journey, not just a product. Would you recommend that an outside company or person has to do it, or can somebody internally do it as well?

[00:17:28.950] – Diane Wiredu

I think the key here is it’s not so much who does it, it’s doing it well and doing it right. Sometimes I come in when companies have enough time because it takes time. It takes time to reach out, set up all of these interviews, plan out your questions, stay focused and clear the conversation. But when I’m brought in, there are definitely some advantages to having a third party do this. I found that when I ask questions about, for example, first impressions the product in the company or any hesitations or obstacles before actually signing up, the answers that I get are pretty open. Sometimes I get more negative sentiment messages that come through to me than if they’re speaking to someone they already know. But on the other hand, if you’re actually going out there and have someone internally on the team or customers that says, God, and set these up, those are the only benefits for you internally. I think the key thing is open-ended questions, ensuring that the questions move through all of those elements that you need for messaging. We want to ask things about motivations, things about desires and needs with the product, things about the decision-making process, questions about some challenges.

[00:18:42.750] – Diane Wiredu

Then on the other end of the spectrum, we want to ask questions about outcomes and successes and what they’ve seen, but then also key questions around uniqueness and differentiation and things that have stood out as well. So either or, really.

[00:18:58.890] – Joran

We have to stay neutral, which is probably easier when you’re outside the side of the company than when you’re already inside. When you ask these questions, people would have an opinion. If you’re within the company, you build a product or you’re trying to sell things and you get a certain response, then you might not get the answers you were hoping What are your thoughts on customer interviews?

[00:19:15.460] – Diane Wiredu

Customer interviews are simultaneously really easy and really hard. On paper, it’s just set up some conversations and the outcome is just so impactful when it comes to your marketing. But making sure that the bias is removed, that you’re asking open-ended questions that you’re following up as well. Sometimes I get asked on podcasts, Diane, what’s a really good question that I should ask in this to get great messaging? The most important question is actually follow-up questions. What do you mean by that? What did that look It’s like, so imagine you have a project management software and you’re asking, what was going on before? How were you doing? Things were going on. Everything was just a mess. What does that mean? What did that mess look like for you? That’s where you get really important voice of customer language that you can use in your messaging.

[00:19:58.440] – Joran

Nice. Love it. Ask follow-up questions. You had laid out the steps already. You mentioned a framework already, jobs to be done. Are there any other frameworks, processes people should look at when developing messaging?

[00:20:11.510] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah, in terms of frameworks and exercises, one of the key things to really look at is figuring out your key value propositions. I think that value proposition is one of those things most companies get wrong. They think it’s just a tagline or just a feature. My approach to value proposition is really having this concise, specific statement about what’s valuable, what’s desirable, what you guys do. For me, one of the things that I found is breaking it down into almost a five-step process. One of the frameworks that I use at Lion Words is figuring out, step one, what’s the old way? So what’s the old way of doing things? How is your customer, your buyer, doing things before? And then step two is, what is that customer pain? What’s the problem with that way, the struggle? Why was that old way not working? Then often using this phrase, which is a really brilliant magic phrase, now you can. Now you can connect that pain to the capability that’s something that your customers can instantly do or feel or get. Then break that back down to what is the feature, what is the attribute of your product or your service that leads to that capability?

[00:21:29.970] – Diane Wiredu

And then finally, what is the customer gain? What is that outcome or the gain for the customer? Breaking that down into five steps, whether that’s across the different personas or across the different products that you offer, for me, I think that’s a really easy framework to start thinking about, cool, how can we break down the value that we deliver instead of just saying something really… Our value prop is that we help you grow your revenue. You break it down, and it helps you talk through the transformation transformation that your product offers. Because when we think about a value proposition, it’s often a transformation as well from one way to another.

[00:22:07.510] – Joran

Yeah, and this is why you start with your old way. What is the pain? How can you fix it? Then what is the features? And then what is the actual gain they get out of it? I like it. If people want to check out some companies who do it really well, do you have companies in mind which are a best practice or maybe some best practice you implemented with one of your clients?

[00:22:26.170] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah, that’s a really good question. Best practice is my messaging. I think it’s quite hard to think of. I think it’s really more about the method and the approach. I was asked this question recently, so I have an example top of mind. I think it’s this year, 2024. I have been seeing a lot about butter docs. Are you aware of them?

[00:22:44.710] – Joran

I think I saw some ads on Instagram.

[00:22:46.560] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah. So butter docs. I’m not going to pay for this. I don’t use the tool, but I’ve just seen their messaging is really cool. Butter docs is basically an alternative to Google docs. If we think about it that way, that’s huge. Positioning against Google Docs, which is within the Google Chrome, like the Google text stack, so everyone uses them. Then you’ve got everyone else. You’ve got ClickUp’s doing docs, you’ve got Notion docs, you’ve got all these other things. So it’s a pretty hard market to suddenly launch a new writing or Word doc alternative, but they’re doing a really good job on a few different fronts from the positioning standpoint. They have, I think in their hero, I think it’s still there, they’re very clearly positioning against Google docs and very specifically for not writers, but serious writers. So they’re not targeting, if you write a couple of things here and there, they’re the same. But people who are writers who write day in, day out, like content and blogs and content, you will copy and write whatever. Google docs was not made for you. It doesn’t serve you well. And this is why we do.

[00:23:47.440] – Diane Wiredu

They’ve got really good how we do things better, really good use cases and examples. I think they’re a great example of not necessarily best practices, but what it can look like when you take a stance, you have strong positioning, and you don’t do all the mistakes that I talked about earlier, which is this wishy-washy high level and talking about the big picture, huge benefits in the future about growing your revenue. But when you really talk about the use case, services and the capabilities, they’re doing a really brilliant job. I don’t know in terms of their growth. All I know is their messaging resonates. As someone who is a writer, they’re doing a brilliant job.

[00:24:22.990] – Joran

Yeah, but that’s it, right? They know who they’re targeting, they know the value, and it resonates with you because you fit perfectly within their target audience.

[00:24:29.720] – Diane Wiredu

They’re a very good example. I get a super already touched on as an example, so I’ve mentioned them before. I can’t think of any of those off the top of my head, but they’re a good use case.

[00:24:39.550] – Joran

Hope people can check those out. What I’m curious about getting the right messaging is, first of all, people think about it on the site acquisition-wise. Can it also help with, in general, SaaS growth and maybe even with retention?

[00:24:52.420] – Diane Wiredu

That’s a great question. I never get to talk about retention. No one ever asked me any questions about retention because I think retention is, we You think about this as a product thing. You want to improve retention, you need to focus on the product, on your onboarding, and the customer success. That is definitely true for the most part. But I have a specific stance on the fact that messaging does directly impact and affect retention. Because if you think about it, a lot of churn problems are essentially expectation-setting problems. When you don’t set the right expectations for your product upfront, a user comes in, tries to get value from the doesn’t achieve the value that they were actually setting out to, and then they churn. How do we solve all the way up front about setting the right expectations for your product? A lot of that stuff comes down to the messaging piece. Really making sure that you have clearly laid out and understood how your product solves certain problems for customers, and you’re talking about it in the right way, or you’re prioritizing the right messaging. You’re not leading with something something that is so low down on the roadmap, and then customers are buying it for this, and then they’re not getting the value from it.

[00:26:07.580] – Diane Wiredu

So yeah, I think that there’s definitely a huge impact. Sure, it’s not going to be the biggest lever in terms of, cool, we’ve shifted that, but churn is down. Churn is down by 20% because we changed our messaging. No. But what it is going to help you do is actually attract right fit and better fit prospects from the beginning. If more companies, SaaS companies, focused on that, churn wouldn’t be a problem. There’s many different… I’m not a churn expert by any means, but I do think that there’s a lot we can do in terms of attracting the right fit. Also on the opposite end of the spectrum, your messaging should repel the wrong fit prospect as well. I think that can be really hard for SaaS companies in the early days thinking like, Oh, no, we don’t want to repel. We don’t want to turn anyone away from our product. Everyone’s welcome here. No, it’s going to lead to churn down the line. So make sure when we’re calling out what we do, how we do it better than X, Y, Z alternative and who for, that all of that should also put off a big chunk of people that your product is not right for.

[00:27:10.610] – Diane Wiredu

And all of that whole piece impacts.

[00:27:13.480] – Joran

Yeah, and I can fully relate to this. We did a redesign of our website, a new messaging. I’m not saying we have message market fit, but at least we made it super clear for who we are to indeed repel the bad fit clients because they took so much time of our support, so much time of our databases. Everything else was so much more because they weren’t a good fit because they didn’t understand what we were doing in the first place. Now it’s really nice that we only get, of course, we have still bad fit signups, but a lot less bad fit signups, which means our conversion rates will go up and the people who go to paid will stay with us longer rather than people thinking it’s a good fit for them, putting in their credit card and then figuring out after a month. It isn’t actually. I can fully relate to this.

[00:27:56.350] – Diane Wiredu

You know what? I’m just getting a website up because I remember there’s another company that does this pretty that I’ve shouted out before, Cognizum. So Cognizum, in their messaging, firstly, they do a really good job of being quite specific. Their headline for a long time has been, We give you mobile numbers and B2B emails of people that you want to do business with. So instead of being like, it’s very clear. You land there, you’re like, Cool, this is what I can get. No doubts whatsoever. But I do remember, if I remember correctly, let me see if they still have it yet. They have done a really good job of calling out, Is Cognizum good for you? And then they actually say, is not for you if you are X, Y, and Z. I think that’s something that more B2B SaaS companies should do. I see it a little bit more in the service industry. There’s a lot of, Hey, we’re not right for you if, but SaaS companies are a little bit scared to do that. I think there’s a real value for it. They call out, they say, Hey, if you’re looking for this all-in-one platform solution that does everything, we don’t do that.

[00:28:52.770] – Diane Wiredu

We just focus on B2B stuff. If you want to look for freelancer data, cool, we don’t have that. We’re just focused on this It could be better. It could be optimized now that I read through it. But I think it’s a really good start of calling out, Hey, if you want these things, we’re not for you. I think maybe Winter as well, which is a message testing platform. If I remember correctly, they have some messaging around why they’re not, why They might not be a good fit for you. But yeah, it’s a good exercise anyway. Even if it doesn’t end up anywhere, doing that exercise of knowing who’s not a good fit is really helpful.

[00:29:24.050] – Joran

Yeah, I think it’s a good point. You see it a lot with service companies or with these groups you can join. They always say, You need to have one million They are plus, otherwise we’re not a good fit. Because also when you look at their pricing, companies below that wouldn’t probably even be able to afford it. The same with yourself, right? You said, I’m working with companies who have product market fit. You probably do it for a certain reason because there’s certain pricing to get the messaging right. So if they’re too early stage, they don’t have clients, there’s no one for you to interview, it doesn’t make much sense. Try to avoid the bad fit clients from the beginning already.

[00:29:56.270] – Diane Wiredu

I think I have… I was just looking, I don’t know where it is. I have this somewhere on my own website. I’ve written something about if the CEO or the founder is not going to be involved in the messaging project, it’s not going to work. If you’re like, Hey, cool, just work with the marketing team and whatever, just update me later when the messaging is figured out. It doesn’t work. The reason I have that is because I found that there has to Messaging is not just marketing, probably it’s a leadership thing as well. This has to be backed. There has to be team alignment. It has to be rolled out with the support of C-suite and leadership. For me, it’s like a non-negotiable because I don’t want to work with your head of marketing, and then they try and get everyone on board later and the founders how that doesn’t work. So yeah, it works across the board.

[00:30:35.030] – Joran

I think that’s probably already one challenge a company’s face, right? Everybody has to be on board. Are there any other challenges companies are going to run into when they’re going to redo their messaging?

[00:30:45.760] – Diane Wiredu

Yeah, so alignment for sure is a big one. Just wrangling. Getting everyone on the same page in the same room and running in the same direction as a lot of the work that I do. I would say narrowing down that focus and getting everyone behind it, maybe that’s a cop-out because that’s also an alignment as well, is a big challenge. For some SaaS companies, just honestly speaking to customers, but sometimes it’s a challenge in itself as well. And so not giving up on that phase and actually pushing through and making sure that you do that. Or we haven’t got time. It was really hard. Everyone said, No, forget it. Let’s just move on with that. No. Making sure that that phase gets done is really key. Also probably building in an actual feedback loop as well internally within your own teams to get customer feedback and customer messaging is really key as you build out and grow those teams. So either if you’re sales-led, between sales, if it’s between customer success and marketing and leadership, having that, that’s, I think, an obstacle that often when I come in and I see, Oh, if you had that optimized, a lot of things would become easier.

[00:31:48.730] – Diane Wiredu

But yeah, back to the… Alignment is probably the biggest one.

[00:31:52.220] – Joran

Nice. It starts with the first step you mentioned before, get everybody in a room who talks to clients and make sure everybody is aligned, and then the next step we’ll come into talking to the actual clients. Nice. When we’re going to zoom out a bit, when we look at growing a B2B SaaS company, what advice would you give a SaaS founder who’s just starting out? It could be anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about message market fit. What advice would you give a founder who’s just starting out and growing to 10K monthly recurring revenue.

[00:32:18.630] – Diane Wiredu

If you’re trying to get to 10K, yeah, maybe first, this isn’t really messaging, but just make sure that you solve an actual problem that is painful enough that People want to solve that problem and they are willing to spend money to solve that problem. I don’t know, you’ve done hundreds of episodes now, and so if someone hasn’t said that, I don’t know what they were doing. Probably that’s been said. But that’s the key. That’s the foundation of everything, because we can’t market a crap product that isn’t valuable anyway. So I would say starting there. And to understand if you even do solve a painful and a problem, I guess that still comes back down to actually speaking to buyers and customers, too. But if we think of a messaging In those early stages, growing to 10K MRR, I would say understanding what the competitive alternatives that you are really up against with those early customers is key. Is it doing nothing? Is it them hiring a consultant or an agency? Is it building something themselves in Excel, or is it actually hiring a competing product? I think April Dunford talks about phantom competitors and making sure that you are not competing against phantom competitors.

[00:33:28.920] – Diane Wiredu

A lot of early stage, they say, Look at the market, these are all our competitors. But in sales calls and in the buying process, those guys never come up. Your actual buyers are never actually looking at you versus those guys. They’re looking at you versus option one, two, and three. In those early stages, really having that super dialed in as to what are people, what is their current old way and what are they considering? What are they evaluating you against is key because then in your messaging, this is where you get really specific and speak about how you are different and how you solve those specific problems. At that early pre-10K MRR stage, just competing in that decision-making, that list-making phase, is really key. You can be wildly off in your messaging if you haven’t really dialed in what people are really evaluating you against. That’s my messaging answer. Nice.

[00:34:25.630] – Joran

Love it. Let’s assume we now pass 10K MRR, and we’re going to make a a huge step towards 10 million ARR. What advice would you give SaaS founders here?

[00:34:35.170] – Diane Wiredu

So if we’re like 1 million ARR to 10 million ARR, usually this phase now is really about shifting gears. Strong product market bit, you’ve got traction, you’ve got a huge customer base, there’s value. But what I see with those stage clients that come to me is that the messaging that got them to the current stage is not going to get them to the next stage. What got you here isn’t going to get you to the next stage of growth. Usually, it is pausing to evaluate markets of change, maybe our ICP is shifting. At this stage, how do we break through the ceiling? This is that phase where I think the biggest uplift is around that customer-led approach and really performing a lot of voice of customer research to make sure that your messaging will resonate with customers as much as possible and those buyers, and that your messaging really speaks to your unique capabilities. When you’re going from 1 to 10 million, this is where a lot of companies lose their way with the messaging. You try to compete with the big dogs. Messaging gets wishy-washy and fluffy. It gets broader, it gets more generic.

[00:35:42.640] – Diane Wiredu

Here my advice would be resist the temptation and narrow down. Still stay narrow. Maybe not as narrow as I was talking about earlier with the 10K MRR going all in. That’s where that OKM and big idea messaging is really key, where you can start actually leading in with stickier point of view and more investment in brand across the board as well. Nice.

[00:36:07.400] – Joran

Love it. Let me see if I can just quickly summarize what happened today here now. Yes. So message market fit. Do you have the right message? Are you actually telling the value? How does it land? How does it resonate? Common mistakes, overuse of buzzwords, benefits, being fluffy, vague, generic language, mostly for SaaS is also being too focused on the product. Quick win, translate your messages from we and us into you and make sure you’re not actually communicating too many messages. It doesn’t make them remember what you do if you will do that. Best practice, have an OQM, one key message that resonates with your core value. And best practice, use customer language. And how you’re going to do that is basically get everybody in a room who talks to clients, make sure everybody is aligned. Everybody needs to be on the same page to actually get this done. Founder has to be there as well. Then make sure you do research and What are your clients saying? And not just about the product, but ask open-ended questions about their buying journey. Most importantly, ask follow-up questions here. Do not skip this phase. It’s the biggest challenge, but it’s also the most important one.

[00:37:13.050] – Joran

Check what your competitors are saying, analyze the results, finding the OKM from there, and then start laying out the messaging blocks, building your key value prop. If you want to have a framework to follow, what is the old way? What is the customer pain? Now you can fix the pain. What is that and what is the customer gain out of it? Want to check out best practices, butter dogs, superhuman and cognizum. Good messaging will attract the right fit clients, but it should also repel the bad fit clients. If we go really into revenue phase, 10K MR, fix an actual problem, people are willing to pay for, understand who or what you’re competing against, so it’s not always your competitors. And 10 million ARR, make sure your messaging keeps resonating, resist the temptation, stay narrow.

[00:37:57.030] – Diane Wiredu

You deserve a round of applause for that. That was amazing. Say.

[00:38:00.940] – Joran

It’s all your work, just my notes.

[00:38:03.810] – Diane Wiredu

Thank you. Yeah, but I don’t even think I could summarize it that good. So nice work. Well done.

[00:38:09.860] – Joran

We’re going to add a link to the jobs we’ve done framework. I am going to ask you to share the list of questions with us. If you have it somewhere written down. I also notice you have some resources on your Notion page which shared with me before, so we’re going to add links to that as well. If people want to get in contact with you, what is the best way to do this?

[00:38:27.620] – Diane Wiredu

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. You You can go and check me out there. Diane, give me a follow or send me a message. I’m always down for chatting about all things messaging. If you want to know a little bit more about Lionwords, my consultancy, so we do messaging strategy for a B2B SaaS, then you can go to lionwords. Com. Perfect.

[00:38:44.780] – Joran

We’re going to add both links in there for your profile and the company page. So people don’t have to type it in. They can just click on it. If you are listening on Spotify, make sure to leave us a review and fill out the poll we’re going to add to this podcast interview as well. So I know what you I actually thought of it. Thanks again for coming on, Diane.

[00:39:03.250] – Diane Wiredu

Awesome. Thanks. This was a lot of fun. We packed a lot in. I appreciate it. It was good fun. Thanks.

[00:39:07.170] – Joran

Thank you for watching this show of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you liked this content. Want to sponsor the show. If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show, if you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reditus, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.