How do you create emotional relevance in B2B messaging?

We’re all about serving the right message at the right time. But the message is still the important part… and too often the bit that gets lost.

Is your B2B messaging relevant, or just targeted?

Hi [FIRSTNAME],

As a [JOBTITLE] at [COMPANY], you’ll have noticed how a lot of B2B marketing messages these days just state the bleeding obvious.

The machinery is good at identifying who you are, what you’ve clicked, your company, your role. But it’s not so good at showing you why you should care.

There’s a gap between competent targeting, which is a data matching task, and proper relevance, which is a human skill.

That’s because compellingly relevant B2B messaging is about how well you understand your customer’s world.

It crafts a jolt of recognition by describing human experience of, say, pressure, risk or ambition.

The messaging mirror

It’s why we’re obsessive about what customers actually experience and how it feels.

As B2B messaging specialists, our job is to understand the messy human stakes and articulate their emotion and consequence, better than the buyer can themselves.

Creating relevance in B2B communication can happen in a few ways. You can describe a problem they’ve normalised or stopped noticing. You might quantify the hidden cost of something they tolerate. Maybe you carefully articulate a sensitive truth.

You create a moment of recognition and the audience experiences it as a relevance jolt.

Not because, “in today’s fast moving cyber landscape, IT leaders need to stay alert to threats”.

But because, “your cyber team is stressed, hearing alarms in their sleep – and we both know it’s not sustainable”.

That’s a Human 10% gap.

Targeting finds the right person. Relevance paints a picture of the parts of their life you can help with…

…and a reason to click the CTA.

If you need help with your B2B messaging relevance, click this CTA and let’s talk.