“Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.”

Steve Jobs

One plus one equals millions

The founder (ahem, co-founder) of one of the most revolutionary tech businesses ever seen knew a thing or two about things. And he knew a lot about selling something. 

It was a while ago now, but the original iPod remains a brilliant example. It only did one thing. It played music. And, at the time, there were loads of ways you could do that – many of them similar to the next. But – and it’s a big but – Steve knew how to make it matter to us. He told us we could fit 1,000 songs in our pocket. And from that point, he had us in his pocket (pun intended).

There’s nowhere in the world that this rule doesn’t apply

And that includes B2B. The landscape that B2B marketers face isn’t too dissimilar from that the iPod did. Tens, even hundreds, of brands in a similar space. All competing in the same way. Dominant price-led messaging and endless lists of product or service features.

The net result – meaningless campaigns and forgotten brands. All as a result of failing to grasp the necessary attention.

Catch!

And if you strip it back, this makes perfect sense. If we threw you six tennis balls at once, how many do you think you’d catch? Probably none. But throw just one, and it’s caught without a second thought. It’s a simple premise – and exactly the same rule applies with key messaging. Or almost… 

Meaningful matters

The single message you’re slinging over ABSOLUTELY HAS to be meaningful – in that it says something that matters to your audience (emphasis on the word ‘audience’).

Once caught, if it isn’t of interest, it’s likely to be put down and forgotten about. Inevitable, actually.

So ask yourself, How is our product, service, or brand making/going to make a difference to the lives of the people we’re talking to?

For the Apple iPod, the meaningful message was about making people’s music enjoyment simpler. 1,000 times simpler, in fact. For the Drive Fuze example below, the focus was on giving motorists the thing they sought above all else – freedom – through tailored car subscriptions.

Case study: Drive Fuze – Live Free

Which brings us onto an important point. What you do in the B2B arena will have just as much effect on people’s lives (albeit professional) as any B2C brand – because business to business is still person to person.

There are many ways you can find out what’s important to your audience. From internal discussions to global research. Of course, the lengths and depths you go into depends on a lot of factors, but whatever you do, don’t skip this step. Once you have your single-minded proposition, it’s the only thing of note you need to say. A good price is nice – but it will always be trumped by the promise of making things better for people.

We did exactly this for Clearview Intelligence – changing the focus from their ‘what’ to their ‘why’, in order to create a single, meaningful message so the brand could bring its purpose to the fore.

Case study: Clearview Intelligence – Making Journeys Work

Less commodity, more affinity

It’s hard to be in a market that isn’t thought of as a commodity these days. As a result, we see a lot of the same messages multiple times across different brands. This ocean of sameness can be vast, leaving many brands lost.

But if you’re able to land your key message and consistently make good on it, you’ll find that people see you as more authentic. It might be an overused word in marketing circles, but it’s for good reason. As soon as you fire that single, meaningful ‘ball’ out, you start going from being a commodity, to featuring towards the front of your customers’ minds, before finally becoming their brand of choice.

And with B2B customers only in the market 5% of the time*, being the brand someone thinks of first is right where you want to be.  

One (and only one) final thing

Businesses and brands are complex. Your products and services do lots of great things for many reasons. That’s not to say you can’t talk about all of those cool features and competitive price points. There’s a time and place for getting among the details. Usually that comes after your audience has caught the one ball that’ll make them remember you for a long time.

Until then, keep it simple. Keep it strong. And keep it single-minded. You’ll be disrupting the norm and standing out for all the right reasons in no time.

*Source B2B Institute