What Would Philip Kotler Say?…
B2B tech companies are obsessed with talking about how their latest solution delivers value to their customers. The ability to demonstrate value creation to prospects is a crucial part of building trust and establishing thought leadership. While tech founders focus on developing the most innovative tech, their clumsy attempts to communicate true value often generate a facepalm reaction from the audience, rather than the intended “Aha!” light bulb moment. Fear not, as this is the point where we channel the thoughtful and legendary Philip Kotler, marketing guru extraordinaire, allowing you to explore how to message value more effectively.
What Does “Value Creation” Even Mean?
Let’s get one thing straight: value creation isn’t about building a better IT solution for the sake of it. It’s about providing something your customers genuinely care about, something to make their lives easier and their businesses more profitable. Philip Kotler nailed this idea when he said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits them and sells itself.” Now, you’ve probably built something amazing, but if your messaging doesn’t connect with the customer in their language and context the value is irrelevant to them.
Find the Pain Points
Prospects in the B2B tech space aren’t usually driven by whim or the desire for a shiny new toy. They are hard-nosed businesspeople who, at best, will be indifferent to any upstart startup telling them they have been doing things wrong, and you have just what they need. What prospects care about are the gritty challenges that keep them up at night, and they are always open to finding out better ways to solve them. You must know and understand those problems in detail, as if they were your own, and engineer your solution as the obvious fix. Most decision-makers usually start their buying process by recognising they have a problem they can’t fix without help. Yet, time and time again, startups present themselves in terms that completely miss the mark.
What’s in it For Me?
If you know your prospect’s challenges in detail and can present your solution in the context of addressing those issues, then you are on your way to at least generating some interest and perhaps starting a sales conversation. Take a page from Kotler’s book, who is famous for promoting the idea of customer-centricity. He once said, “The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.” And what satisfies customers? Solving their problems and delivering clear and quantifiable benefits. Think about how you might message your startup’s AI-powered SaaS product. It’s tempting to shout about the “multi-layer neural network and hyperparameter tuning,” but most prospects would probably nod politely and check out mentally. Instead, focus on what your solution does for clients, for example, faster insight and better decisions, more accurate forecasts or saving hours of tedious data analysis. Understanding why your technology is valuable, rather than how it works, is far more interesting and relevant to a prospect.
Tell a Human Story
It’s easy for tech startups to forget that in B2B tech marketing the buyers are human and people love human stories. Storytelling in marketing is how you connect with your audience on a human level; it’s a way to make your message relatable and make complex tech digestible. Philip Kotler once highlighted this with the insight, “Stories create an emotional connection with customers, fostering loyalty and advocacy.” Rather than talk about how great and powerful your product is, demonstrate how customers benefit from it. What does it allow them to do that they couldn’t do before? More specifically, in what ways has your product impacted customers’ working lives, so they are more effective, collaborate seamlessly, achieve higher performance and serve their customers more efficiently and effectively? Show examples of these improvements. Now you are starting to talk the language of the customer by making your value relatable, tangible and relevant to the individual.
Segment and Personalise
One size doesn’t fit all, especially in B2B tech sales. Your startup’s messaging needs to resonate with different customer segments and personas. What’s crucial to a CTO might not matter as much to a CFO. This is where data comes in. Tech companies that personalise their marketing see a 20% increase in sales opportunities, according to McKinsey. So, instead of a blanket “We help businesses grow,” try tailored messaging for each persona. For IT, focus on performance and scalability, for finance, cost-effectiveness and ROI and so on.
Show Me the Proof
It’s one thing to say your product creates value, but it’s another thing entirely to back it up with hard facts. B2B buyers love data-driven proof points. In fact, according to Gartner, 81% of B2B buyers expect hard data to support your claims. This is where case studies, testimonials and metrics that demonstrate your solution’s quantifiable benefits come into play. When prospective customers see real-life examples of “how” your product saved time, money or reduced risk, your message becomes far more compelling. Philip Kotler summed it up nicely: “Value is not what you put into your product or service; it’s what your customer gets out of it.”
Correct Your Language
Communicating your solution’s value is not about being the loudest voice in the room. First, you must understand your audience so well that you can speak directly to their needs, using language they recognise that highlights the benefits they care most about. Messaging in the customer’s own language helps present your business as one that understands their industry, their company and their business needs. Building trust is very hard to do if you do not communicate in words that the customer relates to and understands. This empathy allows you to quickly get over the hurdle of being a recognisable brand. Do this well, and the product will present itself as something prospects naturally want to find out more about, and this puts you in a privileged position that may present a selling opportunity.
Messaging 101 – Don’t Use the Word “Value”
What Kotler did not intend was that simply using the word “value” in your messaging somehow portrays value. In fact, not only is that lazy, but using such clumsy verbiage is more likely to insult the intelligence of your audience. Rather than ostracising your audience with meaningless statements, it’s better to accept that the customer is always the final arbiter of whether you deliver value or not. What you must do is say something meaningful that speaks to their desire to be better at what they do. Saying your product “delivers more business value” or “better business outcomes” is just bullshit. Get ready for a bumpy ride and dwindling sales pipeline if you resort to such tactics.
Craft a Simple but Effective Message
For B2B tech marketers, your focus must always be on how the customer achieves true gains from your solution. Talk less about how great you are or why your product is superior and instead focus more on the reasons why you make your customers’ lives easier. Tell your prospects a good story about what they can expect to achieve with your help and back it up with some hard-hitting proof. As Kotler might say, “Communicating value isn’t about shouting from the rooftops, it’s about listening to your customer’s needs and crafting your message so irresistibly that they can’t help but pay attention.” Importantly, to avoid the risk of behaving like an upstart startup, focus on why you exist, who you are for and why they should care.
You may want to read: “How to Define Your Target Market.”
