Turning Brand Messaging Into a Strategic Advantage with Tamsen Webster of Message Design Institute

Speaker A: We have to be careful with using things that we wish were true in the language where, like us, telling the truth is actually really important for building trust and building long term relationships and those kinds of things.

Speaker B: Welcome to The Leaders of B2B Podcast, a weekly show where we bring you interviews and in the weeds Expertise with today's B2B experts and thought leaders. You can see more about today's episode and guest by visiting our website at leadersofb2b.

Speaker C: All right, welcome back to another episode of leaders to B2B. I'm, um, very excited to have Tamsen Webster here, the founder of Message Design Institute. You know, I got to be honest with our audience here because it would be disingenuous of me not to share when there's failures, especially in the podcast space, because this is what I do for a living. But we originally had met during Content Marketing World last year. We had an amazing conversation that was all audio. I brought my recorder and of course, of the nine or ten interviews that I did that day, the one that was not captured was yours. And so we have to do a second.

Speaker A: So nice. We do it twice.

Speaker C: That's what I know. I know, but it does happen and I feel like, you know what, when, when failures happen, you got to be able to like, yeah, you know, uh, life.

Speaker A: Life is life. Yeah.

Speaker C: So how are things? We talked about a little bit off here, but how are things since. How's the new year? How things since the. Since content m. Marketing world? More or less the same. Anything?

Speaker B: You're good?

Speaker A: No, it's been fun because since content market, I've been able to continue to be an active content marketer myself and delighted to report that. Hey, you know, hey, it works. I mean, I always knew that, but it's been actually really fun just to live the experience from really the channel placement side. That's never been my favorite part. Even when I was a, you know, CMO and worked in agencies and whatever, I've. I'm a message designer. That's what I love to do. And yet it has been fun to work with an expert in figuring out what the funnels are and what products lead to what products and to start to really see that work, which has really been super. So, yeah, I'm excited. It's good stuff.

Speaker C: We're happy to have you on and thanks again for jumping back on and this time we can have video so people can see your lovely face instead of just your lovely voice.

Speaker A: Hello. Yeah, I'm a little sick too. So it's like, uh, even Better that we're not face to face because then you're not going to get the conference crud. But you know. Yeah, it's all good extra stuff in my voice.

Speaker C: Well, okay, so let's. The first thing when I, when we first met and what I thought of when I heard message design and first thing that comes to mind is storytelling. So what is, like, how are they related? Are they the same? Are they different? Do they fit into each other? Can you give us as a quick background of how you view it?

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Uh, they're related, they're not the same. And one does fit into the other, or rather one builds off of the other. So let me explain. There's long been a maxim about storytelling that a story is an argument. So now you can start to see that there's a story, story sits on top of a message. And so the primary work that I do is actually is to help people find that foundation under which the rest of their storytelling, their content's going to build. It starts with the basic idea that fundamentally we're putting, we're telling these stories, we're creating this content, we are doing internal messaging, external messaging, all for the point of generally getting people to, uh, believe enough, it's something to act on it, do it, agree. And so message design is really about making sure that there is something very clearly agreeable about the underlying idea. Because if you think about it, if fundamentally it doesn't, it really doesn't matter how beautifully told or constructed or illustrated a story is. It doesn't matter how snappy a tagline or how beautiful your fonts, though I love a good font. If all of that is just wrapping something that the, the people who you need to act would never act on, either because they don't understand it, they don't agree with it, or just fundamentally is not aligned with how they see the world. So message design is really about understanding first and foremost your point of view. What is the position that you take on something? Not what's your positioning, what's your, that you take and why is that your position and arguing it for in a way that does not rely on convincing people that you're right.

Speaker C: So what are the, what are the biggest mistakes that people make when they're defining their message? Like, is it, is it positioning? Like when so someone comes in and you, you do this for a living, right? Like, so you see this all the time. Um, like what are the biggest mistakes? Like, how can this be avoided, even as a follow up?

Speaker A: Well, I think one of the confusions I think happens is because in a lot of ways messaging happens twice. Meaning there is a lot of times when people think about messaging, they're really thinking about it in terms of either sales messaging, meaning something's already been decided, a strategy's already been decided. How are we now going to position that and talk about it to other people? Or we're talking about it from a brand messaging, marketing messaging piece, where again, it's how do we get this to be as interesting as possible? The messaging I'm talking about, which I generally refer to as core messaging, is really sits at this intersection of business strategy, product strategy or program strategy and communication strategy. It is, uh, the articulation of the strategy first and foremost. So I would say that message design, even if it ultimately turns into sales messaging or anything else, actually starts from first as an internal process of clarification. Again, why are we doing this? Simon Sinekian. But then I would add to what Simon puts out there to say people need to know the why behind your how as well. In other words, not just why are you doing what you're doing because it's going to achieve this outcome or whatever, but why are you taking that approach? That's actually where long term alignment really happens. And it's not something you can figure out. You can't figure out the tagline. You can't figure out that other stuff until you've already decided that. Would a quick example be helpful?

Speaker C: Sure. We love examples.

Speaker A: Examples. All right, so what do I. So it's not B2B, but. And I know, I know, I know, but it's familiar. So it extrapolates. You can, you can move it over and apply it the same way. Okay, so I live in Boston. I'm not from here, but I've lived here long enough to have a Bostonian alter ego named Karen o'. Sullivan. And, and Karen Duncan's girl, right? Like, so she wants her coffee in the morning. It's going to be like a regular lounge, which means it's got cream and sugar and it's awesome. All right. But then there's also Starbucks Interloper. But if you think about it fundamentally, both of them really do what they do for the same reason. Right? So both of them have coffee to sell to people who want coffee. Right? Like fundamentally. And they produce the same, uh, like baseline outcome. And yeah, you can put all the brand BS on top of it, but fundamentally it's like if I need caffeine and caffeine and coffee is my favorite way to do it, I've got multiple choices, but let's say I've got these two. If we now go one step deeper and say, well, why do they do their coffee the way that they do it? Then we need more information. Now in both cases we can work well back from, particularly in Duncan's case, the tagline, but you can start to see how we couldn't get there without it. So Dunkin Donuts, for those who may not be familiar, do you know what their tagline is? It's America runs on Dunkin. So you can tell from that tagline. I'm going to guess that you can guess what their definition of coffee is. What is coffee? To Duncan, if American runs on it, then coffee must be fuel, right? Great. And what do we know from runs? Okay, so it's about coffee is fuel. And the best way to get the fuel that you need is fast. And so then you can start to see how not only does that show up in the tagline, but it does show up in the whole brand experience because they're deep seated beliefs, uh, are that coffee is coffee is fuel and the faster you can get it, the faster you can get onto the rest of whatever you're trying to do. Now Starbucks, Interesting because Starbucks is one of those places where the marketing messaging, the brand messaging has started to infect backwards upstream. So what I mean by that is like if you go into a local Starbucks, one right by me has literally built into their like store stuff. It says coffee is togetherness.

Speaker B: All right?

Speaker A: And they'll basically say that their big thing is that the coffee is comedian. No, it's not. It's coffee. What you can extrapolate from that is either take them at their word that it's togetherness or I think a, uh, more accurate description of what they do is that it's about coffee is an experience. In other words, for them the coffee is almost incidental. Right? That the coffee, the break is just as important as the coffee and that the experience actually flavors the coffee. Right. It changes how you feel about it. Because side note, Starbucks like loses every head to head blind taste test with every other coffee. And so it is something else. And so this is what I, what I when I'm talking with my clients and most of my work is with B2B clients, I'm saying, listen, you can nominally have the same end product, right? Okay. You and your client both have this particular, um, you know, medical device and you could both say that you're answering this particular question or market need with that thing and the way that you get there. The reason why yours is produced the way that it does, the reason why it has the features that it does, the way the, like, uh, everything about it is because there is something deeper. And it's really that that constitutes the message. Because we send a message as individuals, as organizations, with everything that we do, it isn't just the words. And while the words are important, one of the biggest places that we can make a mistake and we can get ourselves in trouble. Back to your question. That question is when what we say doesn't match what we do. And a lot of times that happens because we haven't actually figured out that why behind our how. So hopefully that starts to clarify it a little bit more about why. I think it is absolutely related, but a fundamentally different, fundamentally critical step, and one that's all too often skipped right over.

Speaker C: Uh, we love examples. And that. That I think that lands really well for our audience. And again, like, even though it's a B2C example, I think it lends itself well into how B2B marketers and those who are defining the message should be thinking about it. Does the message align itself or does it start with a mission statement?

Speaker A: Oh, it does not start with a mission statement. I wish it started with a mission statement. So, you know, the first 15 years of my career was with nonprofits. And this is frankly part of where some of this is. Some of this early thinking started, because I remember one time I was giving a keynote at a nonprofit marketing and fundraising conference. And the way that I opened was I took the names off of or, uh, out of three different mission statements. And I was like, tell me where these are. And they're like. And then one of them, like the little ringer I put in there was for the post office. And they were like, whoa, it sounds like that that could be a college. I'm like, uh, I know. So the issue with. And this relates back to what we're saying before about how we typically think about messaging, uh, versus message design, is that it tends to be aspirational. It tends to be what we're working towards. In other words, I know we oftentimes will separate a vision statement from a mission statement, but it really. They're both future focused. They are not often actual description of what's happening. And yet there's power in what is happening right now. So one of those organizations that I work for was, uh, a higher education institution, the Boston Conservatory. It's now part of Berkeley College of Music. I was the head of marketing and communications. And when I first got there, they would say that like, well, we have like, our mission is to provide an interdisciplinary education. All right, well, interdisciplinary would suggest, right, that there is this intermingling at the curricular level of what is happening at that school, not what was happening. And the issue was that language infected the marketing. And so, and then what would happen is that people would get to campus, they come for a visit, they'd start to, ah, ask more. And they were like, well that's, but that's not this, like, I see what you're doing. It's really, actually really interesting that, you know, your, your dancers all learn theater, like have a theater class and your musicians are playing in the pit for the musical theater people and whatever. But it's not the same. So. And yet there still was a valuable case to be made for what they did do, which was multidisciplinary. And so when I'm working with clients, this is one of the first things that we're really trying to do is to say, listen, it's not wrong to want to be something else. Uh, I do a fair amount of work with startups and a lot of them really love the eos, kind of the entrepreneurial operating system piece, which is very much about defining values. And I was talking with one of my clients there, a SaaS company who had just done that, and I said, okay, well help me understand just so I can moderate what I'm about to give to your folks, the degree to which you're actually fulfilling those values right now. And they're like, oh. And it's like, okay, that's fine. Again, not an issue. But we have to be careful with using things that we wish were true in the language where us telling the truth is actually really important for building trust and building long term relationships and those kinds of things. So this is why I see message design again, uh, as another differentiator from messaging typically post strategy standpoint as uh, it's very much an excavation process and not an invention. Right? So it's basically saying we're going to dig down to keep asking like, okay, well, all right, we think this is the right answer. Why do we think it's the right answer? Why do we do it this way? And just kind of that classic five whys exercise, eventually you will get to the actual value that's in play. And that is so useful to have, not just for the eventual public facing messaging, but it's really useful to have internally because it's what provides that internal North Star that so many companies say that they want and then they get really baffled by why their, you know, brand pillars and their beliefs and their values and their mission statement and a vision statement don't get them there because they don't actually have that opportunity to kind of really look in behind the curtain. Kind of like it's a classic. Well, think of it this way. It's like these beliefs, these actual beliefs are like the lines of code in an operating system. And what's interesting about the EOS is that it's not. It's kind of like designing what the code should be, but it's not opening up a control window and seeing what the code actually is. And I think understanding what the code actually is is an important step because that allows you to say, okay, is it what we want it to be? In some cases, yeah, there's actually something really powerful, really strong that can be a differentiator for us. And in certain cases, you're like, ooh, we got a little bit of a gap there, kind of United Airlines style, between what our professed experience is fly the friendly skies, and what many people's lived experience actually is, which is not so friendly because their values in use, to use a theoretical term, is actually maximizing shareholder value. Right? Or maximizing the experience for their million mile flyers, like, or for their business flyers. And again, that's not bad. It's only bad when there's a disconnect between what they're saying and what anybody who isn't that ideal audience is actually experiencing.

Speaker C: So what are the steps that. So someone's listening to this and they're like, this is all really good stuff, but I need to. We need to rethink our messaging. We've been wanting to do it for a while. There is a misalignment, there's a disconnect. You know, how do they go about, like, where do they go to that initial? Like, okay, we need, we know we need to go back, we need to rethink. Where do we start?

Speaker A: So what I found is it's kind of like Mona Lisa's smile, where you don't really see it if you look directly at it. And so what I have seen to be really effective is actually to find the quote, you know, the message to really map out why are we doing this? What's our argument for something? I like to call it the core case for something because it's just enough off that people don't tend to be aspirational about it, because it is usually about something that actually exists or a change that's about to be made that they're really deciding, they're trying to make the case to themselves internally. We're trying to do a new initiative, we want to enter a new vertical, that kind of thing. Okay, let me just give a bit of an overview quick. And then this will help explain where we're going. So there's really two big principles in play here. Number one, we are trying to get that buy in, right? We're trying to get people to believe enough in something to act on it. Now, if you agree that every action any of us as humans take is built on and ends an internal argument about why that action makes sense, even if it's the product of a RFP or whatever. Right. And that the arguments we agree with, right, the easiest ones for us to agree with are ones that are based on beliefs that we already have and that are arguing for things that we already want. Then the philosophy about that I take into message design is then to me that means that the best way to build buy in is to build that argument using elements that your audience, your ideal audience already, or at least intuitively agrees with, meaning you don't have to give them reasons that they don't have to be convinced of, that you don't have to back up with data though the more that you do, the stronger it is. Right? So what that means is what's the first thing that's critically important about the message? So the first place to start is, well, what is something that your ideal audience already wants? Not the real problem that you know they have that's getting in the way. Because then they'll never find you if they don't know know they have that problem and if they don't know why that needs to be solved, they're never going to find you. So, uh, the first thing is to say, who are we really serving and to what extent do we need or want to educate them about that question? Right? Because it could be something really, really broad like how can we get better engagement from our potential customers, right? Or how can we drive more qualified leads? Classic 1 and B2B. So how can we drive more qualified leads? Just a big old want, right? Then there may be a group of people who have, they're a little bit more experienced, perhaps a little bit m. More mature, a little bit more aware. They may be a little bit more self aware and they may say, oh, okay, well we do, we do still want to drive qualified leads, but how we really want to do that, right, is through, let's say, connecting with them where they are so let's say this is all leading to some kind of social selling thing, right? So it's like, okay, well then that's a slightly different question, right? It's what's the best way, right, to interact on social, right. So that we can drive more qualified leads into our organization, right? Let's say LinkedIn, because I'm not seeing a lot of B2B people like hanging out on Insta. All right? And then finally the really, the most aware folks are. They want what they want, they see the obstacle, right? They're like, we don't know where, we don't even know what's working. And then there's folks that say, and we know the solution is actually getting better visibility into what's working, right? So the really that first step is saying, what is that question? And embedded in that question is how, you know, how aware are they of what's going on? Then from there it's about answering for yourselves as an organization, what do we believe to our core are two and only two. I know it's super hard sometimes for them, two and only two, overlooked and, or underappreciated elements for answering that. Right? So you know, let's say these folks know they want visibility or let's say they want, they want to like meet people where they are. But what they don't know, right, Is that visibility, that's important, right? And if they can't get, if they can't see a comprehensive view, then they're never going to get there. So you might say that comprehensiveness is one of those pieces. And you might also say, okay, well if we just have comprehensive, that's fine, but you know, this is where you can put point to your competitors and you say, yeah, but if you're getting reports from this platform that's reporting these kinds of things, and that platform is reporting these kinds of things, you can't actually do apples to apples. So in addition to being comprehensive, here's the other piece. We need a consistent reporting framework, a consistent language that for those things all to work together so that if you're trying to get better visibility into your social selling, that's why we believe, uh, that this kind of consistent comprehensiveness in data is the best way to get there. Let's show you how our product does that for you. So it's really that process of. Because we believe that's why this approach that combines those two things. And is that is the answer to that question?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, super helpful. So it's the thing, okay, so like you come Back if you feel like you have a good idea on your message, you're ready to like move forward.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: With this net, new brand, new messaging, shiny the whole thing. We're content marketers by nature. Like how does that lead or lend its way or dovetail into content? Because like there's a lot of different ways they could do.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Like the natural one is okay, yeah, you're putting stuff, uh, about the product. You're maybe you're a uh, startup and you need to create a deck to get funding. Like how does it. Like there's a lot of different ways that depending on your maturity. But like from a high level perspective, like how does that.

Speaker A: Sure. So I mean like many things in life, and particularly the content marketing life, I would think of it as a matrix. Right. So the first matrix is there's really, I see message design through to content as a three stage process. The first is what is that core idea that we're trying to get across either as a broad based market message or even what are we trying to do in this particular, particular piece of content? What are we trying to like, what is the action we want them to take? And the same process applies. What question are they asking and what are we asking them to do as a step towards answering that question for themselves? So that's the first piece, then the second piece. So I call that the foundation because like, if that's not strong, if that's not going to hold it up, if people don't agree with it, if like there's nothing agreeable in it, nothing else matters. We said that before. The second stage, I call framing. And none of these have to be like really like time intensive by the way. But framing is saying, okay, for this particular audience and this particular piece of content, or again, and maybe we're talking about a platform or whatever, what is that architecture? Right. What else do we need to have in there? What else do we need to fill in? So it's not just agreeable, but it's really understandable, it's representative. They're getting all the pieces they need not just on what this would look like in principle, but what it looks like in practice. And that's the stage typically where you're really starting to play and figure out what are the examples that we need to give, what are the case studies we need to put in, what's the evidence, what's our own research that would support this, what's the third party validation that we can bring in. And then the last phase is where you're putting the content together. So I call that the finishing phase. So think of the finishing phase as what you're doing to make, um, a house move in ready or guest ready. That's where you're making it ready for your potential clients and customers to come. And you want it to feel, you know, you want it to have good curb appeal. So this is why you're going to, like, write it, you know, snappy. You're going to want it to really reflective of you. So it needs to have your brand voice. But the reason why those other stages are there is that if it's beautiful, but you couldn't live there, if it doesn't make sense to people, if it's missing something, they really need to understand in order for them to make a decision or to keep acting or to keep engaging. And not only that, like, if it's. In other words, you've, like, built a house without a bathroom or you realize, like, it's really just a stage set. It's like, you know, like a sitcom. And you're just like, you walk past and it's just like studs. We need to make sure, once we've got, you know, a full, solid frame, again, that it's not built on sand, because if it needs to be strong enough to build on. And so this is what I mean by it's. It's kind of a matrix. It's saying, you know, given, given the broadness of the message that we're trying to do, given the variety of folks that we're talking to, how aware they may or may not be, given what the stakes are, even of a message, because you don't need to go through very regimented, all three things for every piece of content you're ever putting out there. Because what I've seen over and over again is once you have really the core message, either of the company or of the product, or how that product appeals to your, your main market segments, it becomes internalized. Because, again, it's not this, like, clunky vision, positioning statement. You're saying it's because we need comprehensiveness and because we need consistency that we do this this way. Now, given this audience, given this piece of content, and yeah, in the context, what's the best way to get that message out there? And that's what content marketers are great at. And also figuring out, like, what, um, what channels should we use for it.

Speaker C: Amazing. This was where we're right at the time. This was an amazing conversation. Tamsen, how do you. How can people get ahold of you? How can they find information about just message design if they want to work with you? Like what is the best way, best

Speaker A: place to start is the Message Design Institute. That is where they can find a collection of free resources. They can also sign up for a free monthly webinar where I talk about the fundamentals of wet message design. You can see I do some open enrollment live trainings as well. And also you can explore further and find out how to work with me. But you know what I love about this process is that it keeps me personally very engaged, but it's also very quick. One of the things that I learned in all the years that I've spent in brand design and all of that stuff is that a lot of times, uh, organizations are spending hundreds of thousand dollars and six months or more to end up with a tagline that nobody uses. And so what I've seen is that this is really about really understanding what is that foundational core message. And typically we get to that really that core claim. What is that position you take and what's that case for it? Typically I can get there with a C suite in a day and so and it then makes all the other downstream efforts just a lot more consistent and work a lot better.

Speaker C: I hope our audience has heard that. A day to rethink and get down to the message that you're trying to get to in front of your customers. So everyone out there should absolutely reach out to TAMS and go to the Metric Design Institute, reach out to her comment on LinkedIn, YouTube, all the good stuff when we post that out there. So thanks again, appreciate your time and uh, I hope we get to see each other again in a couple hours.

Speaker A: I do too. All right. Yes. Well, I hope that I'll be back at Content Marketing World. So I saw the call for speakers just came out, so I got to.

Speaker C: I'm hoping to be there with, uh, you.

Speaker A: All right, awesome. Great to see you.

Speaker B: Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoyed this episode of the Leaders of B2B podcast. And as always, you can see more information about this episode and all the resources mentioned at@leadersofb2b.com if you enjoyed the show, please give us a 5 star rating. This episode is brought to you by Content allies. We help B2B companies launch revenue generating podcasts. We schedule interviews between you and your ideal prospects and strategic partners. You show up for engaging conversations, we handle everything else. Ready to build a podcast that grows your business in just one hour per week. Reach out to us at, uh, ContentAllies.com.