How Google optimized its B2B messaging strategy for retail

How do you best develop compelling B2B messaging that will motivate customers globally – in a crowded online marketplace? 

Such was the challenge Google faced when it set out to improve its marketing communications as part of a global retail marketing campaign for mid-market retailers last year – to make its messaging approach more consistent across its various channels. 

We were excited to lend our communications expertise to help improve Google’s B2B messaging. Our team developed a two-phased approach to tackle Google’s communications challenges and prepare for the launch of its global retail campaign. 

1. Train Google marketers on the proven best practices for message development, generate messages based on those principles and test which ones performed best 
2. Optimize winning messaging from the first round, further refine, test and launch Google’s winning B2B messaging 

In January 2019, Google invited SKIM to lead a message and claims generation workshop for a cross-functional group of 30 sales, marketing and business development team members. We then shared the SKIM communications framework, grounded in winning messages containing two key elements: 

1. A compelling and relevant benefit 
2. Reason to Believe (RTB) in the brand 

After the brainstorm session, the research began with 30 messages, and resulted in a choice-based approach to best suit the global scale. 

Google received not only an overall prioritization and winning messages, but also how to enhance winning messages or improve messages which didn’t perform as well. We also shared the most optimal combination of messages which would reach Google’s largest retail audience. 

These insights armed their sales team and Google marketers to go out and talk specifically about how Google could add value to retail partnerships. Google has since deployed their winning messaging across all marketing communications channels – from its Google for Retail site, to global events, speaking opportunities, sales communications and playbooks. The result is a consistent, global, message for our retail audience. 

In the year following our first message test for Google, we’ve done more than a dozen studies on the B2B side, across 15 markets, across verticals, and across different ad products.