Speak Their Language: 5 Ways Tailored Brand Messaging Fuels B2B Growth

As host of the B2B Influence Podcast, I have the privilege of speaking with leaders who are reshaping how we think about marketing. In a recent episode, I interviewed Jed Morley, founder of Backstory Branding, who helps growth-stage companies scale by clarifying their purpose, articulating their value, and codifying their culture. His Message Market Fit® process is all about ensuring your brand story resonates—not just broadly, but with the distinct audiences you need to reach.

Here are some of my top takeaways from our conversation, with insights that every B2B marketer can benefit from:

1. Blend Brand and Performance Marketing

Jed was quick to point out a common pitfall: treating brand marketing and performance marketing as either-or disciplines. Too often, B2B companies focus heavily on lead and demand generation at the expense of building a strong brand—or vice versa. His approach integrates both. As he explained, Backstory’s “brand wheel” framework aligns overarching brand narratives with performance-driven messaging so that companies can scale with clarity and consistency.

This is a powerful reminder for B2B leaders: you don’t need to sacrifice brand for growth or growth for brand. The two work best when they reinforce one another.

2. Speak Like a Keynote—Then Break Out

Jed used a memorable analogy: think of your company messaging as the keynote address at a conference. It should set the tone, establish relevance, and be broad enough to resonate across your audiences. But just like a conference, the real connection often happens in the breakout sessions. That’s where audience-specific messaging comes into play—tuned to the distinct pain points, roles, and use cases of each customer segment.

He shared how Lucid Software scaled from individual licenses to enterprise-wide adoption by tailoring messages to every department—IT, HR, operations, marketing—while maintaining a consistent company-level story. The result: customer growth from 10 million to more than 60 million.

3. Codify Culture and Live Your Brand

Branding isn’t just external. Jed emphasized the importance of aligning company culture with the brand promise. His work with BambooHR illustrates this. The company’s stated purpose—“set people free to do great work”—wasn’t just a tagline. Leadership embedded it into the culture by discouraging overtime, insisting employees take vacations, and even subsidizing time off. As a result, BambooHR scaled from 30 employees to over 1,300 while retaining top talent and building customer trust.

It’s a reminder that authenticity drives connection. Employees who live the brand naturally extend that authenticity to customers.

4. Use Data to Align Leadership and Messaging

One of the most practical insights Jed shared was how Backstory helps eliminate internal friction around brand direction. By combining internal interviews with external customer research, they identify where perceptions align—and where they don’t. This data-driven approach provides what Jed calls a “single source of truth” for messaging. Leaders can set aside personal opinions and unite behind the evidence.

This is critical. Inconsistent internal narratives quickly spill into the market, creating confusion and undermining trust. Data brings clarity.

5. Find Your Message Market Fit®

We often talk about product-market fit, but Jed makes the case for message-market fit: tuning your messaging until it resonates with the audiences you’re trying to reach. He described how SecurityMetrics, a cybersecurity company, reframed its value proposition to “Never have a false sense of security.” That single, unifying message became the foundation for conversations across all customer segments and touchpoints.

The result was impressive: Growth jumped from 6% to more than 20% annually.

Connecting the Dots with Audience Targeting

At Outward Media, we see this every day as we assist clients with building and activating audiences. Whether we’re connecting B2B contacts to consumer identifiers through our B2B2C identity graph or delivering custom audiences to programmatic, CTV or social platforms, the success of a campaign is largely based upon aligning the right message with the right target. Tailoring communications for Gen Z versus Millennials, for example, requires not just demographic data but insight into how each group prefers to engage and the values they prioritize.

It’s the same principle Jed champions: message-market fit depends on knowing your audience deeply and reflecting their language back to them.

The Bigger Picture

Jed’s perspective aligns with what we’re seeing across the industry. According to Forrester, 82% of global B2B marketing decision-makers agree that buyers expect an experience personalized to their needs and preferences. Yet nearly two-thirds of marketers struggle to consistently deliver personalized customer experiences, Gartner reports.

That gap represents both a challenge and an opportunity for brands that can get it right.

Reach out to our team at request@outwardmedia.com to talk about aligning your target audience with your message. We build precision, scalable custom B2B and B2B2C audiences tailored to your marketing needs.