Why Your Messaging Isn't Working (And It's Probably Not the Words)

Have you ever felt like people just don't "get" what your business does?

You tweak your website. Rewrite your copy. Experiment with AI. Yet somehow your message still isn't connecting with the right people.

In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, Kendra Corman welcomes messaging strategist Katie Turner to unpack why messaging problems are rarely about finding better words. Instead, they often begin with unclear positioning, an evolving audience, or an offer that's no longer aligned with what buyers actually need.

Katie shares why storytelling isn't about telling your personal story. It's about helping customers clearly see the journey from the challenge they're facing today to the transformation they'll experience by working with you.

Together, Kendra and Katie discuss:

• Why messaging problems usually start long before copywriting begins.
• The connection between your offer, audience, positioning, and messaging.
• How storytelling creates clarity and trust in B2B marketing.
• Why AI is only as good as the context you provide.
• How to differentiate your business, even in crowded industries.
• Why understanding your buyer is the most valuable marketing skill you can develop.
• Katie's biggest marketing lesson after more than 20 years in the industry.

Whether you're a consultant, coach, agency owner, or service-based business, this episode will help you think differently about your messaging and give you practical ideas to make it resonate with the people you most want to serve.

About Katie Turner

Katie Turner is a messaging strategist and marketing consultant who helps B2B professional service firms clarify their positioning, strengthen their storytelling, and create messaging that attracts the right clients. 

Connect with Katie:
Website: https://kateturnermarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateturnermarketing/

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Transcript

Show Intro And What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hi, I'm Kendra Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and I am super excited today to be joined by Katie Turner. We're going to be talking about messaging and some of the messaging that may not be resonating with buyers. Thank you so much for joining me, Katie. I'm super excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great. I love talking about stuff like this marketing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

I could talk about marketing all day, every day.

Meet Katie Turner On Messaging

SPEAKER_01 1:19

It feels like. So, so talk how did you get into marketing, specifically working on messaging? Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I mean, I've been doing marketing for about 20 years, but it was sort of accidental. Like I thought that I was gonna be um like a college professor or something. I I got a master's degree in English. Um, and then I graduated and realized that I needed to get a job. And my first job was actually in publishing and I hated it. And so I started looking for other jobs. And I ended up in this,

From English To Marketing Storytelling

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I just ended up in a marketing role, right? Like, um, which is great because it's sort of all about, you know, communications and storytelling and how do you kind of make a business mean something to somebody else, which is sort of how I see storytelling and English, like, you know, being an English major, being a creative writing major, like it all sort of made sense to me. Um, and I ended up in this marketing role and I just loved it, like loved it. And I was working, um, so I worked in in-house for a number of different firms over the years, um, nonprofits, higher education, I worked in healthcare. And eventually I just kind of reached a point in my life where I was like, I feel like I'm ready to go out on my own and do this as a consultant, which was a whole transition and a whole learning experience in and of itself. But um, you know, I landed on the focus on messaging and storytelling because I think that at the core, that really is what marketing is about. And um, right now I'm working primarily with B2B professional services firms, which is not, you know, where I grew up in my career working in nonprofits and higher education, where I think storytelling was so critically important to the mission of those organizations, right? Like you're telling the story of how people's lives were changed by the work of a nonprofit or how people's um, you know, trajectories were changed by going through higher education and earning a degree or whatever. And when you translate that into the B2B world, I found that like they weren't telling good stories. It's all generic messaging, everybody sounds the same. Um, you're not talking about things really from the perspective of the person who's gonna actually buy a service from you. You're, you know, a lot of B2Bs are talking about themselves. And I just felt like there was a better way to do this, right? Like you can connect to your customers. And the way that we connect with each other is through storytelling and through messaging. And so that's what I have ended up focusing on for my clients.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Very cool. I love your journey. I started out, I was an elementary education major for about two weeks. That, well, I was business, then elementary education, ended up advertising and um public relations, got a master's of accounting because I was gonna go different path than an MBA. And actually, no, in addition to my consulting business, I do teach full-time um in higher ed. So I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you. Um, because I love all the things and I love all the stories, and I love business-to-business service providers and nonprofits um, because there's just so much room for opportunity with both of those groups. And so love, love, love that. I really would like to get into talking about when a founder, when um a business owner is coming to you and saying our messages isn't working. Like, what's the root cause of this?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, so I think that a lot of times people feel like there something's wrong with their messaging and they it shows up because they have trouble having conversations

Why “Messaging Isn’t Working” Happens

SPEAKER_00 4:57

about what it is that they do. Nobody seems to get it. And so they think that, well, I we just need to find better words, right? And it's never, almost never about the words, right? It's about something upstream that's going on where, you know, I like to think of it as maybe a chain or like a series of things that connect together, right? You've got the offer, which is the thing that you actually sell. Then you've got the people who you're selling it to, you've got how you're positioned in their mind, like how do you stand out and how do they see you? And then where are these people hanging out and how are they making decisions? And all of those dots need to connect, right? And the messaging is just the lock that holds it all together. So once you have that story between what you're selling, who you're selling it to, how they perceive you as being different and where they're hanging out and how they're making decisions, then you can lock all that into place with messaging that tells that story. The messaging is just the way that you tell the story, whereas everything else is the narrative arc that holds it together. And so usually when people say, Well, my messaging is having a problem, it's it's something upstream that's not working. And I think it happens a lot in businesses where they've kind of gotten through that messy startup phase where they're figuring out product market fit and the business grows a lot and they've got customers and they're evolving. But somewhere along the lines, like they've never really updated how they talk about the business or how the story goes. And so something's off. Like, you know, maybe they're, you know, they're still packaging their offer the way that they did a year ago or two years ago, but their buyers have gotten more mature. They've moved up market a little bit. And so that that there is a mismatch there. Or maybe they're still marketing to um a certain audience, like thinking that that's gonna apply to every audience, but they've actually expanded and they have a couple of different kinds of customers now, and they're not all the same. And so they have to have a different go-to-market strategy or a different, different positioning strategy for each of them. And so first we have to figure out that part of it. Like, where is this broken and how do we realign it? And then we wrap the messaging around that.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I like how they haven't looked at it, right? I mean, I think we're all guilty of that. It's sort of I did it, I launched it, I launched my website, I created the flyer, we'll just pull this out, right? If we're not creating everything over by scratch from scratch every time, right? I think there's like depends on which thing it is, but um, we have a tendency to to do both of those. Um, one of the things that you said though was that it's rarely the words. And I want to like, I guess, challenge that a little bit. I do agree with you. I think that it's rarely the words, like there's something else that's causing the words to not be right. But I think oftentimes, especially like in today's AI digital age, is I want to start off with, right? In today's ever-changing world or whatever AI is gonna start off with, I think it can sometimes be the words. Like everything else is

AI Copy Still Needs Real Context

SPEAKER_01 8:04

good, but you're phoning it in and not doing that piece. And that's where the words matter, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, I mean, the words do matter. And I think that especially with AI, like you have to have the rest of that story locked in, though. I mean, you have to have a very clear picture of, you know, what you sell, who you're selling it to, why they should choose you, and um, how they're making decisions. Because if you can't, you know, and I I use AI all the time, and I think everybody should be using AI. It is the way that the world is moving. Um, but if you can't give AI that context to really deeply understand your business, then what you're gonna get out of AI is going to sound like an amalgamation of every other B2B professional services provider in your category, and you're not gonna be differentiated at all. You know, there is a way to use AI to create content and to create words, but if you can't tell the story properly, it's it's like crop in, crop out, basically.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So I agree with you a hundred percent. Cause, you know, again, it's not the words, right? It's the context, it's that information. Like, so that's true even it with AI generated um content, right? Is that there's another problem there, which is underlying. And I think that that's just very insightful. So thank you for that. Um, so for those of you phoning it in, stop it. Give it enough context.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah. And I think the other piece of that too is that a lot of times you're so focused on yourself. Like as the founder, you know what you do and you're so deep in your own expertise. You know it inside and out, and you know how to explain it, but you don't understand how your buyers are hearing it. And you don't understand what context they're coming from and what nuance they are gonna bring to the table. And that's the other piece of it that AI is gonna miss. Like, they don't know your buyers specifically. They only know what you give it. And so you really have to understand like who your customers are and how they're making decisions and what their buying triggers are, you know, not just their pain points, but like what is the thing that's actually gonna make them flip the switch and hit buy? You know, you have to know what that is so that you can speak to those moments in your messaging. And that is what's gonna create something that's gonna really resonate and build business for you.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

You've mentioned storytelling, right? You've mentioned, like, especially with AI, right, that you have to have that story down, right? And you've talked a little bit about your origins and storytelling and creative writing, things like that. What does it mean to you? What does storytelling mean to you in the B2B space? Right. So we're talking about B2B service providers. What is storytelling like in that space for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

It's about giving your customer a clear understanding

Storytelling As The Buyer Path

SPEAKER_00 10:54

of the path that they're gonna take, the journey that they're gonna take to from I have this problem to now my problem is solved, right? So you have to start out, it's like every, you know, you can talk about the customer as the hero and the hero's journey and all of that kind of stuff, which is all true. But, you know, in the most simplest of terms, it's like, how are you gonna help your customer get from point A to point B? That's it. Like they're they have a problem. The problem needs to be solved. And they need to see exactly how you're gonna solve it for them. So they need to know, okay, first, this person deeply understands my context and the nuance of my situation. And B, this is what they're gonna do for me. And this is what it looks like. This is uh step by step what's gonna happen. This is how long it's gonna take, these are the different outcomes that I can expect at each, you know, milestone or phase. Like this is what it's gonna look and feel like. And then these are the results that I'm gonna get. And it's, you know, not just the deliverable, whatever that is, a website or a, you know, new uh financial management system or whatever it is that you offer, but the deliverable plus like what capability is that gonna allow them to have now? Like, what can they do now that they couldn't do before? And why does that matter? You know, what is the ultimate benefit of this? Because you're, you know, you're not just selling like the end result, you're selling the whole journey. And especially, I think, for B2B services, like it's very hard to differentiate. I mean, accountants do accounting, HR people do HR stuff, MSPs and IT professionals do IT MSP stuff. And there's not, yes, you can differentiate, but there's not a lot of like wiggle room within there. There's a certain, you know, expectation of what's going to happen. So the better you can be at explaining to your potential buyer exactly what that path is gonna look like for them, the more you can get away from the generic language of like, we solve your people problems or we make your technology work harder for you, or we're innovative and creative. You wanna give them a true sense of like, what does this feel like for me? How to how am I in this story? That is, I think, what storytelling really means in the B2B space.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Do you have an example or a good example, or could we make one up on the spot here? Uh yeah. I mean, let me let me kind of think about that for a second. Sorry to put you on the spot. I will say, well, I'll I'll let you think for a second and I'll I'll fill some time. But I was I was laughing because you're like MSP and IT people do like MSP and IT stuff. And I was like, oh, they could totally differentiate security, we don't care. Do it on your own. Like, but no, sorry, my mind went down a rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

You know, I think

Examples That Create Real Differentiation

SPEAKER_00 13:46

that um, like I'll just use an HR firm as an example, right? Like HR firms all do the same category. It's a category, right? Like HR is a category. And if you are somebody who is in the market for outsourced HR services, you're expecting a certain menu of things that you're gonna get from your outsourced HR professional. And that doesn't really change. Like you're not gonna like suddenly invent a new way of doing HR issues.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

You're not gonna invent a new way of doing outsourced HR. But what you can do is help your uh customers sort of better understand what that even means for them. You know, like, okay, so you're gonna do this outsourced HR stuff for me, and you're telling me that that's important and it's gonna like because my people are my most valuable asset. Well, duh, maybe I already know all of this stuff, right? So hopefully, hopefully. Right. Hopefully, right? But walk me through the process. Like, okay, first we're gonna come in and we're gonna do, you know, uh like overall assessment of where you are, and we're gonna give you kind of a scorecard of X, Y, and Z. And then we're gonna start at like this issue and fix that first, and then fix this one second, and then fix that one third. And then that's gonna allow you to have a better um understanding of how people are contributing to your success. I'm being really generic here, but I'm trying to think of a better example. Like, um, yeah, like I work with an AI consultant, for example, and this is a very emergency, it's totally different than AHR, but it's an emerging thing, you know, people doing AI consulting. Um, and a lot of people are out there talking about efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. You're gonna save so much time, you're gonna save three of 10 hours a week or whatever, but they're not really giving you a good sense. It's like, what does that mean? Does that mean you're just gonna train me how to use Chat GPT? And what if I'm a little bit nervous about, you know, using AI because my business is more regulated or I have some compliance concerns or some governance, you know, some real risk management concerns. So, what we have ended up shaping his offer into is like, look, I'm gonna do AI consulting services for businesses who are concerned about compliance risks. So that narrows that field automatically to, you know, people like HR consultants, um, maybe some, you know, legal or accounting or potentially like some cyber companies where there's like there's risk there associated with using AI in an uncontrolled way. So automatically he's narrowed his audience. Okay. And then from there, it's like, okay, well, what is the appropriate starting point for somebody who is concerned about risk of using AI? It's not going to be teach my team how to use Chat GPT and how to write better prompts. That's not what they want. What they want is to understand where their risks actually exist. So the starting point maybe is an audit or uh like some sort of an assessment that points out the gaps where they could potentially be at risk or that their data could be exposed. And then from there, what's the next best step for that person? Again, it's not going to be like compliance and training. It might be to close those gaps. And what outcome are they looking for? They're not necessarily like efficiency gains and hours saved are important, but they're not like the lead thing that they're looking for. So they're looking for an outcome that has to do with you are going to be able to use AI safely in a controlled and governed environment where you have full visibility into what's happening in your organization and how your employees are using AI. That's a completely different story than what other AI consultants might be saying. And it appeals to a different type of audience. Some people might be looking just purely for efficiency and time savings, but that's not the customer that my guy is going after.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Well, I think I love that. I love how you told the story. I love how you told the story from the customer perspective, right? What they can expect, what they need. Because I think that that part is so important. And it's too often overlooked for like people skip that part, right? Like you were saying, we're so close to the business. We know what we do, we know how we do it differently. We don't communicate it any differently. And that story piece and that narrowing down on who the audience is and how they need stuff that's different than maybe somebody else, right? Like an independent coach or consultant might not need anything like super secure, right? So just a paid plan of Claude or Chat GPT or whatever is probably gonna offer them enough person, you know, protections and just encourage them, you know, not to upload their financials or anything crazy like that, because I have heard of people doing that, which is crazy, but whatever. And so I think again, you're creating differentiation.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah. And I think it starts though, it's really starts with that understanding of who your buyer is and matching what you're selling to what your buyer actually needs and how they perceive what it is that you're offering, right? Like, and I think that that example of like, you know, you can sell AI consulting, and there are a lot of different outcomes that can come from that. You can be pushing efficiency, you can be pushing time saved, you can be pushing money or revenue gain or get more leads or automate your workflows or whatever. But deciding what audience you're gonna go after or how you're gonna lead it, like the two things can go back and forth. Like you can say, I want to go after marketing agencies, I'm an AI consultant and I work, want to work with marketing agencies. And then you have to figure out exactly what it is that marketing agencies want out of AI consulting. But, or you can say, I'm an AI consultant and I am especially concerned about risk management within how people use AI. And then that defines who your audience is for who you're selling stuff to. Like marketing agencies might not care as much about that as like a CFO or a bank or a healthcare system, for example, but they have to connect. And sometimes, you know, back to what we were talking about earlier, when people say the messaging is not working, it's usually because one of those dots along that path between offer, audience, positioning, and go to market, something's not connecting properly. Something's off. And the messaging is really just the last step. This is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

So I have heard a lot of great things from you. So you gotta know your audience. You've got to be building up on an offer, right? That people, that people want. There's so many different ways that you can even differentiate yourself in an environment where I think a lot of people would say you can't differentiate. Um, I always like to go back to Intel, right? Intel inside. They branded something that was a little chip inside the computer that nobody sees,

80% Beats 100% In Marketing

SPEAKER_01 21:01

right? Um, for the most part. And, you know, there's ways to create that. And they created branding and identity around what they did well. There's a lot of opportunity for all of us, right, that are running businesses, that are running marketing departments to create that differentiation through storytelling, through really understanding who your audience is, what your offer is, and what it's going to do for them. Right. And so the storytelling isn't, let me tell you about a time, right? Like that I think a lot of people's minds go to when they think storytelling is really what you were sharing and just uh so much value, so much value. So thank you so much for sharing all of this. We have all of our contact informations and ways to get in touch with her if you're looking to step up your messaging or you're concerned that your messaging is not resonating and want to really get to the source of it. Be sure to connect with her. Uh, links to all the things are in the show notes or the video description wherever you're listening or watching. But before I let you go, Katie, I have to ask you the question that I ask all of my guests. And that is that this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Marketing is anything but a perfect science. What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?

SPEAKER_00 22:17

You're absolutely right that it's an imperfect science. There's never gonna be a right answer. And that's probably been my biggest lesson learned is that like 80% or is better than 100% when it comes to marketing. Some you're the only way to know if you've gotten it right is to actually put it out into market and see if it works. Right. And you always have to expect that something's not gonna work and be ready to fix it. Marketers were ultimately problem solvers. And, you know, I think problem solving people could do really well in this field because they're not afraid of learning that something that they did didn't work and figuring out how to fix it. It's all just like more information coming in. And so, you know, do the thing, put it out there, get out on the dance floor, make the moves, you know, and and see what happens and then take that and evolve from it, you know? And also it's like you, you know, I think as a baby marketer, I uh really had to learn the lesson that I am not my audience. And so just because I don't like it or I didn't um, you know, I don't think it's funny or cute or whatever, doesn't matter. I am not my audience. And so know your buyers, speak to them, put them at the center of it all, and then just do the thing and see what happens and expect it not to work and then fix it.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

So I love that. It makes me laugh every time when people are like, I am not my buyer. You gotta remember that because it is so key. I mean, even when I was a Jeep advertising manager, like senior leadership, senior management had problems with that, right? They thought they were the audience because they liked their Jeep Grand Cherokee or their Wrangler. And it's like, no, you're you're you're still not the majority of the people, right? So it was like they're like, but I like this one.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Many similar meetings, especially in higher ed, where I would be um presenting the new ad campaign or what talking about where we were advertising and somebody surely would raise their hand and say, Well, I haven't heard our commercials or I haven't seen our ads. Well, that's because you're not our target audience. And so you're at, you're not going to see our ads because they are not showing up in places where you are spending your time. I used to say, if you see our ads, that's a problem.

unknown 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

It means we are wasting money really, really bad right now.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Um, because I've had that conversation before with clients too. So um, so this is fantastic. This has been fantastic. I hope that everybody listening and watching has gotten a lot out of it. I know that I did. So really think about storytelling from a little bit different of a perspective than I think a lot of people position it to help you create differentiation and make sure that your messaging is resonating with people, right? And so super important, make sure that you're not wasting your marketing dollars, right? By doing more marketing with

You Are Not Your Audience

SPEAKER_01 25:16

um with really a broken infrastructure, right? Not necessarily the words, but everything else that goes with it. So thank you so much, Katie, for your time. I appreciate it. And um, again, if you guys want to connect with her, all of the information is right down below. And I hope to see you next time on another episode of Imperfect Marketing. Have a great rest of your day.