[Part 3 from the six-part series on SaaS messaging.]

This entry outlines steps you can take today to work on messaging consistency.

Quick Definitions

SaaS messaging

Overall communication (all messages) initiated by teams within a company with target audiences to nudge them into considering, purchasing, and using the SaaS product.

Messaging consistency

Consistency facilitates a cohesive voice, narrative, and understanding across all channels, assets, and touchpoints with target audiences.

Key Considerations

It’s difficult to maintain consistency in messaging.

This happens because multiple teams and team members are involved in creating messages and communicating with leads, prospects, and customers.

For example:

• Product designers may decide the microcopy terms for the software interface.
• The product team may write changelog entries for existing users, highlighting new features, improvements, and bug fixes.
• Marketing professionals (and, in some cases, freelancers) within the SaaS team will create and publish different assets on multiple channels.
• The sales reps may have different discovery call scenarios and product presentations, using terms that vary from the ones used by product and marketing teams.
• Different Customer Support reps may create knowledge base entries that include varying terminology.
  

This work involves multiple people who may use different terms, adhere to different product and brand narratives, and operate with different understandings.

There are no straightforward signs of consistency when analyzing channels, assets, and messages. However, the lack of cohesion and unity in messaging is obvious.

When there’s no consistency, people may perceive two content assets or two web pages published by the same SaaS brand as coming from different entities.

Lack of messaging consistency leads to:

• Confusion
• Diminished brand perception
• Inconsistent experiences
• Complex customer journey
• Eroded connections with target audiences
• Decreased brand trust
• Lower perceived reliability
  

Subsequently, these elements translate into poor business results.

Consistency must be created and maintained across all messages, regardless of channels, assets, or teams involved in communication with external stakeholders.

Elements to Work On

When working on messaging consistency, pay attention to the following elements:

Terms

All teams and team members must use the same words and terms. Even small terminology inconsistencies may create confusion.

For example, teams within a company developing event management software may use multiple words for people attending events. All marketing materials refer to them as ‘attendees,’ while sales reps call them ‘assistants.’

Also, the product interface refers to them as ‘participants,’ while the customer support entries and guidelines call them ‘guests.’

It seems like a minor detail, but lack of consistency will create confusion.

Imagine users reading the support guide and looking for the term ‘registrants’ to access a software feature, which appears as ‘visitors’ on the interface.

It’s annoying, to say the least.

All team members should operate with the same terms, whether it’s the product interface, product tour, articles, discovery calls, or knowledge base entries.

Semantics

All team members must share the same understanding regarding terms and concepts.

Let’s return to the example of the event management software.

Imagine that half of the marketing team thinks of ‘event marketing’ as hosting events to promote products. The other half of the marketing team thinks that ‘event marketing’ equals event promotion.

This discrepancy in understanding will result in mixed messages and confusion among target audiences.

Voice

Team members involved in communication with external stakeholders should ensure brand voice consistency across all channels and assets.

For example, if a SaaS company’s brand voice is friendly and informal, all communications, from blog posts and social media to customer service interactions, should reflect this tone.

Suppose the marketing team adopts a conversational and humorous tone in their campaigns, highlighting the ease and fun of using their event management software.

It would be jarring if the user onboarding videos, guidelines, and tooltips would be cold, formal, and technical. This stiff, corporate-sounding voice may discourage new users.  

Brand voice inconsistency can confuse customers and weaken their connection to the brand, as they encounter different “personalities” at various interaction points.

Style

Style is about formatting and ways of presenting information.

For example,  the marketing department uses a vibrant and visually rich layout for its assets. These materials include bold colors, dynamic images, bright visuals, and engaging interactive elements.

However, the onboarding and support documentation on the company’s website is starkly different, including dense blocks of text without visual aids. This stark contrast in presentation style can lead to confusion and a disjointed user experience.

Users might feel disoriented when transitioning from engaging marketing materials to navigating through unreadable technical documentation.

This lack of stylistic consistency can negatively impact the user’s perception of the brand as cohesive and integrated.

Frame

Frame refers to perspectives or ways in which SaaS teams present information to target audiences. Inconsistencies may appear when different SaaS teams present disjoint viewpoints and angles.

For example, the marketing team is positioning its product—an event management platform—as a high-end solution for luxury brands.  

However, the sales reps build their presentations around the platform’s affordability and accessibility for non-profit and community events. In other words, the entire narrative shifts to cost-effectiveness and broad accessibility.

This dissonance may have big repercussions on business results, as the leads entering the pipeline expect a high-end, premium solution only to get pitched a low-cost solution.

Quick Steps You Can Take Today

To improve messaging consistency across all channels, touchpoints, and assets, consider taking action based on the elements presented above.

Let’s take them one by one:

Using the Same Terms

1. Map out the main keywords and terms your SaaS operates with. You can start with the product interface and website to identify the terms you’re using. Make a rigorous list and highlight the terms your teams are using interchangeably.  
2. Discuss these terms separately with each team (product, design, marketing, sales, customer support). Encourage people to fill out the list if keywords and terms are missing.
3. Highlight the discrepancies in term usage and identify the words that best fit your product, industry, and external stakeholders.
4. Create a manual of terms and socialize it among your teams. Ask people to stick to these terms exclusively.
5. Whenever new features are added, discuss first the best ways to name those and, subsequently, communicate your decision to your teams.
6. Create a translation guideline in case your SaaS operates in multiple languages.
   

Pro step: Hire an editor. Their professional oversight is crucial in maintaining messaging consistency. The editor will make sure the right terms are used throughout all assets.

Sharing the Same Semantics

1. Identify the concepts your teams, external stakeholders, and industries operate with. For example, if you’re in the events software industry, you can identify terms such as ‘hospitality events,’ ‘field events,’ ‘event marketing,’ ‘brand activation,’ ’clienteling,’ ‘event-led community,’ and more.
2. Make a list of all concepts relevant to your company.
3. Research and write down the right meaning of these concepts.
4. Assess the level of shared semantics among your teams. You can do that by organizing individual or team meetings to ask people to share their understanding regarding the concepts you’ve compiled.
5. Identify the discrepancies in semantics from team to team and evaluate how these inconsistencies affected their communication with external stakeholders. For example, you may find an article on ‘event marketing’ that explains this term correctly, while a web page uses this term to describe ‘event promotion,’ which is erroneous.
6. Fix those inconsistencies.
7. Create a manual of concepts and socialize it among your teams, ensuring a shared understanding of everything.
8. Encourage teams to highlight new concepts, discuss them, and agree upon a shared meaning.
   

Speaking With the Same Voice

Create and socialize a brand voice document. Here’s a quick sample:

1. Language and tone

• Use simple, concise sentences.
• Avoid jargon and complex vocabulary.
• Avoid overly promotional language.
• Keep the tone formal yet approachable.
• Do not use aggressive or overly assertive language.
• Be honest and transparent.
• Promote unique selling points wherever possible.
  

2. Writing guidelines

• Stick to one tense throughout your communication, asset, or message.
• Favor active voice to engage the reader.
• Use the second person (you, your) to address the reader directly.
• Break down complex information.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• Use descriptive headings and subheadings.
  

3. Brand-specific terms

• Always provide definitions for terms unique to the brand.
• Use the same terms across all channels and assets.
  

4. Voice adaptation for different channels

• Social media: More casual and engaging. Encourage interaction.
• Official communication: Clear and direct.
• Customer support: Always empathetic, understanding, and helpful.
  

5. Emotional tone

We want to evoke the following emotions:

• Confidence about the decision to choose our software: Share success stories and testimonials from previous customers. Highlight awards, certifications, or endorsements the product has received.
• Relief knowing that our software solves a specific problem: Clearly articulate how the software addresses specific pain points. Offer guarantees or free trials to lower the barrier to entry and alleviate purchase anxiety.
• Satisfaction with choosing the software: Highlight the ease of use and the quality of after-sales support. Share data or statistics showcasing high customer satisfaction rates or the effectiveness of the software.
  

6. Call to action

• Clear and Concise: Make CTAs straightforward and easy to find.
• Action-Oriented: Use verbs encouraging action (e.g., Discover, Join, Learn more).
  

This is just a sample.

Your brand voice document can include many other items relevant to your strategy.

Using the Same Style

Create and socialize your messaging style document. Here’s a quick sample:

• Standardize CTAs and their flow.
• Define styles for buttons, links, and hover effects.
• Maintain consistency in client logos.
• Use bullet points for clarity and to break down complex information.
• Stick to brand-specific fonts and color schemes.
• Use a consistent style and quality for all images.
• Prioritize information using size and color contrast.
• Standardize charts and graphs for data presentation.
• Use branded templates for all outgoing emails.
• Specify formats for PDFs, presentations, and reports.
• Standardize email signature blocks for all employees.
• Define usage for headings, subheadings, and body text.
• Create guidelines for spacing and margins in documents and web content.
  

This is just a quick list of items, as you may choose to organize this document differently.

Establishing a Unified Frame

1. Identify how you want to position your software—for example, developing high-end solutions for luxury brands.
2. Build a list of standardized messages that highlight your positioning.
3. Create a list of messages your teams should avoid, such as presenting your brand as cost-efficient or affordable.
4. Offer a reference document that includes all approved messaging, key narratives, and examples of what to avoid, making it easily accessible to all teams.
5. Conduct workshops or training sessions to ensure every team member understands and can apply the unified messaging frame.
   

Final note

Maintaining messaging consistency is an ongoing process. It’s not a set-and-forget task. On the contrary, it’s a living and breathing aspect of SaaS communication that requires active involvement from all teams.

What helps, though, is setting up clear guidelines and socializing among your teams. Also, it can be smart to organize recurring meetings to keep everyone aligned and discuss new terms, concepts, and perspectives of messaging.

Read the entire series on SaaS messaging:

• Understanding the Real Complexity of SaaS Messaging (part 1/6)
• The 4 Attributes You Must Consider for Great SaaS Messaging (part 2/6)
• How to Map Your Audience for Messaging Personalization (part 4/6)
• How to Maintain Continuity in Your Dialogue with Audiences (part 5/6)
• How to Ensure the Quality in Your SaaS Messaging (part 6/6)

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