How to talk to more than one target audience without diluting your message

Very few B2B businesses have just one audience. You might sell to a finance director and an operations manager, to a small firm and a large one, or across divisions that look like separate companies from the outside.

The usual response is one of two things. Either one careful message that tries to suit everyone, or a different message for each audience, which ends up sounding like several businesses that aren’t related. There’s a better way.

Why one message for everyone fails

A message written for everyone isn’t written for anyone in particular.

When you try to cover every audience in the same words, you’re left with the parts they have in common, which are usually the least interesting parts. “Quality service, an experienced team, tailored to you.” True for every audience and persuasive to none of them.

The opposite is just as risky. Split everything by audience and every page, post and deck needs three versions. The work triples, and your brand starts to sound like three companies.

Map who you’re talking to

Start by writing down each audience and what’s actually going on for them.

For each audience, answer three questions:

• What makes them start looking? The trigger, in their words.
• What are they stuck on? The thing that’s in their way right now.
• What do you do about it? Your answer, specific to them.

Use their words, not yours. Sales calls, reviews, enquiry forms and the questions people ask before they buy will tell you more than a persona template will. Write for those people, not for keywords. Content built on what you believe and what each audience struggles with stands out in search and in AI answers. Content built on keywords sounds like everyone else’s.

You’ll often find your audiences differ less in what they want than in what’s in their way. Businesses in different sectors usually have the same problem, just showing up in a different form. When that’s true, lead with what you fix, and let the sector be the example rather than the message.

Almost every B2B business we work with has more than one service and more than one audience. Mapping them is the easy part. The real decision is which comes first, and that depends on what each audience is worth to the business and which kind of work you want more of. That changes as the business grows, so the order needs revisiting, not just setting once.

One core message, different proof

Keep one message for the business. Change the proof for each audience.

Your core message sits underneath everything: who you are, what you do and why someone should choose you, set out as a small number of value pillars. That doesn’t change from one audience to the next.

What changes is the proof. A finance director wants to see cost and risk. An operations manager wants to see how it works on a Monday morning. Same pillar, different evidence, different opening line.

That’s the difference between flexing and diluting. Flexing keeps the core and swaps the example. Diluting changes the core to suit whoever happens to be reading. Keeping the core the same is also how you’re trusted. When everything looks considered and says the same thing, each audience sees the same business, just from their side of it.

Where each audience meets you

Decide where each audience lands first, and make that place speak to them.

Not every page has to speak to everyone. A simple way to split it:

• The homepage carries the core message and helps each audience find their way in.
• Service or division pages speak to one audience each, opening with that audience’s trigger.
• Case studies are picked to match the audience reading them.
• Sales decks get one slide per audience, not a separate deck for each.

The test is simple. If someone from one audience lands on the page meant for them, do they recognise their problem in the first line?

Example: three divisions, three voices

Bis Henderson had three audiences and one voice. The website was talking to all of them at once.

Bis Henderson has been placing supply chain talent for more than thirty years, across three divisions: executive search, permanent and interim. On their old website, an executive search client, a hiring manager filling a mid-level role and a business stuck on IR35 all landed on the same words.

In the strategy workshop we mapped each one on the wall:

• Executive search. Trigger: looking for a strategic partner. Stuck on: getting in front of the right senior people. Answer: a confidential, exclusive headhunt, with candidate packs and market insight.
• Permanent. Trigger: needing to fill mid-management roles. Stuck on: getting in front of the right people. Answer: you don’t pay until they join.
• Interim. Trigger: needing a contractor. Stuck on: not understanding IR35. Answer: help to understand the real cost and the rules.

The core message stayed the same across all three: hiring mistakes cost more than money, and Bis Henderson solves business problems through the people it places. What changed was the first thing each audience sees.

Each division got its own sub-brand colour, so you know which part of the business you’re in before you’ve read a word. And the IR35 sticky note became a section of the interim page that answers the objection before anyone has to pick up the phone.

One brand, three conversations, and none of them diluted.

Three steps to get it done

Core message first, audiences second, proof and placement third.

1. Agree your core message. Set the audiences aside and decide what the business stands for and why someone should choose it. Write it as value pillars with proof.
2. Map each audience. Trigger, what they’re stuck on, and your answer, in their words. Then put them in order: which audience is worth most to you, and which do you want more of?
3. Match the proof and the place. Pick the evidence each audience needs, and decide where they’ll meet it first.

You can test where you stand on all three with four free brand positioning tests. If you’d rather do it with your team in one room and leave with it agreed, that’s what our brand strategy workshop is for.