Avoiding the pitfalls of outcome-based messaging

There’s a moment in every startup’s lifecycle where an urgency to sell business outcomes arises.

It’s often when the company starts landing larger clients, with multiple executives in the buying group. Macroeconomic events can trigger this as well.

Company leaders start demanding to see words like “profit” and “revenue” all over your messaging. It feels like all that customer research you did is at risk of being thrown out of the window.

Outcome-based messaging is a strategy designed to convince the buyer that your software will pay back to their business—not necessarily in monetary terms, but often that’s the message.

Selling positive outcomes is an essential part of going “upmarket”.

But fixating on KPIs and financials can put the heart and soul of your product at risk—and confuse buyers as to what your product actually does.

In this article, I’ll explain the pitfalls of outcome-based messaging, how to avoid them, and how to articulate value without losing sight of your customers' pain.

Where outcome-based messaging can go wrong

There’s an old adage that “people buy results, not products”. I once worked at a company where the CEO loved this concept so much, he wanted to declare that we were an “Outcomes-as-a-Service” (OaaS) business.

But an obsession with business outcomes threatens to undermine what PMMs are there for—to understand the humans who buy our product, and how exactly it makes their lives easier.

Here are some of the ways I’ve seen outcome-based messaging go awry.

Generic “bottom line” value propositions

When your messaging becomes all about “increasing revenue” and “reducing costs”, you sound awfully like every other enterprise software company.

Any company can make these claims—but it’s difficult to turn them into trustworthy, provable differentiators. By focusing on what you think matters to the executive buyer at the expense of what makes your product unique and special, you actually lose your competitive edge—and confuse your buyers.

Persona misalignment

Over-indexing on the executive buyer also shows a naivety about the various characters in the buying group.

The executive buyer is usually not the person who finds your product, evaluates it, or decides that it’s better than other products on the market. Their approval is critical, but your “champion” is the one driving the purchase. They are usually not thinking about value in the same way as an executive.

Ignoring emotional or political factors

Buying is an emotional decision. And the problem with focusing so heavily on business outcomes is it can be overly scientific and quite dry.

Yes, your buyer has targets and KPIs to measure—but pain hides in different pockets. Career politics, stress, and fear of failure are the types of things that really motivate people to buy in the B2B space. If you focus too much on business outcomes and ROI, hard-hitting psychological hooks can be lost. It’s almost as if we forget that C-level executives are also just people.

Setting unreasonable ROI expectations

Another risk is that when your messaging is all about outcomes, you damn well better deliver them—fast.

Part of the problem with leaning into high-level metrics like company revenue is that it can be difficult to measure the impact there. I’ve seen brands actually play down valuable outcomes their product delivers—like making a specific process faster or easier—because they don’t think those outcomes will resonate with a CFO.

This can attract the wrong type of customer, leading to churn issues later down the line.

Outcome-based messaging starts with customer research

Before you turn your messaging into a KPI casserole, take a step back and put customer research at the forefront of your strategy.

A well-crafted message isn’t just about saying the right thing; it’s about saying the right thing to the right people at the right time. That means talking to actual users and decision-makers to understand how they describe their pain points and the results they expect.

Some ways to ensure your messaging stays grounded in reality:

• Listen to sales and customer success calls. Pay attention to how customers talk about their challenges and goals.
• Conduct win/loss interviews. Find out why customers really buy—or why they don’t.
• Capture real customer snippets. Direct quotes, case studies, and even video/audio clips of customers can validate your messaging in ways that marketing copy alone cannot.

When you ground your messaging in real customer language, it resonates better with both executives and end users—without sacrificing accuracy or authenticity.

Match your messaging to stages of the buyer journey

The impact of your messaging depends not just on what you say, but when you say it.

Executives care about ROI, but they often don’t enter the conversation until later. In the early stages of a buying journey, your champion—the person researching and advocating for your product—cares more about the specifics of how your product works and why it’s better than alternatives.

Here’s how to tailor your messaging at different stages:

• Awareness. Focus on problem awareness and the pain points your product solves.
• Consideration. Highlight product capabilities and differentiators in a way that aligns with what the buyer cares about.
• Decision. Reinforce business outcomes with data, case studies, and ROI narratives—but keep them specific and credible.

This approach ensures that each persona in the buying process gets the information they need without overloading them with executive-level messaging too soon.

Make it clear how your product delivers value

Vague claims like "increase efficiency" or "reduce costs" won’t cut it. Buyers need to understand how your product achieves these outcomes.

Legacy enterprise software companies are big offenders here—their websites tout C-level outcomes, but it’s often difficult to see what their product actually does. This is counterproductive for a smaller and less established SaaS company.

Instead of high-level statements, connect outcomes to product features in a way that’s tangible:

• Feature → Benefit → Business Outcome. Clearly link what your product does to why it matters. Using numbers, like saying “reduce manual work by 40%”, is fine—but make sure people understand how exactly the product slashes the burden of administrative tasks.
• Achieve {something} by doing {something}. I like this concept. Use the active voice and then add a clause with “by…” that explains how the customer uses your software to reach the outcome.
• Showcase customer results. Use case studies and testimonials to validate your claims.

By making it clear how your product drives results, you avoid the pitfall of outcome-based messaging that sounds impressive but lacks credibility.

Keep some emotion and creativity in your content

We sometimes forget that C-level executives are also human beings. Messaging towards them doesn’t have to be dry.

The best B2B brands tap into emotion—not just numbers. Why? Because even in a business context, people make decisions based on how they feel just as much as cold logic.

Some ways to keep your messaging engaging:

• Tell compelling stories. Show how customers’ lives improved, not just their business metrics.
• Use vivid language. Avoid generic phrases—describe transformations in a way that’s memorable.
• Be conversational. This is a simple hack, but just speak your messaging out loud and see if it sounds natural. You can still highlight business outcomes without being overly scientific.
• Lean into psychology. Fear of failure, career growth, and confidence in decision-making all play a role in purchasing decisions.

Executives don’t just care about financial returns—they care about making the right decision and avoiding risks. The more you speak to those emotional drivers, the more persuasive your messaging will be.

Don’t forget to differentiate

The problem with anchoring your messaging around KPIs is also that all your competitors are doing it as well.

Your product’s uniqueness should still be the anchor of your messaging. Here’s how to maintain differentiation while selling outcomes:

• Tie outcomes directly to your differentiators. If your competitors claim the same business results, how does your product get there differently?
• Avoid generic executive jargon. Saying you "increase operational efficiency" means little unless you explain how.
• Use language your competitors won’t. If everyone is saying "maximize ROI," find a fresher, clearer way to articulate your value.

At the end of the day, outcome-based messaging should be an extension of your product story—not a replacement for it.