How do you adjust messaging when scaling upmarket without alienating an existing SMB customer base?

Great question and not an easy one. There’s a difference between saying, “let’s shift messaging to go upmarket but retain and continue to build for our core SMB base” versus “let’s shift messaging and resources to go all in on upmarket, even if that means neglecting SMB.”

If it’s the former, it’s much easier to do because you can shift all your prospect messaging upmarket but continue to engage and speak to your SMB base as you have been. And you’ll still have a product ladder or offerings that meet the needs of your SMB and so you can effectively segment and tailor messaging. For example, SMB ads can go to SMB landing experiences and upmarket targets can have their own messaging funnel. If that level of segmentation isn’t possible, and you can only advertise to upmarket, having a visible escape hatch or way to identify SMB is crucial so you can carve those folks off to their own tailored messaging area, even if that is secondary or on a separate page.

I’d also focus on ensuring your 100% aligned internally with regards to the conversion expectations of your tailored messaging. If you go fully upmarket in your messaging, are internal stakeholders comfortable losing your SMB conversions? Or is there a threshold you need to maintain in which case you’d want to test your upmarket messaging with SMBs to ensure it’s not too alienating.

We are actively thinking through this at Loom and it's not easy! It;s is about creating channels/spaces for the different audiences and making it easy for each audience to read what is relevant to them. So, for example, you could have different sections on your website for SMBs and Enterprise buyers - focusing on the different problems they have, or things they care about. You should try to have these audiences segmented in your database for email marketing.

As far as your homepage goes, going with the most universal language up top, and then perhaps having a section below the fold that links to a more specific Enterprise page, where you can focus on messages that these buyers care about like security or admin features. 

This is where segmented messaging becomes important. You can't just assume you can apply the same messaging to different audiences. For example, in your messaging briefs, you should be break down each target audience: what are their main pain points/needs, what is the positioning+key messaging, what are the reasons to believe. Work with your channel team to determine which messaging shows up where on your properties (based on which channels are targeted to which segments)

While I’m not an expert on this topic, our team is in the midst of doing just that. One of the biggest levers we have is our portfolio of plans and some of our hypotheses are the following:

-create a new up market plan

-re position a core plan

-down position or create a more simpler plan with a different (more lean) sales and service offering that is more fit for the SMB crowd (self-serve perhaps?)

My guess is that as you move the core product up market there are likely features or “extenseness” of features that your smb cuatomers really don’t need, so if you go back and talk to them you may find that it is actually quite simple to carve off an offering that is in fact more targeted at them. Just don’t forget to think about the margin and thus the sales and service model.

When you work generic messaging in non targetable channels channels you have to think through the key benefits of each of these plans vs the needs of those customers and find the right mix to attract both sets of customers.

One thing ive seen a few companies do is actually name the product for SMBs differently (look at infusionsoft here), but I think that is a comexity that most companies don’t want to take on.

Hope this at least gives some ideas!