Emma Stratton 👊

Punchy

Punchy is a consulting and training firm that helps fast-growing B2B tech companies win on positioning and messaging. 

Positioning & Messaging Strategy for when you want to:

-- Connect to what your prospects really care about
-- Differentiate from similar solutions and stand out
-- Align your team around a strategic story
-- Clarify your product’s unique value 
-- Create consistency for a growing team
-- Launch a new product
-- Go after new verticals or markets
-- Create a new category

Messaging Training for when you want to:

-- Raise the standard of messaging across your org
-- Give your team a consistent, repeatable process to count on
-- Build your team’s confidence in their own skills
-- Infuse new thinking and ideas into current messaging
-- Cut down the frustration of revisions and rewrites

Learn more at www.punchy.co

Founder

Shutterfly Inc.

Copy Director

FVM Strategic Communications

Creative Director for B2B marketing agency

Elmwood (Brand Consultancy)

Brand Strategist

Barker Brooks Communications

Senior Editor

Freelance

Freelance Travel Writer

Random House

Graphic Designer

Punchy is a consulting and training firm that helps the world's leading B2B tech companies win on positioning and messaging.

Our approach connects the dots between your tech and your prospect’s world so your company can tell a story that sticks, stand out in the crowd, and sell more.
 
Basically, we make it ridiculously easy for buyers to see why your solution matters.

And we can either do it for you, or we can train your team to do it themselves.

------------------------------------

Feel free to connect, follow, or get in touch 👊

-- Newsletter: https://www.punchy.co/newsletter
-- Website: https://www.punchy.co

Short copy looks so simple.

Tiny paragraphs, punchy lines, snappy headers, quirky calls to action.

Looks so easy, right?

But actually getting those few words on the page can feel almost impossible. 

Because underneath every short sentence is the incredibly long process of clarifying a message, balancing internal input, decoding technical details…

And fighting the temptation to say EVERYTHING all at once.

The secret behind “simple” sounding copy is a solid messaging process.

(Especially in B2B tech, where clarity is usually buried under 7 tons of jargon).

That’s why effective short copy doesn’t come from cutting words and making it “fit on the page.” 

It comes from sharpening your messaging skills, first 👊


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing


Apply for the upcoming October Punchy Messaging Cohort👇

Emma Stratton

Messaging for B2B tech | Author of Make It Punchy 📚

There has never been a time when I was struggling personally, but thriving professionally. Not once in all my years on this planet.

Because your energy IS your business.

If you’re drained, unfocused, scattered, chaotic, burnt out, whatever…so is your business. Every. Single. Time.

And when I grow personally, my business grows, too.

So if you think energy check-ins and self-care rituals are “woo,” that’s totally fair. But they’ve honestly been one of my most consistent success tools. 

I’ll keep the “woo,” because every time I think, “I need better results,” I check my energy, and I’m reminded of exactly what I need to do.

Practical self-care and personal growth is just smart business strategy  💛


#mindset #inspiration #motivation

There’s been a slight misconception about everyone’s favorite Punchy Messaging Training Exercise, Say It Like You Would at a BBQ.

Someone recently asked:

“Where or when does voice come into play when we’re working on messaging? I can imagine some clients may not want copy with a ‘BBQ flavour’ if it ‘doesn't align’ with their brand voice.”

Well, rest assured this whole “BBQ exercise” is definitely not about using a lot of slang, over-the-top personality, or risque jokes in your messaging or copy.

So don’t get the zippy honey-dijon out just yet…


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing

Brand voice: Part 1

25+ page Brand Voice docs are usually stuffed with so much information that they’re helpful to exactly…

No one 😅

Which is definitely not the goal.

The goal of Brand Voice Guidelines is to let anyone read them and get a good sense of what the written style of a company’s communications should sound like.

When Punchy works with companies who want Brand Voice guidelines to go with their messaging…

We do a super stripped-down alternative version to those bulky files to create a lightweight Brand Voice doc that packs a punch 👊


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing


P.s. Is your brand voice more Albert or more Taylor?

Brand voice: Part 2

Most teams don’t need brand-new messaging. They just need to say what they’re already saying…in a different order.

In the next That’s Punchy! newsletter, I’ll tell you about my simple framework that helps teams flip their messaging from what YOU think is great to what your customers actually care about.

I’ll go over:

👊 The flip that makes you *think* about messaging from a different perspective
👊 A messaging formula that makes your messaging easier to write
👊 A simple way you can try the framework out right away without actually writing anything new

If your message makes sense internally but still isn’t landing with your audience, you won’t want to miss this one.

Link in bio 🔗 


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing


Want to get better at messaging? Subscribe to my That’s Punchy! newsletter and get practical tips and techniques in your inbox every other week 🎉

This is how product-centric messaging feels sometimes. 

I mean, cool. You love your kickass tech (and I’m sure you have good reason to)…

But what am I supposed to do with that information?!

You can fix this by making the benefits, instead of the features, the star of the show.

So instead of proclaiming that YOU love lamp (😂)...

You give potential buyers a reason to love lamp, too 👊


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing

At Punchy, we’re not into big, bulky, stuffed-full-of-ALL-the-information Brand Voice Guidelines!

That’s because we know how to make them lightweight and easy for anyone to use 😉

Check out how we do exactly that 👇


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing


P.S.  This is Part 3 of 3 in the Brand Voice series. Part 1 and 2 are posted in the comments

Brand voice: Part 3

No one ever told me that business growth is tied directly to inner growth.

Before starting Punchy in 2017,I’d never felt the need to try anything like therapy, religion, or even yoga.

I thought I was “all good” in that area.

Then I quit my full-time job to become a freelance writer and plunged head-first into a bottomless well of fear. 

(My freelancers are all nodding along because they know exactly what I’m talking about 😅)

The fear eventually sent me looking for answers in 2019 because I’d looked within and found all kinds of junk: 

Deep limiting beliefs, a scarcity mindset, and an inner child (a wildly artistic one, I might add), who’d been shut down and ignored for decades.

Entrepreneurship has a way of uncovering these things about yourself. 

That was the moment I invested in mindset work, energetic support, and teachers who helped me reconnect with the real version of myself. 

The version who is creative, intuitive, and fully capable, by the way. Much to the dismay of pretty much everything society has ever told me.

Once I started clearing that mental clutter, the results in my business shifted fast.

Like, way beyond what I thought was possible. (Hitting 7-figures in 2022, after years of thinking I’d just “get by.”)

When you’re building something and it feels like you keep hitting a wall, give yourself some grace, because, maybe it’s not your strategy.

Maybe it’s your story.

And the good news is that stories can be rewritten 😉


#mindset #inspiration #motivation

Competing with the “big guys” can feel impossible when you’ve got a smaller team and budget.

But the fact that you aren’t a big company could actually be your best advantage.

In the next That’s Punchy! newsletter, I’ll show you how to create messaging that gives you an edge without needing endless resources or a giant team to pull it off.

I’ll show you how tiny teams can win over big businesses by being:

1. Selective
2. Real
3. Audience-focused

As always, I’ll give you before/after examples, but I’m also including quick “tiny team actions” you can put to use right away.

So make sure to subscribe with the link in my bio 🔗 

Because while the big brands grapple with jargon and complexity, this will show you to how stay sharp (and be unforgettable) 😉


#messaging #positioning  #copywriting #productmarketing


Want to get better at messaging? Subscribe to my That’s Punchy! newsletter and get practical tips and techniques in your inbox every other week 🎉

If your product helped cure cancer, you’d for sure come out and say that, right?

Honestly, maybe not. At least, not with the way we typically write B2B messaging.

In 2013, one of the first startups I worked with came to me with their impressive new platform and a message that promised “big data analytics” and “cloud storage.”

(In their defense, everyone had “cloud” in their messaging back then.)

But I couldn’t tell what the platform actually did from that description.

So when it was my turn at the whiteboard, after they diligently tried to explain what their tech did, I told them what I tell all my clients:

“Instead of explaining the tech, we need to translate what it could mean to your buyers.”

After 45 minutes of back-and-forth, we had these benefits:

1. Cloud storage meant doctors around the world could collaborate and make diagnoses and treatment plans waaaaay faster than ever before

2. Big data analytics meant their platform could detect cancers in digital images that were otherwise undetectable to the human eye on a slide under a microscope

In other words, they were quite literally helping to cure cancer. 

(And how many people can actually say that?!)

So next time you think you’ve nailed your messaging because you can convey down to the detail HOW it works…

Remember that your prospects only care about WHY they should care.

Even if you’re not curing cancer 👊


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing

“I haven’t written for a tech brand (yet)...” 🙂 

This review of Make It Punchy nails something important: B2B messaging doesn’t have to be cold, clinical, or crammed with features. When you lead with what your audience feels and needs, you write words that work.

I wrote this book with tech brands in mind, but as this post shows, the principles apply beyond that.

Thank you for the shoutout, Shiri Feldman 🙏  

When you do write for a tech brand, they’ll be lucky to have you 😉


#messaging #copywriting #productmarketing

Brand Copywriter | D2C Copywriting That Converts | Beauty, Wellness, Fashion & Food | Product Positioning, Product Marketing, Content Writing, Ghostwriting, & Social Content Creation + Management

I haven’t written for a tech brand (yet), but I’ve been loving this copywriting book by Emma Stratton. Her whole philosophy is about writing in the customer’s words, leading with how a product makes someone feel and improves their life, instead of just rattling off features. 

She wrote it with B2B tech brands in mind, but honestly, every copywriter could learn a lot from it.

What are your top copywriting book recs? 

#copywriting #summerreading #reading #writer #copywriter #makeitpunchy #copywritingtips #book #bookrec

You know what's hard?

Getting a whole team to agree on what your product does and the message everyone needs to be sharing about it (from leadership, to marketing, to sales) 😅

That’s honestly why I started offering Punchy Messaging Training for individuals.

I want marketers to have support and access to the tools and language that aligns teams and execs to the right messaging.

(Without the endless back-and-forth rewrites and the “let’s just add this one more thing”-ing that slows the whole thing down 😵‍💫)

Because that’s how your message actually gets heard in the market.

Come for the...

- Live sessions
- Proven frameworks
- And tools your team will love

Stay for the... 

- Private 1:1
- Lifetime access
- And supportive community of peers

My October Punchy Messaging cohort still has a few spaces left! 

Apply using the link in the comments 🎉


#messaging #positioning #storytelling #copywriting

Messaging is one of those tricky crafts where you're expected to just know how to do it, especially in B2B tech. 

But as this review points out, even experienced PMMs and marketers can feel like they’re winging it when it comes down to the actual writing.

My aim with Make It Punchy is to give people real-world frameworks that make messaging less mystical and more doable.

Thank you for the generous shoutout, Sasha Hartley 🙌

Global Lead, Product Marketing - Retail @ Lightspeed Commerce | Driving Retail Product Strategies

Make it Punchy by Emma Stratton was the best messaging book i've read in years! 

As a PMM and just as a marketer i've often had to also be a copywriter and it's an area that I always feel like I could improve, especially when it comes to the tech and digital space - how to write compelling messages in a B2B context. 

Emma provides great frameworks that are easy to apply and follow and even as someone who has spent a lot of time working on upleveling my messaging skills before reading this, I still took a lot away from it. 

If you're working on messaging and positioning this book will be incredibly valuable.

If you’ve already read Make It Punchy (thank you, by the way 🙏) and now you’re wondering if the course is worth it, let me give you the long and short answers:

Short answer: Yes. Totally worth it 😉

Long answer: The book gives you the mindset, but the course gives you the muscle 💪

My October cohort is enrolling now, where you’ll:

✅  Workshop your actual messaging in real time
✅  Write your own copy in live coworking sessions
✅  Get 1-1 feedback from me and a community of peers

Basically, this is your B2B messaging bootcamp and I’d love to see you there.

Save your seat at the link in the comments.

Make It Punchy pre-reading optional 🙂 


#messaging #positioning #copywriting #productmarketing

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