👨💻 WIIFM Doesn't Cut It In B2B Marketing: Meet FISGS
WIIFM is an outdated acronym
👨💻 WIIFM Doesn't Cut It In B2B Marketing: Meet FISGS
You probably know of WIIFM. It’s an acronym that means “what’s in it for me?”, and it’s been around for a long time. Marketers love it, talk about it. There are endless articles about it. But WIIFM wasn’t designed for B2B tech companies.
WIIFM is supposed to explain what someone gets, and some marketers claim it’s a question prospects at every buying stage asks themselves. WIIFM can come up when prospective clients hear a sales pitch, scan a website, marketing collateral, social channels, or attend your client-prospect dinner with partners (remember those?).
WIIFM is letting B2B marketers down, IMHO.
I was taught WIIFM years ago but frequently found it required explanation in a B2B biz setting and didn’t consider buyer motivations. Some call WIIFM a tactic. Others say it’s a concept, factor, or strategy. The shit gets confusing and leads to questions like:
I created an upgrade that works for B2B companies.
FISGS
FISGS means “fit in someone’s growth story.”
Instead of a question like WIIFM, FISGS is a direction. A very precise one.
This “principle” significantly aids brand storytelling in B2B because it adheres to benefits-based selling over feature-based selling. You can get practical with tangible benefits after you “hook” prospects emotionally. Selling on features is not:
You can turn FISGS into a question if needed.
Anytime you’re describing your company’s narrative, positioning, features, you should ask and answer the Q, “How does this fit in someone's growth story?”
How to apply FISGS
With clients in recent weeks, I've seen FISGS resonate more than WIIFM. It’s resonating because marketers see how it weaves in a value proposition and emotions through today’s nonlinear buyer journey. And emotions play a huge role in B2B buying decisions, as proven by a Google and CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council survey and countless others.
Apply FISGS when:
Writing case studies
Emailing prospects
Creating a sales deck
Announcing, promoting, and hosting a user summit
Debuting new features or a product suite
Speaking to analysts
The modern path to purchase is as complex as tech stacks. I feel leveraging — excuse me, using — FISGS for your particular customer’s decision journey will be a great jumping-off point for staff (especially content marketers) and will work at key interactions.
WIIFM does put a focus on customers, but it doesn’t use persuasion enough in marketing communication.
FISGS places buyer motivation, their emotions, as well as desired outcomes at the core of your external-facing communications and marketing strategy. Buyers want to know how what you offer will help them grow. Plain and simple. With FISGS, you get WIIFM benefits and a lot more.
I’m testing FISGS as an upgrade to WIIFM because of its weird ability to deliver explicit strategic direction to the user.
Hmm. Maybe I’ll conduct a survey of 250 unnamed marketers without mentioning job titles, then publish a biased report that supports my claim that FISGS works.
Oh, great. Now “I’m that guy” coining terms. Okay, well:
