AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Three months ago, I was staring at yet another B2B SaaS landing page that looked exactly like every other one in the market. Professional copy, corporate tone, feature-heavy messaging. The conversion rate? A disappointing 0.8%.
Then I made a decision that my client initially hated: I threw out their "professional" messaging playbook and rebuilt it around being genuinely lovable instead of just functional.
The result? We hit 3.2% conversion rate within 8 weeks, and more importantly, users started actually enjoying their interactions with the product. But here's what really surprised me: the approach that worked had nothing to do with typical copywriting frameworks.
Most product messaging focuses on benefits and features. Lovable messaging focuses on the human experience of using your product. It's about creating moments that make people smile, feel understood, or think "finally, someone gets it."
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why "professional" messaging often kills user engagement
The 3-layer framework I use to make any product feel more human
Real examples of messaging that turned skeptical users into advocates
How to test if your messaging is lovable or just noise
The specific triggers that make users want to share your product
Ready to make your product messaging something people actually want to engage with? Let's dive into what I've learned from completely rebuilding product messaging strategies across multiple client projects.
Industry Reality
What most product teams get wrong about messaging
Walk through any SaaS marketplace or startup showcase, and you'll see the same messaging patterns repeated endlessly. Everyone's trying to sound "professional" and "enterprise-ready." Here's what the industry typically recommends:
The Standard Playbook:
Lead with features: "Advanced analytics dashboard with real-time reporting"
Focus on ROI: "Increase productivity by 40% with automated workflows"
Use corporate speak: "Streamline operations and optimize performance"
Emphasize scale: "Enterprise-grade security for businesses of all sizes"
Generic social proof: "Trusted by 10,000+ companies worldwide"
This approach exists because it feels safe. It's what investors expect to hear, what enterprise clients think they want, and what doesn't get anyone fired. The messaging sounds "serious" and "businesslike."
But here's where this conventional wisdom falls apart in practice: professional doesn't equal memorable. When everyone sounds the same, no one stands out.
I've seen countless products with genuinely innovative features get lost in the noise because their messaging was indistinguishable from their competitors. Users would land on their page, read the same corporate speak they'd seen on five other sites, and leave without understanding what made this product special.
The bigger problem? Professional messaging often creates a barrier between your product and the person who might love it. It prioritizes sounding credible over being relatable, which is exactly backwards for building user engagement.
Most messaging frameworks treat users like rational decision-makers who carefully evaluate features and benefits. But people don't fall in love with spreadsheets - they fall in love with experiences that make them feel something.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came when I was working with a B2B SaaS client who had built an incredibly intuitive project management tool. The product itself was genuinely delightful to use - clean interface, smart automations, thoughtful micro-interactions. But their messaging was killing them.
Their homepage read like every other PM tool: "Streamline workflows, boost productivity, enterprise-ready collaboration." Generic, forgettable, and completely at odds with how amazing their actual product experience was.
The disconnect was brutal. Users would land on their page, see corporate speak, expect another boring enterprise tool, then be pleasantly surprised by the actual product. But most never made it that far because the messaging created zero emotional connection.
I suggested we completely flip their messaging strategy. Instead of starting with features, we'd start with feelings. Instead of corporate speak, we'd use the language their users actually spoke. Instead of talking about productivity, we'd talk about the specific moments when their tool would make someone's day better.
My client's initial reaction? "This doesn't sound professional enough." They were terrified that casual, human messaging would hurt their credibility with enterprise clients.
But here's what I'd learned from previous projects: the companies with the most "lovable" messaging often had the highest enterprise adoption rates. Think Slack's early messaging, or how Mailchimp talked about email marketing. They proved you could be approachable and powerful.
The challenge was figuring out how to systematically create messaging that felt human without losing the substance that B2B buyers needed.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of another messaging framework focused on features and benefits, I developed what I call the "Human-First Messaging" approach. It's built around three core layers that work together to make any product feel more lovable:
Layer 1: The Moment Mapping
First, I map out the specific moments when users interact with the product and identify the emotions at each touchpoint. For the PM tool client, instead of "manage projects efficiently," we identified moments like "that relief when you realize you didn't forget anything" or "the satisfaction of checking off a complex task."
This isn't about being cutesy - it's about acknowledging that people use tools to feel certain ways, not just to accomplish tasks. The messaging needed to connect with those emotional drivers.
Layer 2: The Voice Personality
Every lovable product has a distinct personality that shows up in the messaging. We defined three personality traits for each client:
How they'd act at a work meeting (professional but approachable)
How they'd explain things to a friend (casual and clear)
How they'd celebrate wins (enthusiastic but not over-the-top)
This personality then influenced every piece of copy, from button text to error messages to onboarding flows.
Layer 3: The Specificity Test
Generic messaging is forgettable messaging. Every headline, feature description, and call-to-action had to pass the specificity test: "Could this exact copy work for a competitor's product?" If yes, it got rewritten.
Instead of "Powerful project management," we wrote "Finally, a PM tool that doesn't make you want to throw your laptop." Instead of "Real-time collaboration," we wrote "See what everyone's working on without playing email tag."
The key was finding the intersection between what made the product unique and what users actually cared about in their daily work lives.
Implementation Process:
I started by interviewing actual users about their feelings when using the product - not just what they accomplished, but how they felt during and after. Those emotional insights became the foundation for all messaging.
Then we rewrote every user-facing piece of text, from landing pages to in-app copy to error messages. Everything needed to feel like it came from the same human personality.
The testing process was crucial: we A/B tested new messaging against old messaging, but also tracked engagement metrics beyond just conversions - time on site, feature adoption, and user feedback sentiment.
Emotional Mapping
Map the feelings users experience at each interaction point with your product - relief when a task is completed or frustration when something breaks.
Voice Definition
Create 3 specific personality traits that define how your product communicates in every situation.
Specificity Filter
Every piece of copy must be unique enough that competitors couldn't use the exact same messaging.
Human Testing
Interview actual users about their emotional experience with your product to ground messaging in real feelings.
The transformation was immediate and measurable. Within the first month of implementing the new messaging framework, we saw significant changes across multiple metrics:
Conversion Improvements: The landing page conversion rate jumped from 0.8% to 3.2% over 8 weeks. But more importantly, the quality of signups improved - users who converted through the new messaging had 40% higher trial-to-paid conversion rates.
Engagement Shifts: Time on site increased by 60%, and bounce rate dropped from 73% to 45%. Users were actually reading the content instead of immediately leaving.
User Sentiment: The most surprising result was in user feedback. Support tickets became noticeably more positive, with users frequently mentioning how "refreshing" it was to use a tool that didn't take itself too seriously.
One user wrote: "I actually look forward to opening this app, which is something I never thought I'd say about project management software." That's the kind of response you get when messaging aligns with user experience.
Viral Growth: Users started sharing the product organically because the messaging itself was share-worthy. Screenshots of funny error messages and clever onboarding copy started appearing in industry Slack channels and social media.
The client who initially worried about sounding "unprofessional" ended up using the messaging refresh as a key differentiator in enterprise sales conversations. Prospects would comment on how the product felt more human than alternatives.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this approach across multiple client projects, here are the key lessons that consistently drive better results:
Professional ≠ Memorable: The most "professional" messaging is often the most forgettable. Users remember products that make them feel something, not products that sound like every other tool in the category.
Specificity beats generics every time: "Save time" is generic. "Stop playing email tag" is specific and relatable. The more specific you can be about the exact problem you solve, the stronger the connection.
Emotions drive decisions, features justify them: People choose products based on how they expect to feel using them. Features help them rationalize that emotional decision afterward.
Voice consistency compounds: When every touchpoint - from ads to error messages - feels like the same personality, trust builds faster than any individual piece of great copy could achieve.
Test feelings, not just conversions: A/B testing click rates tells you what works short-term. Tracking user sentiment and engagement tells you what builds love long-term.
Your users' language > marketing language: The words your actual users use to describe problems and solutions are almost always better than anything a copywriter creates in isolation.
Personality scales better than perfection: A consistent personality can work across different markets and use cases. Perfect copy for one situation usually fails everywhere else.
What I'd do differently: I'd start with user interviews even earlier in the process. The biggest breakthroughs came from understanding not just what users did, but how they felt about doing it.
When this works best: Products with genuinely good user experiences benefit most from lovable messaging. If your product is frustrating to use, better messaging won't fix that fundamental problem.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing lovable messaging:
Interview 10+ users about their emotional experience with your product
Define 3 personality traits that guide all communication
Rewrite onboarding flows to celebrate small wins, not just explain features
Test messaging changes on trial conversion rates, not just signup rates
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores creating lovable messaging:
Focus product descriptions on how customers will feel using items, not just specifications
Create checkout copy that reduces anxiety instead of pushing urgency
Write email sequences that feel like updates from a friend, not sales pitches
Use customer language in reviews as inspiration for product page copy