A messaging playbook for software that replaces the clipboard
CLIENT
Caddy
INDUSTRY
B2B SaaS (inventory & traceability for food manufacturers)
DELIVERABLE
Brand messaging strategy
PACKAGE
The client
Caddy helps small and mid-sized food manufacturers ditch paper forms and spreadsheets. It gives them real-time stock visibility and lets them trace every ingredient and lot from supplier to customer, which matters a lot when an audit or recall comes knocking.
The problem
Caddy's buyers are owners and operations leads at food companies with 5 to 50 employees. They're pragmatic, busy, and not looking for "digital transformation." Most don't even know there's software built for companies their size. Talking to them like enterprise buyers, or scaring them with compliance horror stories, would lose them fast.
Caddy brought me in for a short project: a messaging strategy to guide their emails and LinkedIn content, plus a first batch of emails and posts written from it. It drew on the team's own interviews with customers about why they finally switched.
WHAT I FIGURED OUT
Caddy isn't really selling software. As the strategy puts it:
"They're selling the transformation from chaos to order, from manual to automated, from uncertain to confident."
That made Caddy a Magician brand (transformation without complexity) with a touch of Sage (practical, educational). Every other decision in the playbook follows from it.
The copy & why it works
AN ICP SHARP ENOUGH TO SAY NO
Snacks, supplements, plant-based, confectionery: yes. Meat, dairy, meal kits: no.
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It names the trigger events that make buyers ready (funding, a retail rollout, new leadership) and even what the ideal customer believes, such as "outcomes matter more than feature sets." Sales and marketing now aim at the same person.
VOICE GUIDELINES THAT PROTECT TRUST
No fear-based compliance messaging. Never dismiss the buyer's current process.
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These buyers already lose sleep over audits, so Caddy is the calm voice in the room, not another alarm. And they built their companies on clipboards. Mocking that loses them in one sentence.
A DIFFERENTIATOR BUYERS CAN REPEAT
The gap between spreadsheets and expensive enterprise ERPs.
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Far simpler than industry peers, compliance built in, priced for SMB budgets, and operations and food safety on one platform. Each point is concrete enough for a buyer to say to their business partner.
COPY THAT SPEAKS THE BUYER'S LANGUAGE
Industry terms: FIFO, FEFO, lot codes, and more.
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Food manufacturers use these terms every day. The glossary explains each one, so anyone writing for Caddy uses them correctly and sounds like an insider, not an outsider guessing.
What Caddy
walked away with...
One document that tells anyone writing for Caddy (marketers, salespeople, freelancers, AI tools) who they're talking to, what to say, and how to sound while saying it.