Too often B2B messaging is done in a vacuum or after listing to a few sales calls. B2C marketers spend far more on early-stage customer research and end up with more effective messaging overall. What would help B2B product marketers secure budgets for true customer research to inform their messaging too?

This is a really good question and a real pain point.

My recommendation is to form a Customer Advisory Board (exec level) and a Product Advisory Board (power users) who you can run messaging past and form a long-term, trusted relationship with. It will cost some money to convene the groups 1-2x per year, but in addition to giving feedback on messaging, they can also give input on product features and overall corporate strategy. Well worth the investment.

For more scale, are also lower cost platforms, like User Testing and others, that can help you conduct some of this message testing online.