AMA: Adobe Sr Director of Product Marketing, Creative Cloud, Katharine Gregorio on Messaging

The tried and true umbrella message with 3 pillars and proof points (sometimes 4 but only occasionally!) is what I use to drive buy in with executives. When I do this I also use it to drive messaging hierarchy. However when I need to work with partner teams to bring this messaging to life I turn this framework into a longer written form messaging doc that uses language that could show up in a blog or press release as the framework often has to be quite pithy. If needed I also will turn the copy ...Read More

This is one of the most important (and most common) questions so thanks for asking it! At the simplest - positioning is an articulation of what your company or product offers a target audience that differentiates it in the market it plays and is internal language while messaging brings this positioning to life in a compelling way that will (hopefully) make your target take a specific action. So they're both important. Here's a bit more detail on how positioning and messaging differ/build on one ...Read More

Let's zoom out a little first. I'd encourage you to first answer two questions before writing anything, especially sales enablement: Who is it for? What is the goal of the asset you are creating? Once you answer these two questions then you want to write to support the action you are trying to get the target audience to take. So for example in this instance, without knowing your specific answers I'd think about Audience - is this for prospects or current users Goal - is this to drive new busines ...Read More

This is a really interesting question and one that I anticipate will change quickly as AI tools evolve in their capabilities and become more mainstream. I have not used any LLMs specifically to create messaging from scratch, but I have used LLMs to help me explore different tones of a certain message or to help me come up with a couple of options of ways to turn a phrase that I then go test with users. I also have some ideas of how to use genAI creative tools to help me put messaging easily into ...Read More

Just because an audience is technical doesn't mean the messaging needs to be boring. The core way to approach messaging is to understand as much as you can about your target - where they spend their time, what resonates with them, etc. Once you have these insights and also have the positioning for your company or product you can then test your way into the messaging that will resonate the most by creating several iterations of the messaging and testing it with current or target users. You may (a ...Read More

Perhaps implicit in this question is one of my philosophies that a PMM should be customer obsessed and competitor aware. What I mean by this is that we as PMM should really understand our target user and deliver on what they want. We obviously do this in a competitive landscape but if you take your focal point off the target user and spend too much time on competition it will just simply not be as productive. To ensure your messaging is differentiation starts with your positioning - getting this ...Read More

The answer here is going to have to be it depends for your unique situation and company what will work best. Here are a couple of things that I have set up at various companies I have worked at that have helped ensure consistency, alignment and ROI on messaging in market: PMM gives examples PMM creates a positioning and messaging doc with the written language and shares a GTM strategy BUT also gives examples of how this messaging can/should come to life on a landing page, in ads and tests this w ...Read More