AMA: BlueVine Sr. Director Product Marketing, Anna Wiggins on Messaging

Positioning is an internal exercise during which you define the unique value proposition for your product, how the product is differentiated from the competition, and where it sits relative to the competition/alternatives in consumer’s minds. Positioning is a building block for messaging. Messaging is customer-facing articulation of the product’s value proposition. Messaging is the building blocks of all customer-facing language whether it’s on your site, your pitch decks, or your ads. In general, explaining this to stakeholders will be two separate conversations. First, you’ll want to align your stakeholders on positioning, which should be anchored in customer, competition, and industry landscape insights. Once the positioning is locked, you can build your messaging and this conversation should be easier since you’ve already aligned on the positioning building blocks with the group.

I would say this depends on your roadmap and when the platform functionality is scheduled to launch. If you incorporate platform messaging too early, you can actually do more harm than good because your prospects will sign up for your product expecting a platform and instead will get a few basic features. If platform capabilities are launching soon, you may want to start incorporating this aspect into your messaging to gauge reactions. Alternatively, you may also want to hold this messaging back so you can make a memorable launch moment when you unveil the platform.

I find UserTesting to be a great tool for getting a quick directional read for how your messaging will perform with your target. I typically test for comprehension and emotional response or in other words did the target understand the product benefit and how they feel about it. Note that UserTesting will give you about 15 responses, so paid media may be a better bet if you are interested in testing messaging at scale. Also, if you have a customer advisory council or an early beta tester group, test your messaging with that audience as well. This group can give great feedback on whether your product actually delivers on the promise in your message.

I usually use qualitative insights in two ways: 1) uncover the “so-what” behind good messaging 2) test target response to messaging. Qualitative studies are a great quick way to understand customer or prospect behavior, needs, and pain points, which help you identify meaningful insights that will make customers pay attention to your message. However, since qualitative studies are not statistically significant, they should be reinforced with quant data or insights from your CS and sales teams. Qualitative studies are also a great quick way to gauge directional customer response to messaging. I described my approach in a different answer, but to sum up, I use UserTesting to evaluate if the target understands the message and how they feel about it e.g. confused, motivated, inspired, indifferent, etc. For example, in one of my previous roles we tested messaging full of marketing stats and got feedback that the message felt like a math equation. This was a clear call to simplify.

Please see my previous answer on messaging refreshes. In general, it will depend on the maturity of your product or changes to product functionality, competitor, and industry landscape. You'll want to plan for messaging updates as part of your annual Product Marketing/Marketing planning process and set expectations with your stakeholders on the frequency/cadence. 

There are a lot of messaging frameworks out there. If you are on the hunt for templates, check out April Dunford's website (Obviously Awesome is a must-read of Product Marketers) or the Product Marketing Alliance. In general, a messaging doc should be the single source of truth and act as the building block for any external-facing language used in your marketing. Also, it's likely that you won't always be there to walk folks through the document, so it should be as clear and self-explanatory as possible. With that in mind, I like to include the following in a messaging document: - Customer insights - Product details - Value proposition - Key messaging idea - Key benefits - RTBs - Dos and Don'ts (usually informed by your legal team)

This will depend on the maturity of the product. If your product and target audience don’t change very much, you can look at doing annual refreshes. However, if you are working on a growing product with evolving audiences or you’ve recently pivoted, you may need to tweak your messaging more frequently - even on a quarterly basis. You should set expectations with your stakeholders on your message refresh frequency as part of your annual product marketing plans. And of course, major changes in product functionality will typically kick off a messaging refresh, which should be incorporated in your overall GTM stakeholder alignment and execution plan. For approach, start evaluating if your positioning is still current. How has your product functionality evolved? What is the competitor landscape now? Are there any changes with your target audience? This will help you determine if you need to do a global messaging update or if you are more in the refresh territory. Next, check-in on your personas. Are there any recent customer insights that should be incorporated? For example, perhaps you learned that your personas really value benefit X over benefit Y, and this will kick off an update to your message hierarchy. Also, understand how your current messaging is performing. Take a look at your ads, prospect/customer engagement with your site, and any other touchpoints. If you haven’t done so already, test your messaging for comprehension and emotional response. This may help you uncover insights you can use for a refresh. Based on what you’ve learned, update your messaging, and I would recommend doing quick comprehension and emotional response tests along the way so you have an idea of how it will be received once you actually go to market.