AMA: Brex Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Aliza Edelstein on Messaging

I see three parts to driving alignment, both with execs and among all other stakeholders: First, bring them along for the journey. Messaging cannot be done in a silo, and it’s difficult to properly adopt if not everybody feels bought in. Interview your execs and stakeholders to learn their perspective, where they feel the company or product is differentiated, what customer pain it solves, what benefits it delivers. The answers will vary and will be meaningful inputs as you craft and test your me ...Read More

At a high level, for product messaging, you should have these things: Elevator Pitch Unique Value Proposition Competitive Positioning Supporting Proof Points For persona messaging, add: Buyer Personas/Ideal Customer Profiles Top Use Cases For Elevator Pitches, I like to structure them as follows (you can massage these so they don’t feel too rigid, but this is the gist of how you set up the story): Challenge Solution Benefit For the Unique Value Proposition*, I like to structure them as follows" ...Read More

The key to keeping messaging initiatives on track is to ensure internal stakeholders are bought in and represented throughout the process. In addition to making sure they feel heard, your messaging, launches, and campaigns will be better with their input because they bring different perspectives to the table, and diversity of thought does two wonderful things: Helps you see things differently Surfaces blindspots in your thinking In terms of specific questions, for a messaging initiative for exam ...Read More

I see three prongs to creating good messaging: understanding the customer, understanding the market, and understanding the product. I’d recommend the following to coach a new product marketer: Listen to customers. Join sales calls, set up new calls, listen to recordings, or read transcripts. Learn their pain points and listen to how they speak. Know the market. Understand what competitors offer and how they’re positioning it. Read their websites, search for them on Google to see their SEM ad cop ...Read More

Oh, this is a fun question! The best successes, for me, have been when our metrics have improved as a direct result of the messaging (which you can determine through testing and isolating the variables to just the messaging. Two successes stand out to me: At SurveyMonkey, I had the privilege of working on corporate messaging that tied together our self-serve product and our eight B2B products in one cohesive, overarching narrative. When we tested the new messaging, we saw a statistical performan ...Read More

There are many points in a company’s lifecycle when messaging and positioning should be reassessed—such as product launches, rebranding, or when you’re getting consistent feedback from customers or prospects (or other customer-facing teams like sales and support) that things are unclear. Repositioning is often linked to a rebranding moment or major product launch, but not always.For repositioning a mature-market leading company, first be sure to identify the goal. Is it to develop a cohesive ove ...Read More

I view the competition as a distraction. Depending on your company’s space, new competitors will pop up every day, or existing ones will launch something new that surprises you. As a PMM, it’s your job to know about this—and if you have a lean team, I recommend you closely partner with Sales Enablement, or User Research, or Product, or some team that does have the bandwidth to always keep their ear to the ground and inform you. My advice is to identify your top competitors and be sure to get agr ...Read More

I recommend creating an internal glossary for your company so everyone shares the same understanding. Here's how I think about it: Features - Specific functionality of a product. Core differentiators - What are the 3-5 unique capabilities you have that separate you from the competition? What are you better at? Solution - What problem do you help your target customer solve? A solution completes the sentence: “We help you…” Benefit - What overarching benefit do you deliver for your target customer ...Read More