AMA: Demandbase Director Product Marketing, Ruth Juni on Messaging

There are multiple ways to test messaging before launching a new product. One way is to do qualitative message testing with focus groups or in one-on-one interviews. You would create the various messages you want to test and then use the focus groups or interviews to get feedback on the messages. This is great to use if you have multiple messages you want to test. By using focus groups or interviews, you get message feedback quickly which allows you to narrow down to maybe the top 2-3 that you c ...Read More

I think the key to keeping at pace with the needs of the company while maintaining consistency is to have brand messaging that is aligned to your unique value propositions (UVPs). Then you can run integrated campaigns throughout the year that support each of those UVPs. This ensures you stay consistent with the agreed-to brand messages while still creating new campaigns that refresh every few months. You can see which campaigns resonate the best and continue to refresh your campaigns with those ...Read More

Choosing the right channels to activate your audience when launching a new product depends on 1) your target audience 2) your budget 3) your goals. If you are launching a new product that you want to drive awareness on with new business, advertising is often used because it has broader reach. With Demandbase we use our own advertising because our B2B bidder can optimize for accounts. If you want to also market to your existing base, email is a great way to reach your target especially if they ar ...Read More

To build greater trust in AI/ML features of a product, I would focus on a couple of different aspects. The first is the quality and quantity of data being used to train your AI/ML models. People like to know that the data is ethically sourced and accurate. Usually quantity of data also helps to validate how well your AI/ML models work and how well it scales. Second, I would focus on expertise - this could be in terms of years developing and training the AI/ML or in terms of data scientists who a ...Read More

I find it's easiest to start with a messaging framework because that helps you organize your thoughts around the target, benefit promise and key reasons to believe. From there it's an iterative process to create, get feedback, and refine your messaging. It's also best to keep the customer in mind so that you write more about the benefits with features as the key support points. It's far too easy to write using the product features as the message and this is often the mistake of B2B companies. Pe ...Read More

For competitive intelligence, I use several sources: Competitor's website YouTube Past customers Review sites Analyst reports I look at how they position their products and portfolio and compare that to our products and positioning. I try to see where our product features may differ and where we differentiate. I also try to build out feature comparison charts so we can see exactly where there are gaps between our offerings. Typically I will build out a competitive deck which includes objection h ...Read More

One of the more challenging areas when it comes to writing messaging is consolidating the research and trying to make sense of all the information you have. I find it useful to collect my data in a working document to make it easier to reference as I start to write my messaging. The first step I'll take is to review all of the data and information I have to see what common threads I can pull. Are there specific pain points I want to address? I'll often start by thinking about the pain and the as ...Read More

When it comes to creating aligned messaging, I typically like to start with a framework for creating what I call the foundational messaging. I start with understanding the pain points and how we solve those pain points. Based on that, I then think about what the core messages are that I want to get across. What are the key reasons to believe and proof points? I actually spend a good chunk of time on the core message and benefits since it's important to get that correct.  Once those areas are nai ...Read More

I think the key to writing messaging for complex technology products boils down to understanding, in layman's terms, what pain point your product is solving and translating how the feature delivers the key benefit. This definitely requires peeling the onion in terms of the underlying pain point you're solving. For example, we have a predictive analytics feature that leverages various inputs to produce a score that helps users understand the likelihood an account will turn into an opportunity. Ha ...Read More

I recently ran into this issue when creating messaging for a new product page for our website. We had multiple stakeholders that weighed in on messaging and it definitely made the process take longer. I think there are a couple of ways to address this: Identify the driver and ultimate approver. If everyone is aligned to their roles, then as the driver, you can take their feedback into account and accept or reject it as you see fit. In my example, I was the driver and knew the product best so whi ...Read More

For product messaging, I tend to prioritize and focus on the benefit promise that the product delivers and the key benefits and features that support that benefit promise. If I try to also account for the brand message, it makes the product message less specific and less impactful. You may lose out on communicating the exact pain the product solves for as well. Where I do take into account the company and brand promise is in the communication of the 'why' (e.g. why now) as well as in actual mess ...Read More

I always try to lead with customer benefit messaging and use feature messaging as support points. I've seen negative feedback from prospects who feel that companies always sell their solutions before they understand a customer's pain point. That's because prospects often come to your website with a pain they are trying to solve and starting with feature messaging doesn't necessarily help them understand how that feature would help. By starting with benefit messaging, and then supporting those me ...Read More

Having worked for a consumer packaged goods company at the start of my career to now working for a tech company, I have seen my share of B2C and B2B messages. In terms of common themes I've seen, I'd say time savings, productivity and convenience are common ones that can easily apply to either segment. It's often easier to write messaging for the B2C segment since you are a consumer at heart so it's easier to understand what benefits and messages will resonate for you. Additionally, B2C messagin ...Read More

Sometimes technical jargon is hard to boil down and can actually serve as proof points in your message. If that's the case, you can keep some of the technical jargon but make sure to add language around the benefit so readers can understand why it matters. For example, we speak a lot about intent at Demandbase. We say, "Get up-to-date in-market signals from over 375,000 intent keywords — reliable signals show product and competitive interests." The technical aspects are what differentiate your p ...Read More

When you're crafting new messaging, it's always good to start from a framework that includes your benefit and positioning but also answers the question of why now. Substantiating the new messaging with statistics and key proof points also reinforces the strategy behind the change since there are external facts that support it. I also find it's important to walk through the framework with your brand and/or PR teams vs. just throwing it over so you can have a meaningful discussion about the messag ...Read More