AMA: Lattice VP Product Marketing, Emi Hofmeister on Storytelling

A common mistake I see when shaping a new narrative is failing to involve sales or other customer-facing teams in the process. The best narratives I've developed across my career have been directly influenced by top sellers and account managers within the company. And while deep customer insight is core to product marketing, there's simply no way we can replicate the experience of our colleagues that talk -- and pitch -- to buyers daily. The risk of not including sales is that you will spend a t ...Read More

The outputs from a great story or narrative can take many forms, including a pitch deck (probably the most classic form), a keynote, customer story or use case, even web pages! My recommendation is not to fixate on the number or even the style of value propositions, but rather the resonance of the story or statement for your target audience. For example: If you're launching a new or category defining product to the market, help your audience by defining clear and specific use cases for when and ...Read More

Typically, the best strategy to align the organization is to lean into data. When defining -- and agreeing on -- what makes you different from the competition, here are a few tactics to deploy: Identify key value drivers: Often done via survey research, identifying and aligning on features and capabilities that create value for buyers and users is incredibly helpful. You can use this insight to align product and sales teams on the "must have" features, including requirements to meet or exceed cu ...Read More

To craft any messaging, I recommend always starting with the customer and defining specific value your product delivers. Depending on how technical your customer is, you can either lean into the specifics of what makes your product special or zoom out to focus on expected results. For example, a more technical audience may get excited about some of the specific inputs into your algorithm, or critical milestones achieved across the past decade. Whereas a less technical audience will want to ensur ...Read More

If you have 15 seconds, then I have to assume you're referring to creating differentiated messaging for a video ad. In this case, I would consider the medium and the channels you're using to promote. If the medium is video and channels are third-party, then this is most likely an awareness play. You don't necessarily need to differentiate, you need people to know that you exist and what you do. If the medium is video and the channel is owned (e.g. your website or social channels), then you can a ...Read More

To measure the effectiveness of a story, start with clear objectives. Below are a few common scenarios that require storytelling and associated objectives and metrics. Messaging Alignment Objective: Ensure consistency in messaging across sales, marketing, and the executive team. Metrics: Rep adoption (% certified on narrative, # of deck downloads), company adoption. Product Launch Objective: Accelerate sales of a product or package. Metrics: Total pipeline, win rate, # of deals closed Reposition ...Read More

Customer stories are an effective mode of storytelling, and help prospects imagine the type of success they might experience with your product or platform. If you can't use customer names or logos, here are a few tips to build trust and resonance with your audience: Contextualize the story: Provide sufficient detail to help your prospect relate to the story. Offer the industry, company size, and relevant details about the customer. You may also want to share who you worked with. For example, "We ...Read More