AMA: Shopify Director, Revenue & Product Marketing, Kevin MacGillivray on Messaging

We leverage internal tools to store and organize messaging frameworks (and all other marketing assets). Once messaging is fully documented and approved we upload it into tools like Google Drive or Seismic. Defaulting to open internally is important so your peers and partners can easily access. In an ideal world you have a fairly uniform and consistent format you use across all your products/product areas for easy consumption. It is also important to monitor regularly and ensure that there remains only a single source of truth. Sometimes as teams start leveraging documents, version control can become a problem. Make sure you keep your source of truth up to date or usage/trust may falter.

There are many different ways to test the success of messaging. A few common best practices include: * A/B testing different messaging - this can be done in product, via email communications, or even on different versions of a product landing page * Talking to your customers directly - focus groups and 1:1 interviews can often be a great way to get more detailed feedback on whether you are saying what you think you are. Recently I have started leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT to pressure test whether the messaging we have out in the wild across multiple surfaces is accurate. Start with a simple prompt like "What are the top 3 value propositions of Product X"? If the response you get is aligned with your framework - great! If not, you might need to dig into why there is misalignment and where it is stemming from.

My product marketing team is currently organized in a hybrid manner: * Part of my team is organized by product - these folks pair very closely with their R&D counterparts, building up robust context that they leverage in GTM motions + growth. * The other part of my team is set up to focus on foundations - these folks focus on crafting narratives, building assets, and running campaigns that weave all of our product value together into something cohesive at the platform level. The PMM's follow something like the process below to roll out: * Hit up internal stakeholders at the beginning of the process to make sure we've got all the right inputs to build messaging (Competitive Intelligence, Product, UX, UX Research, Sales, Enablement etc.) * Get to work heads down (individually or in a small group) to draft * Share out with stakeholder group to validate and pressure test * Share out with senior leadership once it is all buttoned up for final buy-in - the idea is that after this review, all teams should be able to leverage the messaging framework carte blanche without needing further/extended review cycles. * Circle back with learnings and validation once the messaging has been in market for a while.

* Accessibility - you need to make sure key messaging docs are accessible to the stakeholders that are using them * Engagement - you need to engage key folks who will be leveraging your messaging through the build phase to they feel like they were part of the process (where it makes sense) and are not just having something dumped on their lap that they don't understand or agree with. * Rituals - you need to make sure you have the right synchronous or asynchronous rituals set up to share and walk through the messaging to drive comprehension on provide an opportunity to ask questions * Widespread Use - start incorporating your new messaging into existing sales/marketing assets to make it easy to use. This also ensures consistency and avoids confusion. * Check in - check in with the teams leveraging your messaging at regular intervals to make sure it is landing. Gather data and context on areas you might need to adjust. * Simplicity - usually the best messaging has a small handful of key sound bites that will be used and leveraged the most. Focus on nailing those. A robust framework of RTB's and data points to back up claims is also critical. * Tell customer centric stories - any time you can drive messaging home through a case study or through the voice of a customer, do it!

A few great ways to use AI for messaging: * Measure the efficacy of your external messaging by asking an AI tool "what the value prop for product x is". If the response comes back aligned with your framework (and what you think it is) - great. If not, time to revisit and do some digging. * AI can often help you get out of a mental box. If you are struggling with how to articulate something clearly - AI tools can spit out 10 different versions of something that help get the creative juices flowing. * AI can also really clearly synthesize competitive messaging so you've got a clear idea of what you're up against and where your product(s) win. Same can be said for synthesizing other market insights as inputs. * AI tools can also help you tailor messaging to different audience segments, organizational roles, and verticals. Or even how to approach messaging in a new country if you're working through geo expansion.

One way I have found success here is to focus on (2) key review/approval moments: Early Stage Review * Approval on goals/objectives * Approval on target audiences + KPI's * Proposed messaging framework is complete and ready for review - including potentially a creative wrapper/headline if this is for a campaign * A rough GTM plan is in place outlining the tactics, surfaces, and assets where the messaging will come to life Visual Review * Sometimes earlier strategy reviews can be very abstract - the plan can make sense on paper, but no one is quite sure how it will materialize in reality. * The visual review is a late stage review where senior leaders can actually see what hero asset look like (landing page, hero email, video, demo etc.) * This is often where you get the most valuable feedback because it gauges whether what worked on paper actually works in practice * You do not need to review every single asset - just the key ones that do the best job of bringing the messaging you've created to life

Key documents include: * Master Messaging Doc - includes the most detail and the most structured framework. This is mostly used as a reference document rather than something that is presented. * Messaging Deck - usually an abridged version of the messaging doc that is meant to be leverage during live reviews with leaders, stakeholders, sales teams etc. * Pitch Deck - leveraged by sales and is one of the clearest manifestations of your messaging if your product is sold by a sales team. * One Pager - a customer facing one pager that is an external manifestation of your product messaging * List of Claims - any claims that are used to back up your messaging framework are listed here with proper sourcing, data, and investor relations thumbs up if required