AMA: Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead, Stephanie Kelman on Messaging
April 16 @ 10:00AM PST
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Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead, Stephanie Kelman on Messaging
Top Questions
What are the best practices that you have employed to create a closed-loop product messaging?
Messaging that is not just in one silo of the org. but goes through demand gen. campaigns and ISR/SDR pitches. Gather feedback from MQL, SQL's and pipeline generated from that messaging and finally use those insights to appropriately tweak the messaging.
Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
The best messaging needs to be closed-loop, meaning that it is used throughout all of the areas of business and receives regular feedback. Product marketing needs to be the owners and drivers of this messaging. * It starts with a solid messaging framework. Make sure your cross-functional tea......Read More
534 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
The most effective approach to rolling out messaging that internal GTM teams will use is to bring them along on the journey with you. It's important to build trust and show them that you have validated the messaging through market and customer research. * Make sure your messaging framework is a......Read More
570 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
Crafting compelling messaging for features that your competitors already have can be difficult since it's hard to find a competitive advantage in this instance. When I'm in this situation, I bring the messaging back to the product's overall competitive advantage and hone in on the unique benefit ......Read More
472 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
I get it - it is so hard to avoid using cliche terms. These words are front and center in our marketing vocabulary but we all know that they are watered down and abused by the market. * Is the cliche actually true? If your product really is the industry leader or the best in the world and yo......Read More
443 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
There are several ways to get quantitative data on your messaging using online testing tools and A/B tests. However, you need time and volume to get an accurate read and marketers rarely have either. I recommend you get scrappy and find ways to get an initial pulse on some messaging - it doesn’t ......Read More
498 Views
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Can you share the messaging framework that you use?
Would love frameworks to share.
Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
Yes! There is a template attached to the AMA that I use with my team at Shopify. You can also create your own with these guidelines in mind. * Separate your audiences * Write a really strong main value proposition for each audience. This is the main message you want to get across. Make sur......Read More
501 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
My team re-looks at messaging every 3-6 months. It's important to keep messaging fresh, relevant, and accurate with small tweaks. With that said, don't feel like you need to reinvent your messaging every time. Here are some signals to know it's time to review and tweak your messaging: * New fea......Read More
452 Views
2 requests
What is your strategy for messaging a product that is very early in its lifecycle but is a differentiator for the company?
The promise of it is alluring but actual applications and the back end infrastructure is not ironed out yet.
Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
I agree there is value in getting ahead of the market and positioning your new, amazing product early in its lifecycle. This can also be risky if use cases and backend infrastructure are not solid yet. One of the most costly mistakes with messaging is the smoke and mirrors effect. You want to bui......Read More
515 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
My team manages the sign off process by putting key reviewers and stakeholders names at the top of the brief to check off after they have reviewed the content. Make sure your key stakeholders are already aligned with your high level messaging framework and then other projects should flow nicely t......Read More
488 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
It's important. When it comes to marketing, impact is the thing we’re all trying to achieve at the end of the day. If you don’t measure impact, you don’t know if your messaging is resonating with your target audience. If your audience isn’t engaging with your messaging and marketing assets, your ......Read More
481 Views
3 requests
Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
The best way to resolve conflicting opinions from key stakeholders on messaging is to test and validate your messaging with your target audience. If you have data, even qualitative data, you are much more likely to get key stakeholders aligned on messaging that is actually driving impact. With th......Read More
476 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
My favorite product marketing mentor always gave me the best advice to ensure my messaging was differentiated. What is the one thing you can say that your competitor cannot say about this product or feature. If another company's name can easily be swapped out with your own, then your messaging is......Read More
526 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
The best approach for messaging a technical audience is to lead with clear and concise language. Avoid any language that is vague or ambiguous. Technical audiences can spot marketing lingo from a mile away and you will lose trust with this audience very quickly if you try speaking to them the sam......Read More
479 Views
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How do i use multiple customer quotes and case study stats to create a 2 pager sales enablement asset?
Im not sure how i can structure this document, but i have (numbers) on how our product benefited the customer and why they chose us over a competitor and multiple quotes from different customers. What is the best way to tell a story?
Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
I love this question because I love using customer quotes and data proof points to craft impactful messaging. You are already in a great position to create a strong sales enablement asset. If it’s only 2 pages - you need to keep things short and succinct. This isn’t the place to write a full case......Read More
482 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
Trying to position your product as competitive when in reality it’s on par with the market can be so tough. This is especially true if you’re crafting messaging for a new product that hasn’t reached its full potential yet or if your product inherently has table stake features without a true compe......Read More
515 Views
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Stephanie Kelman
Shopify Senior Product Marketing Lead • April 17
It is the perfect time to iterate and optimize your messaging after you receive strong performance metrics and client feedback. This information will either validate your competitive advantage or highlight a new value prop that your clients clearly resonate with. Once you feel like your value pro......Read More
495 Views
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