AMA: Spotify Associate Director of Product Marketing, Josephine Ruiz-Healy on Messaging

Quantitatively test your messaging through experimentation:  A/B test different types of messages on your website  A/B test different types of messages through paid social & organic social A/B test different types of messages through SEM — I find this to be the easiest channel to experiment with given all you have to do is change copy.  A/B test different types of messages through email  A/B test different types of messages through in-product experiments — for example, our product is offered ...Read More

Before I explain the difference between messaging and copy, let me quickly recap positioning. Since positioning informs messaging and messaging informs copy, it’s important to start there.  Positioning is the foundation of all product marketing activities. I love the way that April Dunford defines it — ‍"Positioning defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well-defined set of customers cares a lot about." Once you know your positioning (this template helps), create a s ...Read More

While messaging informs content, content brings messaging to life for the right users, at the right time, and in the right channel.  Practically, this means that a content expert will choose the messages which will most resonate with the audience and determines how to best deliver those messages, taking into into account factors such as: The context in which the content lives — e.g. a post on socials versus a blog post on a website or a video on YouTube The unique audience of the content — e.g. ...Read More

From the start of a project, outline a clear RACI on the key deliverables needed to get to market, including 1) Positioning, 2) Pricing, 3) Messaging. Share it with the working team early, so you can make sure everyone is on the same page. For example, positioning and pricing might require approval from a GM or whoever is accountable for the business goals, whereas messaging might require approval from a Senior Marketing Leader. Further defining the RACI helps you determine who has to approve th ...Read More

I recommend creating a messaging document which can serve as a source of truth for internal teams. That document can include things like your positioning, key messages / value props, a glossary of key terms, and even a “do” and “don’t” section (e.g. do talk about X in this way, don’t talk about it in this way).  If you work on a self-serve product, it’s critical that you share this document with your Product and Design team, so that a given user is seeing the same verbiage / language across the ...Read More