AMA: Wistia Director of Product Marketing, Elise Beck on Messaging

There are a few ways you can validate your messaging:  I like to start by doing a customer listening tour. Spend some time getting to know your target customer and pay close attention to the way that they are describing their process and pain points. When you unveil your final messaging, it's important that you're speaking to your audience in the words that they use to ensure that your message resonates.  I also like to look at market trends and SEO insights to help inform the direction. I'll of ...Read More

Believe it or not, I think that marketing is the biggest critic of messaging. :) That's why I am so adamant about positioning and messaging being considered hollistically. Often times, in positioning review meetings, we'll jump ahead to a place where we are splitting hairs on something as if it were the headline of a campaign. It's important to remember that positioning should be really strong, defensible, and not left open for interpretation. As such, positioning should really not be used verba ...Read More

The most important part of messaging is actually your positioning. I like to think of it as a sculpture where positioning is the armature -- the most foundational skeleton or bones of the thing. Without the armature, your sculpture could easily lose shape and fall apart. Without positioning, your messaging could easily lose shape and fall apart. Your positioning should be really explicit about: The name of your product or feature The category that your product or feature fits into The target aud ...Read More

At HubSpot, I started creating what I called "Product Marketing Guides". This was a ~15 page document that was polished and nicely designed so as to feel like a reliable source of truth. The Product Marketing Guide included a detailed overview of the product positioning, pricing, benefits, features, and competitive comparisons. It also included a complete glossary of terms (think feature names and descriptions). This ended up being a really valuable resource because it could easily be shared wit ...Read More

I do think it's important to ladder your product positioning into the broader product portfolio and/or company message. I've talked about the 6 components of your positioning (Product Name, Category Name, Target Audience, Key Benefits, Key Differentiators, and Reasons to Believe)... when reflecting on your Reason to Believe, I feel like there is often something in there that will tie back to your broader product portfolio and/or company message. Let's take HubSpot as an example. HubSpot's missio ...Read More

This is a great question! While I don't have 3 perfect insights up my sleeve, I'd love to share my take. Marketing to developers has been tricky for me, usually because the developer sits just outside of our core product offering. In my case, I've spent lots of time understanding various marketing and sales personas. Not so much developers. With whatever you're marketing, it's important to spend a good amount of time deeply embedded in the world of your customer, understanding their pain points ...Read More

In another response, I talked about the "Product Marketing Guide" -- this is intended to be an evergreen(ish) document that includes everything from foundational product positioning, to pricing, to competitive information, and a glossary of terms among other details that can be easily shared with your broader marketing team and other cross-functional partners. I encourage my team to revisit this with every launch to ensure it's complete and comprehensive. This might mean adding a few new terms t ...Read More