Messaging

We are a slack heavy company. So we have our own announcement channel for all things Marketing that I actually started so that we could share our updates! 

We also do quarterly roadmaps and retros where PM + PMMs present their upcoming roadmap and a retro on their activities from the past quarter. All of Product and PMM go - and we invite our key stakeholders across the business, including the leaders from other areas of Marketing. 

I ask them a lot of hard questions to understand how they came up with the messaging they did. I want to hear from them what customers they talked to or surveyed, who else they worked with internally to refine the messaging, and I try to poke holes in the benefits they cite to pressure test it. I am also very critical about making sure we are leading with value and that the messaging is extremely clear and consice. 

I am a project manager at heart. So I push the team to be the same. We have our roadmaps which we present and then turn into tickets for overall tracking. We also have a monthly reivew on areas of the business - so this let's us check in on how things are going and what is getting done. 

For messaging and materials in particular, we do a quarterly review of our materials. We try and make it fun - we listen to different music, everyone picks a song, and we go through and update and verify our materials. Building in those mechanisms are important so that they actually happen!

A few questions to ask yourself:

Do you want to be the mini-CEO of the product?

Do you have enough experience to appreciate how engineering operates to build a product? 

Are you comfortable making major tradeoffs between direct customer requests and company strategic priorities?

Are you savvy enough to navigate tough decisions when requirements or quality are cut to meet deadlines?

Are you excited about documenting product strategy, epics, users stories and low level requirements?

If you answered yes to a majority of these, by all means seek out a role in PM. 

IME this should sit in engineering, but it's generally not a bad idea for the copy writer to solicit PMM feedback. PMM needs to be hyper focused on strategic tasks. This is a good example of a tactical distraction. 

If your company has the resources, I would advocate for there to be an in-app copy writer that sits under design. By putting them with design, they will have the shortest path to where the product is actually being made. That being said, they should be very aligned with both product management and product marketing. 

In one of my past roles, it's been a combination of product management and product marketing who were responsible for it. 

We like keeping this with the PMM or a Product Manager/Owner, as the person writing this copy needs to be super familiar with the product and user experience. They need to be power users, IMO. Occasionally, I've leveraged Support or Customer Success Managers for this as well, becausr they are so familiar with the ins and outs of the user experience.

Another solution would be to have someone is design or engineering draft the basic copy and have a copywriter make it sound better.

In my opinion, PMM has a better vantage of customer needs and command of customer voice to produce best in app copy, product naming nomenclature and in-product guidance. This responsibility can be shared with UX and PM to ensure everyone is on the same page. Engineering and PM usually need a lot of help in this department as it is not their forte. 

I love Anthony's answer. I suspect he and I both spend time thinking about this exact issue from the perspective of the market leader...

I'd add that you can find a market niche that takes advantage of the market your competitor has carved out. Their leadership is creating demand, but they are probably not positioned to service all of it.

Another point about followership is that it can be less expensive, so you may have advantages in cost structure that translate into pricing advantages. This could also help you target smaller segments than your competitor.

Differentiate within the category or reinvent the category. Apple does this all the time. They look at a category, figure out to make it better, then introduce products as if they were never invented before. 

Have a strong point of view on the market and don't be afraid to reframe the current definition, but be prepared to invest heavily in education and thought leadership. Rely on proof points to support your narrative in the form of customer advocates that evangelize your definition and why it drives value. The good and the bad news is that someone has already created the initial interest - invest in execution and authority marketing to grab market share. 

They set and forget. People change. Customers change. Needs change. So your messaging will need to change with it. For that reason, it's good to do a high-level analysis of your messaging at least annually, if not more often. Make sure it still resonates with customers, make sure additional segments haven't appeared, make sure conversions haven't decreased on key landing pages, etc. 

It can be hard to keep messaging simple and poignant. It takes time, revs, and validation. There's pressure to get it perfect right off the bat. Or people sit and forget. Let it evolve over time. 

Something I've learned is how valuable it can be to tap the emotional benefit. It's still important to have rational data points so they can justify the decision, but a great story compels. 

Not validating it enough and getting sucked into internal debates between stakeholders. Messaging can be very subjective and emotional. When working on messaging for a new product - 1. Start very early, put the first draft of messaging and continue to refine. 2. Write the press release early too and use it as a way to create alignment. 3. Validate. validate. validate. Go onsite with customers, interview Beta users, and learn from CS/implementation/sales teams. This will help you drive buy-in to the new messaging by using the proof points from customer interviews. 

Analysts will not endorse any vendor directly. Your goal with AR is to help shape their POV about the market, especially if this is a new category and ultimately get well positioned on MQs and Wave reports. Shaping their POV means showing analysts how customers are getting value from this new type of solution and what critical capabilities that are required to be successful. Do this by building a personal relationship with the analysts, sharing insights, connecting them with your customers, and keeping them updated about your roadmap and product innovation. 

The short answer is customer validation. The best messaging is what comes out of your customer's mouth so spend time learning from your customers and informing your base messaging. But even after you validated your messaging, test it. Run a/b tests in digital, email, and other channels to show you what's resonating, and use this data-driven insight to continue to refine your messaging. Bring all of this data to your executives to create the needed alignment. 

Waiting too long to layer in the tried and true tactics that work.

I mentioned in another response that traditional tactics such as outbound prospecting or PPC did not convert well early in our years building Gainsight and Customer Success. Reason being, no one knew what CS was nor were they doing much searching online!

However once your category tips, game on. I regret waiting 1-2 quarters too late to ramp our paid media spend, double down on SDRs, etc.