Crafting Compelling Messaging

Thursday, February 19th, 2026 • 12pm–1pm PT ·

Great messaging is one of the strongest levers PMMs have to influence pipeline, enable sales, and shape how customers understand your product. Join 250+ PMMs for a focused session on how to build clear, compelling, differentiated messaging—from foundational principles to advanced techniques used by top teams. You’ll learn how to sharpen your narrative, tailor value props to different audiences, pressure-test your messaging, and avoid common traps that dilute impact. Expect practical frameworks, real examples, and actionable strategies you can apply immediately to elevate your product’s story and your own PMM craft.

Date: Thursday, February 19th, 12–1 pm PT (3–4 pm ET)
Location: Online (link sent to registrants ahead of the event)
Cost: Free to attend. Limited seats available.

Top Questions

What's the number one mistake PMMs make in messaging?

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Acting as a pass-through for product management — simply copy-editing PM ideas instead of independently developing messaging grounded in customer and sales insight. The same way every rapper wants to be an NBA player, every PM kind of wants to be a PMM. My big thing is: I want PMs to tell me if I'm technically accurate, but at the end of the day, they don't carry the bag — sales does, and customers are the ones dealing with the product. I'm not saying ignore PM input entirely, but the idea that ...Read More

389 Views

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Not working directly with sales — failing to get their buy-in and partnership during the messaging development process means missing your best test ground and losing consistency between marketing and sales conversations. The flip side of what Jon said: the biggest mistake I have personally made, and that I see people making, is not working directly with sales. Especially in a B2B company, getting sales buy-in, support, and partnership through the messaging development process is absolutely criti ...Read More

411 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

The top three mistakes are: using too many words, not talking to customers to validate messaging, and spending too much time on the messaging document rather than getting it into the real world to test. Here are my top three mistakes I see happen pretty consistently: 1. **Too many words** — In messaging docs and in general. If you're writing a dissertation, you need to go back to the drawing board. Most people have about one second to read your messaging. Simplicity is king. The art is saying so ...Read More

381 Views
Do you have a go-to framework for building messaging for new products?

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Before writing any messaging, deeply understand the problems you're solving for specific people, then use a structured PM-PMM intake process to normalize inputs before crafting and iterating on messaging with blunt feedback from real stakeholders. My approach starts with building empathy for the user before writing a single word of messaging. That means understanding: - What problems are you solving, and for which people? - How do those people solve these problems today (the competitive angle)? ...Read More

412 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Use a message house framework, but shift toward mocking up messaging in real-world formats (webpages, press releases) rather than treating it as a purely abstract document — and prioritize speed and depth of customer understanding. My approach is very similar to Jon's in that you must deeply understand the customer pain point and the product before messaging. Without that depth, you risk creating something generic — messaging that pretty much anybody could say. That's the biggest pitfall I see P ...Read More

393 Views

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

For new products, anchor messaging on a 'key insight' derived from three inputs: the audience, the market context, and your unique differentiation — then use that insight as the foundation for all messaging outputs. For net new products coming to market, my approach centers on identifying a key insight that is informed by three inputs: 1. **The Audience** — What are they thinking? What's happening in their world? What are their pains and the goals they need to meet within their business? 2. **Th ...Read More

365 Views
As a first product marketing hire, how do you negotiate messaging with other stakeholders and how do you include them in your process in the most efficient way?

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Make sure the one thing you pick is clearly connected to the top priorities of company leadership — measurable impact on what matters most is what builds credibility. To add to what Jon and Claire said: make sure that one thing is very clearly connected to the priorities of the leaders within the company. You're new, you're defining product marketing — line yourself up with the biggest priorities and the biggest opportunities so that you can have measurable impact, versus delivering stuff that's ...Read More

431 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Pick one or two high-impact, high-visibility things to do first — demonstrate the value of product marketing through action, not by explaining the function — and then build from there. I would say pick one thing. Most product marketing people are systems thinkers who care about frameworks, but our stakeholders often are not. Don't say 'here are the 11 things product marketing does' — normally there are one or two most important hot fires. It could be: - We need a new pitch — every pitch is bespo ...Read More

408 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Pick something highly visible and cross-functional (like a Gartner report, the website, or a pitch deck) to prove the value of product marketing — and learn to say no to everything else. I emphatically agree. Product marketing also becomes the big dumping ground for everything. We are the jacks of all trades, and everybody needs us for something — or thinks they do. That's the biggest challenge of sitting at the center of the wheel. To build out the craft and function: - Pick something that will ...Read More

417 Views
How do you standout from competitors in an established field when you're a new entrant?

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Specificity is your best weapon — clearly explain what your product does in plain language, and use a 'Guilfoyle test' to ensure your messaging isn't vague enterprise jargon. The way to stand out now is just specificity. What do you guys do again? Just really explain it — 'we're a thing that does this thing' — is now the best messaging. For technical products (developers, DevOps engineers, Linux sysadmins, data scientists), I use what I call the **Guilfoyle or Dinesh test** from the show Silicon ...Read More

402 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Go back to basics: identify the truly unique problem you're solving, then use real customer language (not AI-generated copy) to express it in a way that genuinely resonates. We're all in a sea of AI messaging that pretty much sounds the same. If you drive down the 101 in San Francisco and watch the tech billboards, you can see it firsthand. But companies still have to differentiate — it's a live-or-die moment. The answer is to go back to basic principles: 1. **What is the really unique problem y ...Read More

396 Views

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Be bold and specific — go after a focused niche with highly personalized, authentic messaging, and build a loud chorus of customer advocates who speak on your behalf. There are a lot of factors at play. I really agree with Claire on understanding your differentiation and leaning into it — that's an absolute must. But beyond that: 1. **Be bold and be big** — If you have the authority and budget, creating buzz and awareness is critical, especially for a new product. Make sure people know who you a ...Read More

388 Views
How are you using AI for messaging?

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Use AI for testing and research — not for creating messaging — including building persona-based GPTs to pressure-test drafts and using AI to rapidly synthesize customer interview transcripts and market research. You don't want to use AI to create your messaging, because it will be super generic and won't fit the bill. But AI has been really impactful in a couple of key areas: 1. **Testing existing messaging** — If you have messaging you've created, AI is a great testing ground. You can create GP ...Read More

392 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Use AI heavily for research (summarization, persona research, Gong call analysis, Gartner chatbots) but do not use it to write messaging — the actual writing is where PMMs add unique value. I use AI a ton for research and absolutely don't use it for creation. You can tell when people use AI to write, and in enterprise there's already enough 'slop-speak' — everything is 'scalable, robust, transformational.' That kind of language means nothing. For research, the tools I find most valuable: - **Gon ...Read More

408 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Use AI to scale research and customer empathy rapidly, and as a brainstorming companion to defeat the blank page — but don't use it to write final messaging. I love the idea of creating a persona-based internal reviewer in AI to critique messaging — I'm taking that back with me. Beyond that, I'd double down on two uses: 1. **Pulling research and customer quotes** from all the various sources captured across your org. What used to take months of research projects can now be done almost instantly. ...Read More

424 Views
How do you get buy in and feedback for your messaging internally?

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Identify the best storytellers in your sales team, make them the hero by scaling their approach, and bring data from customer research to create credibility and alignment around your recommended messaging. A couple of ways I've driven alignment and gotten people excited about messaging: 1. **Scale the best sales stories** — Some of the best positioning and messaging has come directly from the sales team. Identify the killer reps who are crushing it. What stories are they telling? What angle are ...Read More

402 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Don't co-write messaging with stakeholders — come as the expert with receipts, and be clear about whether you're seeking approval or co-creation, because those are very different processes. Getting alignment depends on what the outcome is. Are you trying to get everybody bought in on the messaging so you can move faster, or are you actually trying to co-write it? Co-writing is a pitfall I see a lot. As a PMM, you are charged with being the expert. You should be the voice of the customer, the pro ...Read More

382 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Include direct sales and SE feedback in your messaging briefs, show your work, and be strategic about whose sign-off actually matters — not everyone who thinks they're a stakeholder truly is. Building on what Emmy mentioned: in our standard messaging briefs, I include a section at the bottom listing which sales reps we spoke to and what direct feedback they had. That's the most credible thing you can show. I care a lot about what sales, SEs, and customer-facing people think. I care a lot about w ...Read More

397 Views
How do you to go about crafting messaging for a new MVP that are not competitive, have many feature gaps, and only have advantage for being owned by a reputable corporation?

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Specificity is authentic and demonstrates genuine empathy for the problem — when you can't be flashy, being specific and honest is not just acceptable, it's the right move. I'd plus-a-thousand what Jon said. Specificity is also very authentic. It shows that you understand what you're saying, what you're selling, and what the product actually does. And if you can be that specific, it means you have pretty decent empathy for the problems it's solving. In a case where messaging can't be super flash ...Read More

373 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

When at parity or below best-in-breed, be hyper-clear and specific about what the product does — don't over-dress it up. The value is often in consolidation and convenience, not in being the best standalone tool. When a product is at parity with competition, I go back specifically to being hyper-clear about what the thing does. Think of the Swiss Army Knife analogy: the nail file in a Swiss Army Knife isn't the best nail file in the world, but if you need a nail file, it's probably good. And you ...Read More

420 Views
What are some practical ways to test messaging prior to a product launch? (e.g. wynter, usertesting, customer interviews, etc.)

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Use Wynter for structured message testing and tap into your existing community for live feedback — both are fast, practical ways to validate messaging before launch. We use Wynter a lot. It's a message testing platform that's a nice way to test both a narrative and live copy, and it gives you the data to bring into a room when seeking alignment. We also tap into our community a lot. You'd be surprised how many people will raise their hand to work with you as a marketer on things they're passiona ...Read More

399 Views
How do you tie multiple narratives into a single overarching message?

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Philosophically, optimize for the system as a whole — allocate PMM attention to where the strategic opportunity or need is greatest, rather than giving each product equal love. Everything Jon and Claire said is true. I'd add a philosophical layer: when leading across multiple products within an organization, there will be times when certain products require more love and attention — either because of a strategic opportunity or because something needs to be picked up. I consistently try to optimi ...Read More

406 Views

Claire Drumond

Atlassian VP of Product Marketing • 3mo

Manage a collection of products by identifying the distinct value props for each, then building an 'Uber value prop' for the collection — and recognize that the buyer and user at the portfolio level are different from those at the individual product level. Right now I manage a collection of four different products (Jira, Confluence, Trello, Loom, and Rovo) that all have very distinct messages and value props, but the collection itself has an Uber value prop that brings it all together. From a PM ...Read More

397 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Think tops-down like a Russian doll — the corporate narrative is the outermost layer, and everything flows logically inward through product families down to feature-level messaging. The analogy I always use is the Russian doll. The outermost Russian doll should be the corporate narrative. Then it flows tops-down: 1. **Company-level message** — the all-up narrative 2. **Area or family of products** — e.g., 'here's what we do for security, here's what we do for marketing' 3. **Individual product l ...Read More

401 Views
What inputs are the most crucial for messaging?

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Combine hands-on product understanding with direct customer voice — use tools like Gong AI to rapidly surface how customers talk about the product and what use cases they're solving for. You have to really understand the product (as Jon described), but then you also have to understand the way customers are talking about it and what they're looking for. If you're trying to get up to speed fast, that's where Gong AI or a similar tool becomes really helpful: - Ask: what are the specific things cust ...Read More

418 Views

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Use the product yourself, use competing products, understand the jobs-to-be-done of the actual user (not just the buyer), and read RFPs to hear customers describe their needs in their own language. To become an expert on a new product quickly: - **Use the product** and use competing products. Try to do the jobs-to-be-done of the person this product is for. - **Start with users rather than buyers** — especially in enterprise. If it's in the CISO budget, the CISO will never use the tool, but a sto ...Read More

415 Views
What are fast and cost-effective ways to do value prop and messaging tests?

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

PMMs should own customer interviews and customer stories — this gives you direct access to customer language and pattern recognition without depending on sales to grant access. One hack I think is really important and I'm surprised everyone doesn't do it: PMM should be the primary source of conducting all customer interviews and putting together all customer stories — whether that's video or a blog post. I've actually had customer marketing sit within PMM (as it works at Box right now). There's ...Read More

419 Views
How do you approach messaging when you're at an early-stage company with limited data, limited sales team access to customers, and no established customer base?

Jon Rooney

Box Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Splunk, New Relic, Microsoft, Unity, Oracle • 3mo

Volunteer to do all customer interview prep and customer stories for sales events — this gives you direct customer access, builds credibility with sales, and generates the pattern recognition you need for messaging. You can work around limited data for a little bit. One hack: no one's going to believe you as much as they'll believe a customer — especially a competitor or peer in their space. PMM should be the primary source of conducting all customer interviews and putting together all customer ...Read More

403 Views

Emi Hofmeister

Zuora VP Product Marketing • 3mo

Do the legwork manually — use Wynter testing, conduct your own customer interviews, and escalate internally if sales is blocking access to customers, because customer access is non-negotiable for effective messaging. Unfortunately, when you don't have a lot of data, you have to do the legwork. It's great when you have data because it creates shortcuts — leaning into Gong, win-loss data — but without that: - Do the Wynter testing that Claire mentioned. - Get out there and talk to customers direct ...Read More

417 Views

See Event Answers

Speakers (3)

Claire Drumond

VP of Product Marketing · Atlassian

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Jon Rooney

Vice President Product Marketing · Box

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Emi Hofmeister

VP Product Marketing · Zuora

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Crafting Compelling Messaging

Top Questions

What's the number one mistake PMMs make in messaging?

Do you have a go-to framework for building messaging for new products?

As a first product marketing hire, how do you negotiate messaging with other stakeholders and how do you include them in your process in the most efficient way?

How do you standout from competitors in an established field when you're a new entrant?

How are you using AI for messaging?

How do you get buy in and feedback for your messaging internally?

How do you to go about crafting messaging for a new MVP that are not competitive, have many feature gaps, and only have advantage for being owned by a reputable corporation?

What are some practical ways to test messaging prior to a product launch? (e.g. wynter, usertesting, customer interviews, etc.)

How do you tie multiple narratives into a single overarching message?

What inputs are the most crucial for messaging?

What are fast and cost-effective ways to do value prop and messaging tests?

How do you approach messaging when you're at an early-stage company with limited data, limited sales team access to customers, and no established customer base?

Speakers (3)