How do you choose between use case messaging vs persona based messaging?

I don’t think of this as an either-or situation. Instead, I’d think about the hierarchy of your message where both use case messaging and persona-based messaging are important. 

While everyone approaches messaging differently, I like to lead with personas and have found it helpful to understand the following questions:

• Who are we targeting?

• What do they care about?

• What are their challenges?

• What do we want our audience to believe?

• What action do we want them to take?

From there, you can develop use case messaging that will resonate with your key personas.

I develop messaging using a Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework. These can be considered use cases but the process is simplified by the jobs mapping to the persona who will do the job.

So, don't think of this as an either/or choice. By leading with JTBD, you are able to create a narrative on the benefits for the persona(s)