How do you ensure that your messaging framework gets implemented company-wide?

Every PMM I’ve ever talked to has experienced this: you spend a ton of time researching and crafting the perfect messaging framework only for other teams to forget it exists. It’s definitely happened to me. 

While I’d love to create a concise messaging framework that the entire company uses, the reality is messaging frameworks are most helpful for marketers. Sales doesn’t want a messaging framework, they want a pitch deck and talk tracks. Demand Gen doesn’t want a messaging framework, they want guidance around key themes to inform their campaigns.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create messaging frameworks—as PMMs we need them. But I’ve found there is more value in the act of creating the messaging framework than the actual framework itself. Creating the framework requires research. It requires getting very clear about what your company/product stands for. But our work shouldn’t stop at creating the framework. Instead, you need to think of the framework as the first step in driving company-wide alignment around the same narrative. 

Here are some tips for ensuring company wide adoption:

1. Bring the company along for the journey. If the first time your stakeholders see the doc is when you’re rolling out the final draft, it’s unlikely they’ll use it. As you’re researching and developing new messaging, share insights along the way. Ask for feedback or quick reactions. Not only will this help you refine your message, but it will also get key stakeholders bought in.

2. Understand how the company will use the framework before you start creating it. Knowing what various teams need out of your messaging will help you create a format that’s actually useful. 

3. Make the rollout more than just sharing on Slack or at one company meeting. Implementing new messaging doesn’t stop at sharing a doc. Instead, think about the specific enablement required for each team at your company. 

Back when Microsoft released Windows 7 in the late 00's, they ran a campaign that had different people saying different things, but the suffix was always "...and Windows 7 was my idea". I'm certain there were a ton of internal egos hurt from the folks that actually built Windows 7 but the point was to land collective ownership rather than individual brilliance.

So, the very short answer here is, you gotta bring people along to get adoption and give people ownership. "I'm a seller/co-founder/engineer, and this product messaging was my idea."

Others have provided great ways to succeed, so i'll give you the best ways to fail at this:

1/ Give in to pressure to launch too fast: If you are reading this, you certainly have been told to just hurry up and put words on the page. Resist. You will fail and nobody will adopt your messaging. Write a draft you feel great about. Run it by influential people (sellers, CSMs, leadership) to get early feedback before you are trying to get it "approved". Pressure test it in low-risk sales calls. Use 3P testing sites. Pushed to go faster? Talk about all the hours that will be wasted and deals you will lose by launching messaging that you have no idea if your ICP resonates with.

2/ Keep your ego at the center: Messaging is core to your job, right? Stand tall, you know better than anyone how to do this! All correct, but not focused on the right outcome. You want the messaging to resonate and be pitched across segments, sales calls, analyst briefings, web, etc, right? Put your ego aside. Get buy in. Do the internal tour. Your KPIs will thank you soon.

3/ Launch once and don't measure: We love launches, right? The repetition can get rote, but it takes the repetition and signs of success for folks to get behind it. Listen to sales calls... bonus points if you have a tool that helps you set up trackers and aggregate data. I recently launched messaging and showed up to our sellers with proof that the sellers that have adopted were winning deals at a magnitude higher than the ones that had not. You don't need to believe that my words are the best words, but the win/loss data doesn't lie.