How do you get alignment across the org in the story and messaging?

A critical yet incredibly hard part of messaging--especially in fast-paced industries like tech where it feels like things are always changing AND "shiny object" syndrome is a real thing where leaders get excited about specific use cases. Which is great as a "hook" for sales, but can lead to messaging whiplash and identity crises imo.

Some tips I like to use to build, manage, and KEEP that alignment across the org:

• Focus on shared goals: Remind the team of the common objective—crafting messaging that resonates with customers and drives business goals. Emphasize the importance of aligning on the customer’s needs and pain points, which can help refocus the conversation.

• Bring stakeholders along for the journey: Engage executives and key stakeholders early in the process by conducting interviews. Ask open-ended questions to understand their perspectives on the company’s differentiation, the customer pain points the product addresses, and the benefits it delivers. This collaborative approach ensures that everyone feels involved and invested in the messaging.

• Highlight overlaps: As differing opinions are expressed, look for overlapping themes or points of agreement. Use these commonalities as building blocks for a unified message.

• Check in early and often: Develop a timeline with regular check-ins and milestones that keeps executives and stakeholders informed about progress. Clearly communicate what they can expect at each stage, including opportunities for feedback--track that feedback in a single doc that everyone can access!

  • This creates an interactive feedback loop where stakeholders can provide input on drafts or iterations of messaging. This iterative approach fosters collaboration and keeps everyone aligned as the messaging evolves. For example, after initial drafts, hold a review session to gather feedback and make adjustments based on their insights.

• Start from the top down: Securing buy-in from leadership, particularly the CEO, is essential for aligning the organization on messaging. When executives are clear and committed to the story being told, it legitimizes the messaging effort and encourages other stakeholders to follow suit. They can also share feedback on how the messaging resonates with investors, board members, and other high-level industry leaders. This endorsement creates a unified direction that cascades throughout the organization, ensuring everyone is aligned.

• Find your internal cheerleaders: These are individuals within various teams—whether in sales, customer success, or product development—who are enthusiastic about the messaging and believe in its value. By engaging these advocates early in the process, you can leverage their influence to champion the messaging within their respective departments. Encourage them to share their insights and experiences, which can provide valuable perspectives and help refine the messaging. These cheerleaders will not only promote the story and messaging but also create a sense of community and shared purpose, ensuring that the messaging resonates across different teams and departments.

• Use data to back up your POV where you can: While messaging can be creative and subjective, its effectiveness must be measurable. Leverage data from various channels to evaluate how well your messaging resonates with your target market. Some ideas for that:

  • A/B testing on website and landing pages -- track traffic, click-through rates, and conversion rates

  • Run A/B tests on email copy to see which messaging drives better open and click rates. Analyze customer responses to gauge sentiment and interest.

  • Share different messaging approaches on social media and monitor engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments) to identify which messaging resonates best with your audience.

  • Post-launch, gather qualitative data through customer surveys and feedback sessions to understand their perceptions of your messaging and what resonates most.

    • a CAB is great for this!

  • Gab Bujold developed a "Message Market Fit" scorecard which I love to help quantify this

• Keep teams aligned with an ongoing “messaging drumbeat” (which yes, might mean a dedicated Slack channel)

  • Regular Messaging Refresh Meetings: Messaging isn’t static. Establish a rhythm of bi-monthly or quarterly refresh meetings with cross-functional teams to share any updates based on customer feedback, market shifts, or competitive moves. These sessions are not only for alignment but also an opportunity for each team to understand where and how they contribute to the messaging.

    • Align on a Process for Updating Messaging: When market dynamics change or new product features are launched, ensure you have a documented process for updating messaging. Centralize feedback from teams, analyze the impact on current messaging, and communicate updates through official channels to avoid misalignment.

    • I like to talk about this as "Current messaging --> market shift (what happened/changed) --> company POV (what can we do to support, and how are competitors responding?) --> suggested messaging tweaks"

  • Share Success Stories and Wins: When a particular message or narrative works well—like a Sales win from using a specific value proposition or a positive customer response—share this success across the org. Hearing real outcomes reinforces the power of unified messaging and keeps teams motivated to stay aligned.

    • PRO TIP: Keep all of these wins in a centralized doc with links to quotes+Gong calls as applicable. If you can, include if this was a win against a certain competitor and/or a "competitor "take out"
      

You might be saying to yourself, "That's great, Michele. But what if our stakeholders have vastly different opinions on messaging and focus for the business?"

Story of my life...Let's talk about it!

When faced with vastly differing opinions on messaging, facilitate open dialogue by creating a safe space for stakeholders to share their perspectives and actively listen to one another. I like to call these "Come to Jesus meetings." Again, identify common ground (I like to boil this up to companywide KPIs) by focusing on shared goals and overlapping themes (i.e. drive pipeline/ARR, retention, etc.), and use data where you can (i.e. from customer insights like Gong calls or G2 reviews and A/B testing) to inform decisions. Establish clear criteria for effective messaging, identify decision-makers for final calls, and document the agreed-upon messaging to ensure alignment.

If all else fails...lead with a decision-making process (but remember, YOU are the ultimate expert! lead with confidence)

• Identify Decision-Makers: If consensus cannot be reached, clarify who has the final say on messaging decisions. This could be the product marketing leader, the CMO, or another designated executive. Ensure that everyone knows the process for reaching a decision.

• Document and Communicate: After a decision is made, document the agreed-upon messaging and the rationale behind it. Communicate this clearly to all stakeholders to ensure alignment moving forward. I like using the RAPID framework for this. Happy to send a template for what that can look like!

If your executives and cross-functional stakeholders can see their fingerprints on the narrative and messaging as it develops, they will be more likely to endorse and adopt your final product.

The knock on Marketing, PMM or otherwise, is that they are in a silo and disconnected from the realities of the rest of the business.  Product feels you don’t understand “product truth,” Sales feels the messaging is unrealistic to use with customers, and the C-Suite feels it’s not in touch with what they hear from Investors and Analysts. They feel like PMM writes what they think sounds good and are frustrated when the org doesn't use their messaging.

I'm sure every PMM’s eyes just rolled into the back of their heads as they read this! That's because every PMM knows their messaging is typically based on extensive discussion with users, the spec that the Product themselves wrote, and exhaustive market research.

PMMs get a lot of feedback about "messaging" because it's a foundational aspect of marketing and feels approachable to a non-marketer. Everyone has written a term paper and seen a commercial, so they feel like they know what is/isn't effective messaging, no matter what job function or training they have or don't have.

I don't have to convince this audience that messaging is a technical skill or that "messaging" is a catch-all term used by laypeople who actually have issues with other written words, like positioning, copy, or sales enablement. But as the saying goes, "Everyone's a marketer. " If you are a PMM who wants to land messaging, you'll have to navigate this kind of feedback from executives, your product team, and cross-functional partners like sales and CS.

So, how do you overcome the feedback? You don't overcome it; you incorporate it! Your executive team, product team, and go-to-market teams have feedback that's just as valuable as customer interviews and market research. Talking with them is a necessary step of the process, and it will yield insights that improve your messaging.

This doesn't mean you should accept every suggestion they make; that's a recipe for lousy messaging, full stop. What it does mean is that you should include them in the process, get their feedback on drafts, and give them credit for ideas that inform the final product (even if they were something you came up with or uncovered through your research). Feature their quote in your messaging guide, shout them out in the enablement kick-off, or tag them in a comment to show them you used their idea. These things are small, but they will go a long way.

At the end of the day, executives, product managers, and salespeople are humans with human egos. They like to be included and feel like they are contributing to the company's success. Once they feel like they are a part of your messaging, they'll stop detracting and start advocating.

Note: I give a much more detailed answer on how we recently approached this at SurveyMonkey here: https://sharebird.com/h/product-marketing/q/what-strategy-do-you-use-to-ensure-everyone-internally-agrees-on-what-differentiates-you-from-competition?answer=ynNZUqMNnX&utm_source=questionanswer&utm_medium=share

Here are my tips for getting alignment on your product messaging:

• Have a single driver: This is likely the head of PMM or even head of marketing. But it can't be a shared ownership (e.g. with product) or else you may get stuck in a stand-still. We believe in a "disagree and commit" philosophy that gives drivers autonomy to make the final decisions so we can all move forward as an organization.

• Get executive sponsorship and buy-in from the start: Make sure there is agreement that product messaging needs to be updated. There could be many reasons for this (has it not been revisited in years? new company priorities? did you recently sunset a product? new market pressure?). And if that's the case, make sure you have tops-down support so that executives can push their team to weigh in or support wherever needed.

• Involve all of the right stakeholders: Make sure you get approval of your DACI early on so you aren't stuck about to roll-out and someone goes "wait, has So-and-so seen this??". That

• Save time for refinement: You'll find that once you start working on this, everyone will have an opinion :) . So, it's inevitable that you'll need to bake in time in your project plan for 1-2 rounds of feedback.

• Nail your roll-out: Typically, for something so central as your main product messaging, you probably need to start at the top and work your way down/out. We got executive alignment first, then rolled out to VP+, Directors+, and then a full company-wide roll-out.

Alignment across the org is critical to having strong internal and external messaging. I take these steps to gain org-wide alignment:

1. Identify executive/key stakeholders & goals

   • Determine which executives will be part of the development process, which will be informed, and the elements they feel are critical to convey

   • Understand the goals of the teams that will use your messaging and the components they need for their work streams

2. Support messaging with data

   • Research the latest market trends relevant to the target audience, how the audience is responding to those trends, and the competitive landscape

   • Gather input from internal research teams and subject matter experts

3. Keep stakeholders in the loop

   • Check in regularly with stakeholders throughout the development process and share key insights that shaped the messaging

4. Launch and support

   • Share messaging in a live setting to generate excitement for the story and answer questions that are top of mind

   • Go on a roadshow and attend team meetings to dive deeper into the story

   • Host office hours to support teams using the messaging to guide their work streams

Bring in cross-functional teams early in the process—Sales, Marketing, Product, Customer Success, and Executive Leadership—so they have a say in shaping the story. Engaging them from the beginning builds ownership and ensures that all perspectives are considered. May consider holding workshops or brainstorming sessions where each department shares their views on the product’s value and customer needs. This creates a sense of shared purpose from the outset.

While the core narrative remains consistent, tailor the messaging for specific departments. Sales might need a customer-centric pitch, while Product may need more technical messaging. However, the essence of the story should stay the same across teams. Develop "message frameworks" for different teams that are rooted in the same core narrative but customized for how each team engages with customers.

Alignment isn’t a one-time event—it requires regular check-ins and updates. Use internal newsletters, Slack channels, or town halls to update the organization on any shifts in the narrative or new insights that may shape the messaging. Host monthly or quarterly alignment meetings where cross-functional teams can discuss how the messaging is working in their department, what’s resonating with customers, and share feedback for adjustments.

Lastly, Make sure all teams are trained on the story and messaging, especially Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success. This ensures that when they engage with customers, they communicate the same core message. Offer workshops, role-playing sessions, and quick reference materials that help teams learn how to articulate the narrative in different customer-facing scenarios.