How do you test messaging before launching a new product? What are different approaches that would help us be confident about the message that would result in better conversion?

I use surveys and interviews too, but in general I don't do a whole lot of testing or any "A/B" comparison of two messages. I'll put something out, and if it isn't converting leads or getting used by sellers then I'll try something else.

Now let me caution here, my approach can work because I have solutions with high-dollar sales, consultative sales processes, and sales cycles that last for months. So if I have a suboptimal message at launch, I won't "miss the window" to sell my product. I don't have to buy TV ads or print manuals that will take 8 weeks to ship from Asia to my market.

If you have a more transactional product, a physical product, or a highly competitive market, I am sure you'll need to optimize before launch more than I do!

So all those cautions aside, I try a few things:

1) Run materials by internal experts for comment.

2) Run materials by trusted customers for comment (don't overuse the same person! It's a constant temptation).

3) Focus groups.

1) INTERNAL EXPERTS: I work with several industry leaders in contract management who have 20+ years of experience, and will include at least one of them in a review cycle for every message. Definitely use expert advice wherever you can get it.

2) CUSTOMERS: They are, by definition, experts at what your customers want to buy! I have customer advisory board meetings twice a year, and among other activities at these meetings use them as a chance to test a message.

3) FOCUS GROUPS: We email a few thousand users and offer a $50 gift card to join a 60-minute feedback session. We're looking to get 15-20 signups generally. On the focus group we ask pretty rapidfire questions looking for standardized answers ("on a 1-5 scale, do you agree with the following statement?") and also soliciting written comments.

At the end of the day, I don't worry much about getting the message "exactly right" because you can always keep tinkering and testing. But that has a diminishing return very quickly. Take some of that testing time and instead do more demand gen---you'll probably have a better overall outcome!

This is a great question. I think there are a few ways of testing messaging effectively:

• Ask one rep, or a small team, to position your product in a specific way. This is a very clear feedback loop, and you'll see what works and what doesn't really quickly. Depending on the size of your company you may not be able to do this, but if you can have a rep from sales position your product on a call for a few customers, you'll get clear feedback and reactions.
  
• A/B Testing. Typically this can only happen post-launch, but if there are screens within your product that you can control messaging on - see if it's possible to A/B test those. As long as they get a good amount of traffic you can get some really valid results from this without spoiling the message externally.
  
• Market Surveys. Market surveys are my "go to" resource for this in testing various messages and seeing what people think. It's very clear feedback, but you need to ensure you're reaching the right people.
  
• Customer Interviews. If you have a "Customer Advisory Board" or something similar, it can be a great group of people who love your company and product and will give you honest feedback about new messaging.

Hope this helps! 

My short answer is to be scrappy and test with customers. Make sure your messaging can answer these questions:

- Does your message focus on one main point? People will remember if your message is concise, clear and consistent.
- Does the message include “what’s in it for me”? Tell customers what is in it for them right away!
- Can the message hook your audience in 7 seconds?
- Is the message truthful and factual?
- Does it speak the customers language, instead of your jargon? Avoid industry acronyms and jargon.
- Do you offer customer or data proof in your message? 

- Does the message address the buyers unconsidered needs? Help your buyers discover the needs they aren’t aware of.
- Is the message kept consistent and credible? People equate consistency with credibility.
- Does the message answer the question why? Customers want to know why.
- Is the message positive, inspiring and uplifting? Stay positive! Avoid words like no, never, can’t.

Test with your beta customers, run a landing page with two versions of message and see how they convert.

I’m a big advocate of getting messaging in front of customers and potential customers directly. Here are a few ways I’ve done that recently:

• Test messaging in product betas: At Figma we often launch features to a subset of customers in beta before making them generally available. I like to use this as an opportunity to test some messaging ideas. Not only can you test messaging in recruitment comms and onboarding decks you can join feedback calls to hear use cases and benefits in the customers’ own words
• Test landing pages with target audience: When we launched FigJam we created 3 versions of our landing page, each leaning into slightly different messaging, and partnered with our research team to test them with customers in our target audience. We had them react to each page as well as answer various questions to gauge which messaging was easiest to understand and most compelling.

I feel comfortable knowing messaging won’t be 100% perfect at launch and that it will evolve as we learn how users actually use the feature/product. If you’re already sending surveys and talking to customers you’re on the right track — from there you can iterate post launch. Here are some things you can do to learn whether you need to tweak your messaging:

• Review performance: Look at metrics for your landing page, blog post, etc. How are they performing compared to benchmarks? Are you seeing the traffic and conversions you expected? If not, this might be a sign that the product messaging isn’t resonating — a good next step would be talking to some customers and your Sales team.
• Learn from Sales: Check-in with your Sales team to learn from their experience. How has the messaging and pitch for the new product been landing? Are they using the materials you created or have they changed them? Joining or listening to calls is a great way to understand this first hand. You can also look through data in your CRM to learn who’s buying so you know whether your messaging is targeting the right personas

There are multiple ways to test messaging before launching a new product. One way is to do qualitative message testing with focus groups or in one-on-one interviews. You would create the various messages you want to test and then use the focus groups or interviews to get feedback on the messages. This is great to use if you have multiple messages you want to test. By using focus groups or interviews, you get message feedback quickly which allows you to narrow down to maybe the top 2-3 that you can test in-market.

Another method is using quantitative surveys online. You would basically set up an online survey to reveal your messages along with follow-up questions to help understand what is resonating with the user. After getting all survey results, you would need to analyze how the messages resonated with the different groups of participants. Other forms of online testing include UX testing where you mock up your messages as if they are on your website and do interviews with users that way. 

You could also do a combo of qualitative and quantitative message testing where one informs the other. For example, if you have multiple messages, perhaps start with qualitative tests to narrow down your messaging options. Then use quantitative tests to test your top 2 messages with a larger pool of participants. This will help give you a bigger sample size. You could even do message testing on your website by splitting your traffic or taking a small portion of traffic (e.g. 10% of traffic) to test your messages.