What short and sweet messaging templates does your team use?

At a high level, for product messaging, you should have these things:

• Elevator Pitch
• Unique Value Proposition
• Competitive Positioning
• Supporting Proof Points

For persona messaging, add:

• Buyer Personas/Ideal Customer Profiles
• Top Use Cases

For Elevator Pitches, I like to structure them as follows (you can massage these so they don’t feel too rigid, but this is the gist of how you set up the story):

• Challenge
• Solution
• Benefit

For the Unique Value Proposition*, I like to structure them as follows"

• Who is our primary audience? (buyer or user)
• What problem are we solving? (need statement)
• What do we offer? (our product, solution, or service)
• How are we solving it? (solution/benefit statement)
• I like to structure this as “We help you…, so you can….”
• What makes us unique? (core differentiators)

*A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a framework that clearly explains the challenges facing prospects and customers, how they’ll benefit from your products, how your products solve their problems, and what makes your offer different and better than the competition. The UVP is to be used as an internal reference by everyone in the company to ensure a common understanding and language of who you build for, what you build, and why. It’s the positioning that underlies the Elevator Pitch, which is how you (and your sales team, your friends, your neighbors, your parents) colloquially speak to these concepts.

Here are two.

Positioning Statement - this is typically the foundation of any product/GTM positioning.

• [Target Customer] For: describe who you're targeting your product at

• [Statement of need or opportunity] Who: describe the pain or opportunity you're offering the target market

• [Product name is a product category] List your product name and the product category it belongs to

• [Statement of key benefit] That: describe the benefits of your product for the target customer

• [Competiting Alternative] Unlike: describe how your product differentiates from the primary competition (this doesn't necessarily have to only include other vendors but it could be differentiating from the status quo)

First Round had a solid blog on crafting positioning statements a while back- https://review.firstround.com/three-moves-every-startup-founder-must-make-to-build-a-brand-that-matters

The other framework we're using is around product/company positioning with a 3rd party consultant which is organized in the following way

• Market Category

• Statement of Differentiation

• Message Pillars 1, 2, 3, etc. - supports the statement of differentiation and should have mulitple levels of detail depending upon the context...mapping to product/company capabilities

• Big Idea - "No Software" from Salesforce is the canonical example here

A great way to think about framing your messaging is by starting out with a short paragraph outlining who you are talking to and why they should care or need your solution/product. At Atlassian, we often start with these questions: Is this how you want your product or service to be represented? Are you appealing to the right audience? This is a good framework for laying out this information and keeping it top of mind as you formulate your messaging. I'll make another pitch for creating an overall messaging house for your brand/product to be able to come back to over time and use as a launching point for specific features/GTMs. This is something that will make your job so much easier and not feel like you are starting from scratch each time you try to set up the messaging for a launch.

I'm going to focus on just the messaging piece, but within your framework you should also be teeing up your messaging with who your audience is, their key pain points/issues your product and/or company solve, and quick context on what you're launching and why (if this messaging framework is for a specific launch).

In my messaging template I include:

• High-level positioning
• Key value propositions (usually about 3)
• Reasons to believe (RTBs) i.e., product proof points that support your value props (also usually about 3)

I wish I could copy and paste or upload my template here, but I can't seem to! Feel free to ping me if you'd like to take a look.

Hi all - great to be with you here today live from my home office and spinning vinyl on my turn table as I answer your questions!

In terms of sweet messaging templates, I generally go back to the Crossing the Chasm standard mad libs version:

• For _________________________________________________
  (target customer/audience member)
  • Who ________________________________________________
  (statement of need or opportunity)
  • The _________________________________________________
  (product name)
  • is a _________________________________________________
  (product category/genre)
  • That ________________________________________________
  (statement of key benefit - that is, compelling reason to buy)
  • Unlike ________________________________________________
  (primary competitive alternative)
  • My/Our product _______________________________________
  (statement of primary differentiation)

In order to gather all the inputs to get there, here are some questions to ask (also borrowed and modified from both Crossing the Chasm as well as Pragmatic Institute):

• Describe the problem this person wants to solve specifically.
• What are the major motivations – economic, technical, other? – for this person to switch from their current methods to solve this problem?
• What are the specific customer pain points that are causing them to seek a new solution?
• What/whom are we competing against and what are the primary benefits that other solutions (or the status quo) offer?

Then, I like to use a 5-Box positioning framework that I learned 10+ years ago in B-school (see also the attached image laid out on a slide):

Currently Believe
1-2 sentences about what they currently believe relative to this problem or issue.

Currently Do
1-2 sentences about what they currently do relative to this problem or issue.

Your Message:
In 20-40 words, describe the 3 most compelling reasons to buy our solution.

Future Belief
1-2 sentences about what we want them to believe in the future after hearing our pitch.

Future Do
1-2 sentences about what we want them to do in the future after hearing our pitch.

Hope these help!