If you're a weak writer how do you overcome this? Especially since messaging and positioning is crucial in PMM?

As a product marketer, strong writing is absolutely fundamental to success. I'll be direct: I spend about 90% of my time writing - whether it's crafting messaging for external audiences, communicating with internal stakeholders, or answering that 100+ page Gartner MQ! 

If you're feeling uncertain about your writing skills, here's what I've found works:

First, embrace that becoming a better writer is a journey. There's no magic solution, but consistent practice is transformative. The good news? As a PMM, you'll have plenty of opportunities to practice through your daily work. 

What's helped me level up my writing:

Create a 'swipe file' of exceptional writing you encounter. I started this early in my career, collecting everything from compelling product descriptions to powerful marketing narratives to great advertising (book recommendation: Hey Whipple, Squeeze This). It's like building your own reference library of what great writing looks like in different contexts.

Leverage AI tools strategically. Tools like Claude and Grammarly can serve as writing coaches, helping you experiment with different tones and styles for various audiences. My team has also found success with Jasper. The key is using these tools to learn and improve, not just as a crutch.

Here's what I've learned: everyone, regardless of their starting point, can become a stronger writer. The combination of deliberate practice and smart use of available tools will help you develop this critical PMM skill. The key is to start where you are and focus on consistent improvement. Remember: practice, practice, and then practice some more. Get to the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours and you’ll find that you have become a much better writer

I've had to coach weak writers, and I will say it's very challenging. If you are set on PMM, then to improve your writing, messaging, and positioning skills I would:

- Take a class through PMA, Reforge or MasterClass on messaging, positioning, and storytelling. Or read books on it, there are so many! It's less about writing style, and more about identifying the most captivating parts of a story or the "lead" and how to structure the flow of that narrative wherever you are putting it.
- Lean heavily on your copywriters and content marketers to develop good messaging. Many times you can write out the facts, then ask them to workshop how to craft the story with you.
- Lead messaging workshops. You can come with the product value propositions, features, etc and brainstorm messaging concepts / how to communicate the product value to the market. This will help you crowdsource ideas and bubble up winners. Then leverage a copy writer or even ai tools to finalize the messaging before it goes to market.
- Use AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to get you started, then be an editor instead of a writer. Get really good at prompting and training the ai to provide outputs that give you a lot to work with.
- Put yourself in the audience's shoes constantly. Step back and think: If I had no context, would I care about this/understand it? Is this differentiated? Does this explain how we provide value?
- Interview your sales team and interview customers/prospects. Write down what they say, identify trends, compelling statements and use that to create your messaging.

Great writers are not born great writers. Writing is a skill like any other hobby, sport, or craft -- you have to practice all the time. If this is a growth area for you, I would suggest enrolling in a storytelling workshop like Duarte to make sure you have the right frameworks and tools to construct compelling stories. Then I would practice by writing blog posts, fake press releases, internal strategy documents, etc. using your framework of choice. Continue to ask yourself if you can make it simpler and more clear. One framework I love using to help construct a business case or strategy is the SCIPAB framework from Mandel Communications:

The six steps of SCIPAB 

• Situation: Describe the current state of the situation

• Complication: Identify any issues, challenges, or opportunities that are complicating the situation

• Implication: Explain the consequences of not addressing the complications

• Position: State your opinion on what needs to be done

• Action: Define what you want your audience to do

• Benefit: Explain how taking action will help the audience

I've find this framework extremely helpful for getting your thoughts together. The more you use it the more natural it will become and the less you need the actual framework. Write everything in your head down first and then the real magic happens in the revisions!

First, you have to know what good writing looks like. Ask your manager, peers, and yourself -- what are some great examples of good writing? These can come from anywhere - fiction, B2B, companies you admire, thought leaders in our industry (I always love April Dunford's stuff, for example).

Second, study good writing. Figure out some core principles. I always look at copy to see how it stacks up to this hierarchy of needs -- is it accurate, clear, authoritative, and does it show empathy for the audience? Being a PMM means being a linguist, so you must have good command of the English language AND the language of your audience.

Last, practice :) The more you write, the better you get. You don't have to just practice on work projects, either. Write journal entries, reviews for restaurants, write letters to friends. These are all different types of audiences, and you'll learn to adapt your voice and tone for every channel and audience.

Happy writing!

Messaging and positioning is crucial to PMM, but writing is a skill that can absolutely be developed. A few ideas to improve your writing:

• Find a great mentor and have them ruthlessly edit your writing to help you improve

• Take a writing class - these can be really fun!

• Prioritize reading in your spare time - it's a great way to help you learn from great writers.

• Partner closely with copywriters or the content team at your company and learn how they craft copy.

Being a great writer is not a critical skill for being a great PMM. I would focus your attention on getting good at "positioning", identifying what truly matters to customers (pain point, benefits), and knowing how to identify great copywriting that conveys this. You can partner with copywriters, or even get this through contracting sites like Fiverr / Upwork (if no copywriting resource exists and your organization is low on resources).

There are other competencies as a PMM (see below). I would focus your attention on these other areas, and make sure your positioning is strong enough for copywriters you're partnered with to turn into external copy. I would also make sure you have strong research and framework of testing in place to get feedback / insights on how messaging is resonating with customers.

• Strategic Thinking - the ability to break down complex problems into achievable questions / topics. The ability to identify opportunities that result in significant growth for the company, and well-structured communication (written and verbal) to convey this in executive forums.

• Data & Analytics - the ability to analyze complex and nuanced data to identify customer and product trends that help the company make the right decisions.

• Positioning & Messaging - the ability to identify customer's true motivations through research / data and create compelling messaging. Messaging is where some level of innate talent comes in, and not everyone has this (or needs to have this in order to advance in their PMM career).