8 answers
Vice President of Product Marketing at HackerOne
Every company wants to be the #1 in their field. I would argue that if your company is undeniably #1 in its market, you don’t often make this proclamation. People already know it. It’s very similar to the notion that “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” Companies believe that by saying they’re #1, consumers will feel a level of comfort knowing that they are buying the best.
To solve this problem, ask yourself, “Are my potential customers really trying to buy #1?”
Chances are, probably not – they’re not trying to buy your product simply because it’s the best, they’re trying to buy some unique aspect or characteristic of your product that makes it the best.
What specific attributes of the market leading solution in your industry do buyers care about? The more specific you can be, the better.
Focus your messaging on yuor customers and their pain points not driving your own company messaging. This is key. The easiest way to identify this issue is to read your company’s messaging and simply ask yourself, “Does our company care about this, or does our potential customer?”
Lastly, humanize your message. To generate a message with impact, you’ll need to understand how it can be meaningful to your target audience. You want to create a “pull.” Building a connection with your prospects is way better than simply handing them the information, right? By doing so, you let them figure out how your products and services can be valuable to them.
Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klaviyo | Formerly Drift, Dropbox, Upwork
* Not value-oriented: They focus on features and functionality, not value and
benefits
* They’re not customer-centric: They aren’t putting themselves in the target
audience’s shoes, to make sure the language is what customers would use and
the benefits are things customers would care a...more
Head of Product Marketing at Heap
One of the biggest mistakes I see product marketers make is they forget that
their buyer is human. They have appealed to business case, logic, industry
research, and demonstrate ROI, but sometimes they fail to simply tell a human
story. B2B software buyers are people too. And like any buyer of re...more
Head of Marketing at Instawork
It can be hard to keep messaging simple and poignant. It takes time, revs, and
validation. There's pressure to get it perfect right off the bat. Or people sit
and forget. Let it evolve over time.
Something I've learned is how valuable it can be to tap the emotional benefit.
It's still important...more
Head of Marketing at Atrium - Data Driven Sales Management
* Several things come to mind here:
Messaging is too generic: you’ve not done a good job of really identifying
the audience and understanding what they care about in order to develop a
specific message
* Messaging doesn’t “provoke:” the objective of a message is to get your
audi...more
Head of Product Marketing at Modern Treasury | Formerly Twilio
I think a lot of product marketers underestimate the importance of understanding
why customers use their product at a fundamental level. I've made this mistake
in the past where I've directly jumped to articulating product or feature value
when working on messaging, instead of first trying to int...more
Director of Product Marketing at Appcues
They set and forget. People change. Customers change. Needs change. So your
messaging will need to change with it. For that reason, it's good to do a
high-level analysis of your messaging at least annually, if not more often. Make
sure it still resonates with customers, make sure additional segme...more
Head Of Marketing at Tailscale | Formerly Atlassian (Trello), HubSpot, Lyft
One of the biggest mistakes I see when it comes to messaging in product
marketing is trying to write to everybody at once. This comes back to the
importance of who you are actually trying to reach with your content, if your
language is too broad it won't land with anybody, better to be specific a...more
