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What are some common Messaging mistakes you see Product Marketers make?

10 Answers
Vivek Asija
Vivek Asija
Heap Sr. Director, Product MarketingJune 9

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 really any product, they want to be pulled in by brands that "get" them. They are looking for themselves in the pages of your datasheets, web pages, and slide decks. So I always think that product marketers need to start with an appreciation of the pain felt by their target buyer persona. They need to empathize with that. When starting from a place of empathy it's easier to find the language to connect and show buyers a better way, through whatever solution you're selling.  

1319 Views
Nipul Chokshi
Nipul Chokshi
Fourth CMOSeptember 8
  • 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 audience to do or feel something - if its too blase, you’ll have a hard time achieving that objective
  • Messaging is inward focused: if you’re targeting an external audience, you’ve not done a good job of using the words/mental models that your audience uses - and are using too many buzzwords/ internal lingo (“marketing speak”)
687 Views
April Rassa
April Rassa
Aventi Group Product Marketing ConsultantSeptember 29

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.

793 Views
Jenna Crane
Jenna Crane
Klaviyo Head of Product MarketingJuly 15
  • 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 about
  • Writing copy instead of messaging: You can write some great-sounding sentences that are more copy than messaging; that is, it's hard for other people to distill down the essence of what you're trying to say and they're instead forced to just use that copy verbatim or not at all. You should be able to distill down the core elements of the messaging into its key components, which can be phrased in different ways for different audiences and channels. 
  • Thinking it has to be perfect right out of the gate and/or not revisiting messaging again after it’s shipped: Messaging is a constant evolution. You should continue to shape and mold it as you learn more and as the market changes. Air out those static, stale messaging docs every few months to see if there’s anything you can make better!
811 Views
Frances Liu
Frances Liu
Instawork Head of MarketingAugust 31

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 to have rational data points so they can justify the decision, but a great story compels. 

405 Views
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Hummingbirds Head Of MarketingNovember 18

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 and make an impact with the audience you care about. This can also happen a lot when you write by committee - a surefire way to end up with sentences with many good words but don't mean much together. This is why I think it's really important to have a good chain of command for content creation > editing > publishing. If content touches too many hands it can end up in a state where it feels like a human didn't actually write it.

534 Views
Hila Segal
Hila Segal
WalkMe Vice President, Product MarketingMay 31

Not validating it enough and getting sucked into internal debates between stakeholders. Messaging can be very subjective and emotional. When working on messaging for a new product - 1. Start very early, put the first draft of messaging and continue to refine. 2. Write the press release early too and use it as a way to create alignment. 3. Validate. validate. validate. Go onsite with customers, interview Beta users, and learn from CS/implementation/sales teams. This will help you drive buy-in to the new messaging by using the proof points from customer interviews. 

477 Views
Pranav Deshpande
Pranav Deshpande
Vanta Senior Product Marketing ManagerFebruary 25

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 internalize how customers perceive product value. There's a few things you could incorporate into your messaging process to avoid these pitfalls:

(1) Spend a lot of time using the product. If your product requires integration / implementation (like Modern Treasury :)), spend time with customer success, sales engineering and product developing a mental map of how the product fits into the customers workflows or business model.

(2) Identify jobs-to-be-done. I describe in detail why I like this framework so much here - https://dysposition.com/2021/08/13/part-2-positioning-for-startups/

(3) Go deep on the competition. Understand how they perform the same jobs for your ICP. This will help you ground your messaging in market realities, making it more compelling and relatable to your ICP.  

308 Views
Anand Patel
Anand Patel
Appcues Director of Product MarketingSeptember 21

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 segments haven't appeared, make sure conversions haven't decreased on key landing pages, etc. 

373 Views
Tracy Montour
Tracy Montour
HiredScore Head of Product MarketingJuly 28

Not speaking in the language of the customer. We often alienate our customer with jargon and irrelevant data points or benefits. We don't need to say everything we do in every single touchpoint. Be strategic, be succinct, and be customer-focused. 

I would also add that PMMs should focus on clarity over cleverness. If you can be clear and clever, then go for it. :)

241 Views
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