What are the top 3 things you watch out for when you create your content / messaging plan?

1. Inward focus vs. customer centricity
2. Marketing jargon vs. simplicity
3. silo-ed message vs. integrated messaging across our portfolio

Very often - it's easy to get caught up in our internal org dynamics and excitement about a product while creating the messaging around it. We have to periodically step back and make sure the messaging makes sense to someone who is not as familiar with the product or our broad portfolio of solutions

1. Market & Competitive Insights - What do we know about our target market? What do we know about the competition? What do we know about our prospective customers' pain points? What don't we know about all of the above? Once research is conducted, is it enough to get started? 
2. Business Goal & Target Customer - What does success look like for the business? What is the primary objective - new customer acquisition, current customer adoption or retention? Who is the target audience? The more specific the better…
3. Product Value - is it clear? Do we know what pain point or problem we are solving for the customer?

The 3 most critical components of messaging IMO are target audience, hard-hitting & differentiated value props and customer/field validation.

1. Target audience - I can't understate the importance of understanding your target audience. This includes getting deep into who is your economic buyer, your champion and key stakeholders across the organization. For the product area I oversee (Customer Identity), we actually see 2 major buying centers (IT/Security and Digital/product development) and a number of other key stakeholders in other functional units (marketing, compliance). As a result, we need to ensure any messaging we create is tailored for initiatives and projects that the buying center has but still speaks to the broader set of requirements driven by the remaining stakeholders.
2. Hard-hitting and differentiated value props - At the end of the day, no other company should be able to credibly state your value props. Therefore, always incorporate competitive positioning into your messaging, even though you may not be stating a competitor's name outright. Ensure that you're speaking to business outcomes as well. It is much more powerful to enforce that your product improves customer conversion rates than to say it provides a seamless customer experience.
3. Customer/field validation - Messaging is not frozen. We should always be testing it and iterating it as your product evolves, as your audience's challenges shift and as the market changes. These are subtle shifts over time so it's good to set aside time to revisit your messaging with fresh eyes to determine if a larger revamp is needed.
   

I look for the following when created new content/messaging:

1. Purpose: Why am I creating this? (e.g. Was this an ask from Sales? | Did I determine this was a need in the buyers journery?)

2. Audience: Who do I want to read this new piece of content/who needs this message? (e.g. Do I want to educate my audience on a topic? | Or is my goal to persuade a buyer?)

3. Distribution: How will this content/message be disributed? (e.g. Is this a social post? A white paper? etc.)