What types of messaging documents or frameworks are typically shared with stakeholders from different teams (i.e. product, marketing, execs, etc.)?

We find it helpful to have a single messaging document that everyone in the company can access. It goes through our mission/vision/description all of the way down to messaging segmented product, customer type, and industry vertical. A shared document enables all of the teams to be on the same page and tell the same story to the market.

Before we’re ready to share messaging broadly (and put it in the master document), we collaborate with different teams to have the highest confidence that the messaging is going to land. 

Executives — Collaborate on mission and vision, consulted on product naming and packaging
Marketing team — Collaborate on key value propositions, category decisions, and boilerplate, test different headlines and messages via campaigns and our site
Product team — Collaborate on quarterly themes we align to for product development and product launches, co-own the customer-facing product roadmap, work closely on product-level messaging for new products refining the audience, positioning, and key use cases with the PM
Sales team — Test messaging, value propositions, and pricing in market, finalize the sales deck and talk tracks together, identify common objections to create messaging for

We are in the process of creating an internal messaging hub, where all of our messaging will live. This hub will be on our Confluence site (which is what we use as our internal Wiki for the org). Our goal is to host all of our messaging docs on that hub, and give everyone access to it as a "Single Source of Truth" (SSOT). For the rollout, we also did a focus group with leads from different functions to get feedback on what formats work best for them.

Some teams, such as marketing or product teams, will likely want to review messaging in detail, but for a lot of other teams, you likely need “snackable” versions of your messaging. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to deliver this information in a variety of ways, and you need to deliver it over time so you are reinforcing it again and again to make it land.

Here are some ways we have tailored this content to different stakeholders:

• Executives: we have created an executive pitch that our leadership team can use for anything from internal presentations to analysts briefings or executive customer meetings, based on our updated messaging - this is our corporate messaging at the highest level
• Marketing/Product: We have our core value proposition, elevator pitches in different word counts, use cases mapped to product features and functionality, buyer persona overviews, ICPs, and a doc on proof points and customer testimonials. We also link to our competitive intel from our messaging docs, but that is an entirely separate initiative.
• Sales: Sales pitch decks, talk track, training videos, documentation on objection handling and any competitive positioning docs.

I've always been in the product team, so that's the most natural interaction for me. For PM, we'd collaborate on how to position new products. We built a spreadsheet that had product pillars>concepts>key features>'feature rank'>feature flags, price.

You may be asking, 'what's a feature rank' and that's where I LOVED using this handy three-point rating scale that was drilled into me at Citrix:

* Table-stakes: required capabilities that everyone and where there’s no clear uniqueness.
* Competitive differentiators: everyone has the capability, but your company does it better
* Purple cows: your company provides this capability and no one else has it

So in practice, here’s how that netted out for our entry into the mobility market:

* Mobile Device Management: table stakes. Everyone has it, no one had a big advantage
* Mobile App Management: differentiated. We put a security ‘wrapper’ around applications that protected them from security breaches. Not unique to us but the easy wrapping capabilities were novel.
* Mobile Data Management: purple cow. No mobility vendor offered a secure Dropbox-like capability. We generated 70% of our mobility sales based on this unique capability.

Ok, enough geeking out over product-level messaging. Here's a messaging doc template that nets out all the core messaging that a marketing/demand-gen team will need. Beyond product and marketing, I don't think sharing messaging frameworks is very helpful. The other teams are more interested in outputs / deliverables from using the core messaging framework.  

Hope this helps!

I believe in promoting a very collaborative environment where the best information is always shared and used to inform the different workstreams. At Uber we create one source of truth document, called the Marketing Brief. This brief can be shared with every stakeholder in the organization but is mostly used to inform the cross-functional work needed to launch a product or campaign. This Marketing Brief is used by our creative teams to help design the campaign, by our Growth marketing teams to plan for performance marketing, by our sales enablement teams to help develop a sales education plan, by product management, etc. 

The Marketing Brief contains the following sections:

1. Background context on the project 

2. Business opportunity

3. Business KPIs

4. Marketing KPIs

5. Key research or user insights

6. Product Messaging/Narrative

7. Value proposition (Reasons to Believe)

8. Comms and Channel strategy

9. Measurement plan

10. Deliverables

11. Timeline

12. Budget

13. Cross-functional team members

14. Useful resources or links

15. Review and signoffs 

The key thing for messaging frameworks that are shared with your org is know your audience.

As PMMs, we are often creating different messages for different audiences. When you share your framework, be clear on how to use the messaging, and for whom the messaging is created for. 

i.e. Whenever I prepare a launch, I always label the messaging the SALES team should use in talking to prospects, messaging Customer Success should be using for customers, key value props for Marketing, etc.

For Leadership, it's really important to give them Executive Summaries..again just to show that your team is on top of the launch and that they get visibility on what's happening with the GTM/product, etc. 

A quick summary of key elements:

- Audience

- Key Value Props

- Launch Timeline

- Pricing/Packaging (if applicable)

- Outcomes desired

- Competitive advantages/comparison, etc.

The contents of your messaging library will vary from company to company and product to product. However, you'll want to create some tentpole documents no matter where you are. A few to consider as part of your arsenal:

• A single source of truth—This is usually a longer form document that tells the story of your product. It should provide the source material for much of the messaging needed for different teams. While positioning should remain consistent, messaging, and this doc in particular, should evolve over time.

• Product Marketing (Messaging) Briefs (PMB)—The name might vary, but the goal is to provide necessary messaging components for a product or feature. This doc is used by many internal stakeholders and is key to GTM launch success.

• A sales pitch deck—Putting messaging into a pitch deck for GTM teams will enable stakeholders to deliver your story consistently and reflect the single source of truth you've created. It's also the best way for PMM to get market feedback on the messaging.

• An executive narrative—This takes the form of a simple deck that enables executives to deliver high-level messaging to other executives. It will oftentimes focus on the overall business impact of a product and leave out the in-the-weeds technical detail.

I like to developing messaging documents based on the outcome we're driving towards. For example, if the need is surrounding company positioning, I'll use a strategic messaging map that's structured as a waterfall and ordered as follows:

• Positioning messaging that includes:

  • Tagline, headline

  • Positioning statement

  • 25 word description

• Then target customer that includes:

  • Business function, title and influence

• Then problem statements that include:

  • Pain thresholds that make value props aspirin and not vitamin.

• Then Value messaging that includes:

  • 1-3 Value Props

  • Value statements

  • Product Features

  • Proof points e.g., the boom stats that proof ROI/product efficacy

The key to any messaging work is to ensure it's research backed, validated, and not produced in a silo. Make sure you bring people along so the final product is supported by key stakeholders and you're in a position to ship upon completion and not battle royale your way through to publishing.

Here is a link to the template I've used, please make a copy if you choose to use it.

Key documents include:

• Master Messaging Doc - includes the most detail and the most structured framework. This is mostly used as a reference document rather than something that is presented.

• Messaging Deck - usually an abridged version of the messaging doc that is meant to be leverage during live reviews with leaders, stakeholders, sales teams etc.

• Pitch Deck - leveraged by sales and is one of the clearest manifestations of your messaging if your product is sold by a sales team.

• One Pager - a customer facing one pager that is an external manifestation of your product messaging

• List of Claims - any claims that are used to back up your messaging framework are listed here with proper sourcing, data, and investor relations thumbs up if required

I document messaging in three unique documents that can be shared with various internal stakeholders and audiences.

• Visual messaging hierarchy - a 1-2 slide format. This is a summary of the product positioning that is used for executive alignment and as the guidepost for messaging

  • The product or solution (+ the tagline if applicable)

  • The overall value the product or solution delivers

  • Who receives value from the product or solution

  • The top benefits of the product (3-5)

  • The capabilities of the product or solution that pay off the aforementioned benefit statements

• Long form messaging narrative (document). This is the full narrative and is used to inform other marketing disciplines and teams on the context and competitive differentiation so they can apply these key messages in various formats (content, social, events, enablement). Some sections in this document include:

  • Current market environment + situation

  • Current unsolved pain points

  • Product/Solution overview and benefits

  • Target persona overview

  • Competitive Differentiation - why competitor x, y are not comparable

  • Top benefit statement

  • Supporting benefit statements

  • Complete list of technical and functional capabilities that align to each benefit statement

  • Regional distinctions

  • Expected ROI

  • Customer proof points and case studies

  • Industry expert validation

• Approved pitch deck (slides). This aligns with the narrative doc but is is used primarily by sales and in 3rd party conversations to explain the value of the product or solution