John Withers

Your messaging should show up everywhere, including within any of the following marketing tactics you may choose to employ: * Internal * Internal announcements (eg, Slack, other field comms) * Enablement sessions and related materials * External * Customer email(s) * Blog(s) * Web * Press release * Social posts * Videos * Field marketing * Webinar * Events * etc But one of the biggest challenges of messaging is driving consistency, especially as you navigate multiple rounds of feedback. That’s why it’s crucial to be disciplined and have a single source of truth for your messaging, such as a messaging framework or messaging document. On my team, for every product launch (even the small ones), we use a simple Google Doc template, where we iterate on the messaging at the very top; once it’s finalized, the messaging can be copy/pasted into each templated section below it (for each desired GTM tactic), to ensure it’s all consistent. And of course, some tactics will benefit from adjustments or deviations, which is fine (if desired).

I’m going to expand my answer to include the entire GTM strategy as well as the product strategy itself. For a mature company, I can think of at least a couple of scenarios that would require taking different approaches. For this answer, I’m going to focus on the scenario where you expand into adjacent markets that serve similar teams where there are efficiency gains to be made from tools consolidation. There are many examples of this (including Salesforce, where I used to work), but I’ll focus on where I currently work (in 2024): New Relic. New Relic was founded as an Application Performance Monitoring (APM) company, whereas Datadog started with infrastructure monitoring, and Splunk was a logs company. Over time, each company realized we could go after each other’s market share, either by acquiring companies that had solutions similar to our competitors, or by building those products internally. In terms of GTM strategy and messaging in this scenario, the value-add of offering a platform of capabilities vs. individual tools is two-fold: 1) Faster and more efficient troubleshooting when something breaks, because a user has visibility into their performance across their entire stack: Apps, infrastructure, network, and end users’ experiences (ie, mobile devices and browsers). This value prop should resonate with practitioners and IT decision makers. 2) Lower OPEX, due to consolidating onto fewer tools (and simpler procurement process, fewer contracts, etc). This value prop speaks to IT decision makers, budget holders, procurement, etc. So in the scenario I painted above, the messaging and the GTM strategy should reflect the two broad customer value props I outlined. And as a mature company, you benefit from the following (which you should take into account as you build your strategy): * Existing customer base * Mature GTM orgs (Sales and Marketing) * Credibility within your market, your customers, your prospects, analysts, etc Having the above “feathers in your cap” is HUGE, and you’ll benefit significantly from them. The one caution would be if, instead of being considered an innovator in your market, you’re thought of as a laggard throwing up a hail mary to stay relevant, you’ll have a tougher time convincing customers to adopt your new product. Now, let’s discuss doing this at a new company (full disclosure: I haven’t worked for a startup, so take this with a grain of salt). Depending upon the size of your startup, you’ll find yourself on a spectrum from having none of the following to having a fair amount of it: * Existing customers * Mature Sales org * Credibility The earlier stage you are in, the less important it is to focus on the messaging, and the more important it is to truly understand your ideal customer profile(s), your personas, their pain points, and whether they’re willing to pay for a “better” solution to whatever they’re doing today. As such, your focus should be talking to as many prospects, users, and customers as you can to learn as much as as possible, as quickly as possible. Along the way, you’ll be able to validate the aforementioned and start to think about how to message your solution.

Understanding personas and ideal customer profiles is, in many ways, the foundation for all that we do. If we don’t understand our users’ and customers’ pain points, then there’s very little chance that we’ll build, market, sell, and support the right solutions to meet their needs. At my company, at a strategic level, we have done a rigorous analysis of our market, of our personas (broken down by users, influencers, buyers, and more), and we regularly reevaluate what we believe to be true about each of them. On a more tactical level, when we build positioning and messaging, campaigns, sales collateral, etc, we start by identifying the relevant personas. For example, at my company, Product Marketing has led the development of company-wide sales plays, and we built out a rigorous analysis of both user/practitioner messaging and buyer/exec messaging, identifying the following: 1. The relevant personas 2. What their pain points were 3. What their goals were 4. What messages would resonate the most with them (among other things). By capturing these items, formally in a 1-pager, we were able to align the entire org, from Product, to Marketing, to Sales, which drove clarity for everyone involved.

It depends. But first, let’s align on the purpose behind all of this work: We want to drive conversion, simple as that. And by conversion, I mean: We want users (or buyers) to take some action, such as reading a blog post, signing up for a webinar, talking to an AE, demoing the product, and ultimately using the product (PLG) or signing a contract (SLG). We get people to take these actions by piquing their interest about a better way for them to do their jobs. This is actually a really interesting question, in part because different scenarios would yield different approaches. For example, consider the following: Scenario 1 * Scenario: You’re at an enterprise company, and you and your competitor share the same customers, but for different products. You’ve decided to expand into your competitor’s market with a similar offering. * Example: Think about how Salesforce expanded beyond Sales (CRM) software into Service and Marketing automation, going head-to-head with ServiceNow and Marketo. * Messaging approach: Emphasize i) tools consolidation (cost savings) and/or ii) efficiency gains from using a single platform vs. siloed tools. Scenario 2 * Scenario: You enter a new market against an incumbent with a product that nobody likes using (eg, they have monopoly power and have stopped innovating). * Example: There are lots of enterprise examples, as well as fintech vs. banking, Airbnb vs. the hotel industry; Mint Mobile vs. big three US telcos, etc. * Messaging approach: Highlight why people dislike the incumbent’s solution while emphasizing how you’re different and better (or just do the latter without the former, if that’s more appropriate). Scenario 3 * Scenario: You have a novel solution, innovation, or technology, but customers are generally happy with the status quo. This is one of the hardest scenarios, because customers don’t think there’s a problem with how they’re currently operating. * Example: When Apple first launched the iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry had a near monopoly on the business world and government organizations (and quite a few consumers as well), and those users loved their “Crackberries.” Convincing these users, and the organizations that had invested so much into the Blackberry IT infrastructure, to try something so drastically different (and in many ways, inferior) took years of sustained effort and product innovation. * Messaging approach: Can vary wildly, but the goal is to demonstrate that the status quo is broken, and that the new way will unlock incredible benefits that were previously unimaginable.

PR and AR are really important GTM channels, and having strong leaders/ICs in both of those functions is crucial to reaching customers and prospects with the right messages and GTM strategies. Unfortunately, too many times I’ve seen PR and AR treated as an afterthought. Instead, you need to work closely with both functions well in advance of a launch to have sufficient time to develop the right approaches and to adapt to the input you receive. PR * Expertise: Understands the idiosyncrasies of various media outlets, reporters, and what they’re interested in (and, thus, will promote). Can recruit reporters to publish exclusive articles for major launches. * How you can partner: A strong PR person will actively help you craft messaging to fit a given audience (eg, investors vs. news media), which is especially important for press releases. * When to engage: Multiple weeks before a launch, so you can collaboratively build a PR and media strategy, including securing exclusive press coverage. AR * Expertise: Building relationships with analysts to collect feedback on your products, your roadmap, your GTM strategy, and your competitors (among other things). * How you can partner: Work with your AR leader to set up feedback sessions with analysts, and if you don’t personally have a “seat,” try to get feedback asynchronously through your AR lead. Beyond messaging, analysts can provide feedback about larger strategies, your roadmap, how your customers perceive you, how you compare against competitors, and more. * When to engage: As early as possible. Sometimes, analysts can be tricky to pin down, so even if your messaging isn’t completely baked, it’s better to get early feedback on something that’s close vs. missing an opportunity entirely. And early feedback may alert you to considerations you hadn’t thought of, and might not have anticipated, on your own.

First, let’s start with the following premise: Behavioral science tells us that the vast majority of decisions are made using emotional factors (Customer Brand Preference and Decisions: Gallup's 70/30 Principle, 2022), even when decision-makers think they’re making data-driven, rational decisions. Oftentimes, data is used after someone has made up their mind in order to justify their decision (often unwittingly). So I believe firmly in appealing to emotional benefits. It’s why we often refer to users’ problems as their “pain points” (which more strongly implies an emotion vs. just a “problem” or “challenge”). That said, there ought to be a 1:1 mapping between emotional pain → functional benefit to alleviate the pain → emotional benefits. In other words, “you’re probably frustrated by having to do X, which is why we’ve built capability Y to make you 10% more productive, so you can spend less time on toilsome work and get back to doing what you love.” Another way to think about this is Simon Sinek’s Start with why, where he says that if you want to motivate someone to change a behavior (in our case, buy or use our product), you have to demonstrate why they should do it before you tell them how to do it, or even what you want them to do.

One of the fundamental skills a Product Marketer must develop is the ability to influence others across the organization. This includes their manager, other Marketing leaders, their Product Manager counterpart(s), and executives. This ability to influence others is highly dependent on one’s credibility within the organization. An experienced and trusted Product Marketer might be able to more easily influence others even without rigorous analysis to back up their point of view–this may or may not be a good thing! Conversely, a less-seasoned Product Marketer, or one who’s new to an organization, may need to over-index on rigorous research to influence others, even if they truly know the market–again, this may or may not be a good thing! Either way, you might loosely follow the steps below to convert market research into actionable PMM insights: * Do the research: Check out the other question I answered about how to do this. * Derive insights: This will depend upon your goals, but ideally you will have had some hypotheses that you intended to confirm or deny, based on your research. What did you learn? * Capture your point of view (POV): Write down your findings, using a framework of your choice, to capture the take-aways. Do this separate from all of your research notes, so you have a clean POV that you can share with others. * Pressure test: Share your findings with someone who can pressure-test your POV. Your manager is (hopefully) the obvious choice here. Depending on your relationship and credibility with your Product Manager, you might choose to start with them instead. * Share widely: Let’s assume you’ve learned something significant, which needs to be shared broadly to other teams and/or leaders. As a next step, you might advocate to share your findings in a regular Product or Marketing leadership sync, or perhaps a small meeting with some influential leaders, or via email or Slack. The right method will depend on your own organization, but regardless of the forum, the goal is to share your new insights with those who can steer the ship in a new direction (if necessary).

Market research is a must-have for a product launch. As Marketers, one of the requirements for doing our job (well) is to have a thorough understanding of the market. That means 1) identifying the personas our product(s) are intended to serve, 2) understanding each persona’s pain points and needs, 3) analyzing competitors and their abilities to serve the needs of the market, including understanding how our solution is (hopefully) differentiated, 4) having a sense of customers’ willingness to pay for the solution we’re launching (pricing and packaging), 5) knowing what messaging will resonate with our intended audience, and…so much more. In other words, if we haven’t taken the time to research the market, doing our job is nearly impossible. In terms of which methods are most effective, it likely depends on what industry you’re in, the size of your company (are you a startup trying to build a new category, or are you an enterprise company with lots of paying customers), and many other factors. I work in B2B SaaS, so I’ll share some thoughts on what I’ve seen work for my teams. But know that what I’ll list below are merely sources of information, each with their own pros and cons, so ultimately it’s up to Marketers to sift through it all to separate the signal from the noise. - Customers: If they’re actively engaged with your product, they can be a great source of feedback. An engaged customer might be willing to demo your product back to you, showing you how they use it, where they find value, but also where they need you to improve it to meet their unmet needs. The challenges with customers are 1) getting a large enough sample size so you don’t over-rotate to just a few customers’ feedback, and 2) making sure your customer isn’t sugar-coating their feedback, because they’re a people-pleaser. - Sales and Pre-Sales: AEs and SCs (speaking from the B2B SaaS perspective) talk to your customers and prospects all day, every day. So they will have tons of insights about customers’ needs, product gaps, your competitors advantages and disadvantages, etc. - Analysts: Analyst firms speak with countless customers who (if you’re an established company) use your solution, and other customers who use your competitors’ solutions. The volume of input that analysts collect is very helpful, and the competitor insights are an especially useful piece that you might not be able to acquire on your own. But analysts have their own biases, so take their research and analysis with a grain of salt, especially if you’re an unknown startup trying to break into a space. - Competitors: Your strongest competitors have teams of talented Product Marketers, Product Managers, and executives trying to understand and serve the market, just like you. Read their press releases, their blogs, their product pages, their 10Ks, and any other collateral you can get your hands on. You’ll learn a lot about your shared market this way. - The socials: Where do your customers hang out and talk about your product (or your competitors)? Reddit? X (FKA Twitter)? Hacker News? Luckily, I've got a social media team who semi-regularly shares social media mentions of our own company, as well as our competitors. The unvarnished opinions and rants of some of these users can be very insightful (but also can be completely misdirected, so take it with a grain of salt).

Create a template with a number of questions that are well thought out, in advance. The questions serve two purposes: 1. To guide the conversation in a deliberate way (one that you’ve mapped out in advance, without the pressures of coming up with questions in real-time), and... 2. To drive a consistent process, which, hopefully, will help you identify useful patterns. To emphasize the first point, you should approach every customer conversation with a very specific goal: Something you want to learn, or something you want to get feedback on, etc. Having tailored questions that guide you to getting the responses you need will help you. That said, you also need to be agile and let the conversation flow in unexpected ways. Again, you won’t have thought of everything in advance, and by allowing a customer to steer the conversation, you’ll learn things that you wouldn’t have thought to ask in the first place.

I’m going to split my answer into two parts, using the following (loose) definitions: * Positioning: An internal-only description of what the product is, who it’s for, the problems it solves (with key benefits), and how it’s differentiated from the competition. * Messaging: The language you use in the market to convey the value of the product. Messaging First, I can’t overstate how important it is to always be open to feedback about your messaging, and to be willing to update it (even after it’s been “finalized”). In this scenario, I’m going to assume that you’ve already spent hours drafting and editing messaging, in part based on internal feedback from your manager, your PM(s), Sales reps, SEs/SCs, and potentially executive stakeholders (eg, Head of PMM, CMO, CPO, etc), depending upon the importance of the product and the associated launch. So what’s next? At this point, it’s time to get input from people outside of your organization, to see if your messaging actually resonates and lands the way that you want it to. One of the easier ways to get this type of feedback is from analysts, assuming you have that function set up. Analysts speak with tons of customers, and they also hear from your competitors, so analysts are well-positioned to have an informed opinion about your entire market, including knowing what customers value and prioritize. Just use caution to not over-rotate to an analyst’s feedback, especially if you’re launching a novel product or an emerging technology that the analyst may be unfamiliar with. Oftentimes, the more difficult feedback channel, but ultimately the best source of feedback, is getting it directly from customers. Hopefully you’ve been able to develop a handful of close relationships with your AEs and SCs/SEs, who may be able to arrange a meeting with a friendly customer. Low-hanging fruit would be customers involved in a Preview release who are actively providing product feedback, but getting any customer feedback is incredibly valuable! Again, don’t over-rotate to a too-small sample size, and make sure you’re getting feedback from customers that match your ideal customer profile (ICP) for that product. Positioning Positioning should be the entire basis for building and releasing anything, as it forms the foundation of any product strategy. So while I’ve listed it second (behind Messaging), the reality is that this work must be done first (and is often owned or co-owned by the Product team). The channels for validating Positioning should be very similar to those of Messaging, but the feedback you would seek would be different. You’ll be less focused on how you talk about the product/feature/release, and instead you’ll want to seek answers to the following (non-exhaustive) questions: * What problems are we solving? For whom? * Does the market need this capability? * How well does our solution address the problems we’re trying to solve? * Will customers be willing to pay (more?) for this capability? * Are we playing catchup with a competitor, or is our solution differentiated? Again, getting feedback from analysts and actual customers is critical to getting Positioning, and ultimately, the product strategy right. But that input should be received well before the product is built, because only after you understand the answers to the questions above, can your organization determine what to build.