Malli Vangala

Sure. While I cannot share internal documents necessarily, I can share a few elements that I think make up good messaging frameworks. Market and competitive context Product strategy/objective (i.e. why we are introducing this particular product/capability and how it fits in broader portfolio of products Clear articulation of target customer segment and their pain points we are trying to address Value prop (ideally backed up by research validation!) and finally Messaging (1-sentence articulation, ...Read More

I am a believer that your messaging/positioning has to be consistent with how differentiated your product really is. Customers will quickly figure out what is marketing fluff vs. product truth anyway! So - even if your product is not the market leader but your research tells you that you have a killer product - i'd suggest being aggressive with the messaging and positioning and taking the fight to the competition! On the other hand - if you are entering a new segment with a 'v1' version of a pro ...Read More

We typically prepare and validate a strong Messaging and Positioning Framework (MPF) document first. Our template typically includes things like the market context, objectives of our messaging (i.e. what we hope to drive/influence), quick single-sentence description of the product etc. Once we have this document, we circulate it among the exec team (typically months in advance of a launch to give everyone enough time to reflect and comment). We also typically have multiple live discussions on th ...Read More

We try to validate our messaging and positioning prior to finalizing them. We try to obtain feedback from the sales team (ultimately they will use this messaging/positioning most internally), existing and potential customers, third-party analysts (e.g. from Gartner/IDC etc.), internal stakeholders. I have personally found it very helpful to validate with individuals who are not close to the product/solution. Individuals outside Marketing also can help with a quick sanity check to make sure 'mark ...Read More

We do - however, important to bake in some flexibility/adaptibility as each product/capability/solution tends to have it's own nuances/objectives. Having said that, generally the process is as follows:  Collaborate with the Engineering team to thoroughly understand product/solution Develop and independent perspective of the market and competitive context Develop a 'v1' draft of proposed messaging Test messaging with potential customers, sales team, analysts, internal stakeholders Refine and fina ...Read More

Great question! We faced a similar challenge a few years ago for one of our suite of solutions. It may boil down to how critical each of those three segments are to your business. Based on your question - sounds like all three are important (otherwise I'd recommend optimizing for the most critical segment). Assuming you have to address all three segments, you have a few choices: Craft your brand messaging to include (1) the lowest common denominator for all three segments (2) the most critical c ...Read More

We collect and incorporate the voice of the customer in a few different ways: First - the sales team tends to be a great proxy as they are on the front lines and can provide great inputs on what they are hearing from customers, what seems to resonate and what does not. Second - our product marketing team actively engages directly with customers through executive briefings, partnering with the sales team in customer discussions, webinars, events etc. Third - we regularly engage with reputed analy ...Read More

We try our best not to get too caught up or carried away with our great product features! Ultimately - it's about the value we deliver to customers and so we try to infuse the business value into the messaging as much as we can. The other thing we try to do (sometimes successfully!) is to avoid jargon/'fluff' in the context of messaging....in other words, keep the messaging plain and simple. If our messaging resonates with the least technical of our customers, that's a win! The sales team can th ...Read More