Nisha Goklaney

This is a great question! Given messaging is such a subjective topic - it's super important to quantifiably test and iterate on it to ensure it lands well in the market. Here's a few strategies and tactics you can use to quantifably test it: 1. During the process of creating the messaging, work with your market research team to test aspects of the messaging with prospects and customers. This can be both qualitative tests where you test specific aspects of your pitch and differentiated value or quantitative tests of words or descriptors you use. 2. Solicit early feedback from Sales and Customer support teams - We’ve recently done this super effectively at Hubspot, by essentially recording a Loom video of our pitch (keep it under 5-7 minutes) and following that up with a Google form with specific questions to solicit sales and customer success feedback on the pitch, differentiated value, use cases, imagery used etc. 3. Leverage platforms and tools such as Wynter - This has been another effective platform we’ve used to test messaging effectiveness and gain specific feedback on what resonates and doesnt with your prospective buyers. Wynter allows you to crowdsource and get real-time feedback from your target customers. 4. A/B test on your website, ad copy, social copy, search copy - these are simple and effective ways to test a couple of different messaging options with your prospects in real-time to see what resonates most. 5. Email test your messaging to prospects - This is a tactic you can easily use to test different subject lines, body copy, CTA’s to see what resonates most.

There are a host of good training options out there: 1. Sharebird - a great place to start. Here you can get real industry expertise and resources from folks in the field 2. Podcasts - Women in Product Marketing by Mary Sheehan (Sharebird Podcast), Product Marketing Insider are a couple of my favorites. 3. Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It" by April Dunford. 4. Another best practice I like to follow is actually spending time on other brand sites (example B2B sites like- Gong, Airtable, Monday.com, Snowflake, Zendesk, Drift, Quickbooks.com etc.) to understand how they position their products, how they showcase their value prop, jobs to be done etc. 5. PMM Alliance - They have a comprehensive set of courses, content and how to guides that I have found extremely useful 6. Also, Linkedin is a great resource. There are some incredible marketers and product marketers that focus on covering messaging, positioning, super worthwhile to follow.

Yes, there are plenty resources out there for you to continue to sharpen your toolset and learn from others in the community as well. Here are some of my favorites 1. Listening to podcasts - Women in Product Marketing by Mary Sheehan is by far my favorite. She brings on a host of Senior PMM's in their field to discuss topics from messaging, positioning, pricing, getting into PMM, GTM strategy etc. 2. Following thought leaders on Linkedin. 3. Spend time on other websites - Some website I have come to love over time are Airtable, Asana, Snowflake, Zendesk, Gong, Drift, Dropbox, Evernote etc. Here's a good list of good B2B website examples and what makes them great as well 3. Spending time in the field with actual customers - listen to how they talk about their challenges, goals, aspirations and passions. What they like spending time doing and what they don't. Ask specific questions on how your product/service helps them, what they would do otherwise and take notes on the specific words and language they use to describe the value your product brings to them 4. Listen to Gong calls or shadow your sales/Customer success teams - to hear first hand on how your sellers sell your product/service, the slides and pitch decks they use, and their words and language. Pay attention to what resonates with customers, and what doesnt. Listen also, to how prospects describe their problems. 

I have used several different messaging frameworks, but one that we are leveraging quite a lot these days is the Jobs to be done framework, accompanied by durable, evergreen messages that are centered around our key customer personas and their pain points. In this framework you start by: 1. First, Understanding your ‘who’ (aka your key buyer personas) - who they are, what are their goals, their challenges, what keeps them up at night and what pain points they are most struggling with. We get super detailed here, with understanding how our buyers make software purchase decisions, where they go for information, what their key influence points are (e.g. website, review sites, analyst relations, buyer enablement content etc.) 2. Second, Develop your ‘why’ - Our next step is then to articulate how we help our key personas solve for their jobs to be done and what makes us unique in doing so. These take the shape of ‘durable messages’ or ‘messaging pillars’ that explain the distinct value of your product or service and why a customer should consider your solution to address their JTBD. Top tip to get to this is by listening to prospect calls (Use Gong if your company records them, you’ll start to see patterns emerge) 3. Third, Develop your ‘how’ - This is where you go into details to explain with 2-3 simple examples of how a customer can use your product/service to help them solve their jobs to be done. Top tip here: If you focus on a specific industry, vertical - use the opportunity to explain how you have brought value to customers here. Always include output data points (e.g. time saved, efficiency gained, ROI, Revenue) where possible to measure impact 4. Put it all together - Using the insights and info you have collected, put together 1. Elevator pitch - 1-2 sentences that explains the job your product/service does, who it is for, and how it is differentiated 2. Messaging pillars - 3 pillars that explain the value you bring to your target customer 3. Used cases - real life examples of how you deliver value with outcomes 4. Reason to Believe/Proof - Include customer testimonials, reviews & ratings, analyst relations

Brilliant question. If developed correctly, your messaging pillars should be evergreen (i.e. should not change on a dime) from campaign to campaign. Ultimately, your messaging pillars bring to life the core value your product/service delivers to customers and hence should be foundational. As you release new product features, think about how they ladder up to your core messaging pillars (aka the value you deliver to customers) and map them as such. Here are some best practices to ensure you get maximum traction from your messaging and that there is consistency across how channel marketers, PR teams, sales etc. use them. 1. Develop a 'How to guide' - In a how to guide, your role is to essentially breakdown and provide guidance to your key stakeholders on how they should be using your messaging - are there direct copy points they can leverage for the website, social, ad copy? Can your PR team directly leverage speaking points or use your messaging pillars? Can your sales team directly use your pitch with a talk track? Break it down for them with instructions, so it’s easy for your stakeholders to use and re-use your messaging. Good messaging is used on an ongoing and consistent basis across 360 channels - to promote customer recall. 2. Roadshow - Showshow your messaging across your sales, customer success, marketing organization - and explain how each team can effectively utilize your messaging. 3. Centralize where you store your messaging - so its easily findable and referencable by all stakeholders. Encourage folks to bookmark it

If your goal is to influence the product roadmap there are a few pitfalls you should avoid. 1. Don't treat the roadmap as something fixed/set in stone - Having a roadmap is super crucial to helping focus product teams + also giving the market a clear sign on where you are going. However, there needs to be a fine balance here, so that you don't miss opportunities to meet the moment. A better approach - is to recognize that roadmaps are dynamic, frame your input as a way to enhance priorities or respond to emerging trends. 2. Don't focus only on features, ignoring the problem - Suggesting features without tying them to customer pain points or business outcomes can make you seem out of touch with the broader goals. Instead, present insights framed as 'problems to solve' e.g. the customer needs a better way to track ROI, letting PM's design the solution 3. Don't forget to make trade-off's - Suggesting changes and additions without tradeoffs can make your input seem unrealistic or unhelpful. Instead acknowledge tradeoffs and frame as opportunities for discussion (e.g. if we say yes to this, we may need to delays Y. Here's the impact of both options) 4. Don't overpromise to customers - Making commitments about future features without product team's buy-in can lead to misaligned expectations. Instead communicate roadmap priorities but be clear when things are in consideration, or timeline hasn't been finalized. 5. Don't dismiss the product's teams expertise - this sounds like a no-brainer but PM's are experts in their product - acknowledge their expertise, ensure you are clear in framing your recommendations from your expertise in bringing market and customer insights 6. Don't forget to follow up and have shared documentation - follow up and shared documentation is super crucial to finishing the swing

Product marketing plays a key role in sharing the roadmap externally to ultimately help buyers buy and sellers sell. Here's some key ways to on how to do this: 1. Public roadmap pages or tools - Share high level public facing roadmap that helps give customers insights into the areas the product is investing in and the use cases, themes and problem areas where the product is doubling down to support. 2. Customer advisory boards - share the roadmap selectively with top-tier customers (in certain upmarket deals customers want to see this before they make product investments.) 3. Ongoing release moments - the key here is to have a regular cadence for your ongoing releases, so customers know when to expect this (e.g. HubSpot uses a 2X/ year Spring and Fall Spotlight cadence to launch our big product innovations for the year). We combine our biggest innovations in these 2 marquee moments and present them in a customer first narrative (vs. feature launches) to help customers understand how we're helping them solve their problems. 4. Customer facing events - Use events to unveil exciting roadmap themes and demo the product 5. Social media and content marketing - Build buzz for new features or releases for example by posting a teaser video on Linkedin hinting at an upcoming big release 6. Tailor roadmaps for specific audiences - this could be specific segments of your customer base (E.g. enterprise user, or specific geographical markets or industries) the goal here is to tailor the enhancements to what is most important to this sub-segment of users based on their needs.

What works here in my experience is having regular touchpoints for alignment + strategic reviews to influence direction. Here's a framework: * Weekly or bi-weekly syncs - for ongoing collaboration and alignment. This is where you discuss progress on current roadmap items, any changes to product launch timeframes, updates on GTM plans, customer feedback and market trends. Why it's important: Maintains a constant feedback loop and prevents surprises as features move through development * Quarterly roadmap planning - PMM's present a 'GTM recommendations report' summarizing top customer problems, market opportunities. Bring snippet Gong calls, rep calls here to help frame the customer first mindset. PM's share upcoming plans and trade-offs for the next quarter. Why it's important: Provides a formal opp for PMM's to influence the roadmap and for PM's to be aligned with the GTM strategy * Ad hoc as needed - This is to address any urgent issues or opportunities (could be a critical customer or sales feedback, competitive threats, market shifts requiring immediate adjustment

This is a great question. An important thing to remember is Products should be built with a market in mind - and that's where a PMM comes in. They should be experts in the 'market' (customer, competitor, market sizing) and use this as their grounding. Here's what worked from my experience: 1. Coming to the table with data and insights - Product teams value concrete, actionable insights so bringing data that they can't ignore helps. Use customer feedback, rep feedback, competitive analysis and adoption data to make your case. Data shifts the conversation from 'opinion' to 'fact' 2. Becoming known as the person that brings the voice of the customer to life - This takes some work, but create space for yourself and set aside time on a recurring basis to speak with customers. Understand how they are using your product, what's working and what's not. Capture their exact sentiments, and share this with PM's on a regular basis. Have a call scheduled with a customer - bring your PM along so together you can understand customer pain points and sentiment directly. 3. Have product expertise and strong knowledge on the competitive landscape - These 2 skills are crucial to establish credibility. Share interesting and impactful competitive intel with PM's. Become a partner that your PM looks at as someone that will help them grow and learn as well. 4. Embed yourself into product planning early - Find ways to inject PMM influence into the roadmap early. One thing we have been doing at HubSpot is helping our GM's take their product vision (a technical doc) and frame it in the lens of a customer narrative and a company growth narrative. This has helped us showcase our value as a trusted partner, and enabled us to provide recommendations on the roadmap 5. Build relationships -Invest in trust-building with product leaders. Have regular 1-1's with PM's to understand their challenges and find ways to support them.