How do you keep product messaging consistent across teams?

In my experience, this exercise is a cross-functional (or full startup team) exercise that can be led as a workshop. Product messaging framework is the output of this workshop, and the inputs are the Vision, Mission, Brand positioning statement and brand documents, Personas/JTBD, Unique value propositions, and customer feedback. Creating this messaging framework is step 1 and step 2 is optimizing it with feedback from critical teams and customers. Step 3 is sharing it with all internal stakeholders.

Every brand should have clear brand guidelines that define the rules of how a brand engages. Adherence to the set guidelines ensures that the brand is consistent in style, voice, graphics etc across all communication channels. This does not negate the importance of adapting your messaging to each medium. For example, delivery of a TV commercial will be different from a YouTube ad. However, regardless of the channel, your content should align with your brand values & personality.

The easiest way to keep product messaging consistent across teams is to first establish the higher-level portfolio message and make it a customer-facing message that articulates the most common reason customers would "hire your portfolio." With that as the backdrop, creating product messages to support the portfolio message becomes much easier. Create a visual hierarchy, like an org chart. At the top of the org chart is the portfolio message. Think of each product message as a direct report to the portfolio message!

Regularly review and refine it to ensure it stays relevant and resonates with your audience. Listen to customer feedback, monitor industry trends, and be agile in adapting your core message to meet changing needs.

This is such a great topic and I love the contributions! In my experience, aligning your portfolios value proposition with how it’s solves your target audiences pain points is gold! Extra points if you can capture how your portfolio differentiates from the competition.

How do you create customer segments and personas? -Create a core team of stakeholders -List hypotheses on what makes a "good" customer. -Determine how to define customer quality or LTV. -Identify a clean list of customers for analysis. -Identify relevant data fields needed to test your hypotheses. -Enrich the database of customers with the corresponding fields. -Analyze data sets to validate hypotheses. The approach varies from lightweight clustering analysis to regression analysis. -Evaluate hypotheses to form segments of customers and assess market sizing to identify customer segments. -Review customer segments and align on the prioritization. -Develop real-life personas from each segment. These help create specific messaging pillars.

Go beyond generic audience segments by diving into micro-targeting. Narrow down your focus to subsets of personas with highly specific needs or use cases. This level of personalization allows for more specific messaging.

Validating personas are even more important than creating them perfectly. Personas will be modified with segmented ideal or current customer feedback that inform the personas. This is an exciting part of product management and product marketing or emerging markets as it defines who will have interest in your products/services and the value it will have to them, and ultimately what they are willing to pay for that value.

Personas are definitely not a one and done type of thing. Target audience needs shift, technology evolves, market dynamics change, etc… Revisiting value propositions is essential to remaining relevant and connected to prospects.

Create personas and segments that represent the ideal customers and users of the product. Personas are fictional characters that embody the goals, needs, and pain points of a specific target audience, while segments are groups of customers or users that share similar characteristics, behaviors, or preferences. By creating personas and segments teams can align their product messaging around the value proposition, benefits, and features that resonate most with each type of customer or user. This helps to ensure that the product messaging is relevant, clear, and consistent across different channels, platforms, and stages of the customer journey.

Design for Modular Messaging! Consider creating modular templates that allow for easy customization. Instead of rigid templates, opt for building blocks like headlines, subheadings, and key messages that your team can mix and match as needed

I've always advocated for a single unified messaging document as a single source of truth. All 'versions' as it evolved should be in the same document, using a version control table on the front pages to inform people what they are looking at. Draft (status) Final candidate (in review) Approved (OK for distribution) In revision (hold) A version control table has never let me down and always been well-received. It also clarifies the status for self-helpers and cuts down internal churn ('hey where can I find, what status is...'

A single source of truth on your product, that all the necessary internal stakeholders have bought into, is pure gold. Well articulated, cleanly structured, and easily accessible Product Marketing documentation, such as Sales Battlecards, for each of your products should be the foundation from which all product marketing content expands from.

In my experience and in graduate school, there was a sharp focus on a messaging strategy whenever new messaging, key documents, partners, sales tools, decisions, or features were rolled out. A messaging strategy segments stakeholders, identifies channels of communication, produces short personalized messages (think ABM), and informs of the cadence of communication across channels with timelines. It can also shape into a roadmap with priorities.

In my experience, the most effective internal communication across the teams was an internal roadshow across all customer-focused teams. This was such a great addition to sales brochures, presentations and content, as you could tell the story in person and precisely explain the product positioning. The key is to keep it crispy, short and entertaining. In my case, 15-30 minutes was just fine to keep the audience engaged and actively listening.

In regards to product marketing, one tactic to drive clarity across teams is to create and carry out a documented communication plan. This plan could be an addendum to the project or campaign. Its aim is to set both the tone and expectations for the communication. It highlights both the announcement and listening side of communication. Additionally, it allows for transparent stakeholder integration. The communication plan can be simple or complex depending on the needs of the product marketing strategy. It should also be consistently managed by the key stakeholder or project/product manager to ensure that it is current and to also ensure that it does not impede project teams, stakeholders, and market strategy.

Creating KPIs and metrics is a starting point to solve problems. For example, let's say that the problem statement is that product suspects that people are not relating to the feature message and they are leaving once they get to the page. Getting the data proves or disproves the working assumption and allows teams to focus. One KPI can be to reduce bounce rate, and another can be to increase CTR (tap on call-to-action button and engage in content example) via messaging improvement. Metrics underneath these goals would be: With A/B content testing, does the CTR increase and does the bounce rate after clicking through decrease? Identifying customers or prospects to test these assumptions with should be established and ongoing work.

One of the best ways to keep product messaging consistent across teams is to use a messaging tool or structure such as a Message House. This provides the structure needed to keep all teams in sync for messaging and positioning. In general, a Message House provides the user with an umbrella statement (an overarching statement about the product), several core messaging statements about the product (that are used to provide additional detail), and then detailed proof points, supporting evidence, etc. that can be used to be provide even more detail as necessary. This structure lets the user stay consistent with the product messaging, but also provides the flexibility needed to fine tune the messaging to a specific audience.

Establish a clear and compelling value proposition that defines the core benefits and differentiators of the product for the target audience and aligns with the company's vision and mission. Create a product messaging framework that outlines the key messages, tone, voice, and style for the product across different channels, formats, and stages of the customer journey. Review and update the product messaging framework regularly based on customer feedback, market research, competitive analysis, and product changes.

Every Product Marketer should start with the value proposition of each product. From that root statement, every other piece of PM content should grow.