Messaging and Story Telling for Product Marketers
A Disciplined Approach for More Effective Product Storytelling
So you’ve studied the markets, identified a need, made your case, and built your product. Well done! Now you’re planning everything involved in launching it. Or maybe you’ve updated an existing product and need to refresh your marketing strategy.
You feel like you know your target audience, the market, and your product inside out. You and your communications partners may be tempted to dive right into creating market-facing content–for your web site, product sheets, videos, whatever the channel or deliverables.
No matter how good your product or service is, storytelling will make or break your effort.
But how do product marketers create compelling stories that truly resonate with buyers?
By taking time to mine the valuable data you already have, and by creating a few essential reference tools, you can ensure your messaging is relevant, differentiated, and thoughtful. It will also ensure it speaks right to the heart of what matters most to your buyers and influencers.
Even if your project is moving at warp speed, or even if you’re following agile methodology, take the time to create these foundational tools. They can help you get the desired ROI out of your efforts while also giving you a reliable, consistent, rapidly repeatable framework. Let’s look at a basic approach I’ve used and adapted successfully for an array of product marketing efforts:
First, draw on your CX, voice of customer (VOC), personas, and journey mapping efforts. Assuming you’ve done at least some work in this area, make the highest possible use of it in developing your messaging. The insights this work contains are a veritable gold mine when it comes to informing your messaging. If you haven’t done much work on this front, that’s OK. Even basic customer journey mapping can help you identify the potential drivers of adoption and satisfaction, inform personas you may want to create or update, and refine customer segmentation to help you tailor your messaging more effectively.
Create a messaging framework of your product and its differentiators in a language people outside your team and your company can understand. This should be very high level and serve as an internal reference tool as you get further into actual content creation. At a minimum, it should address:
● Key customer needs
● Key benefits of your product or service (value drivers relative to next best alternative)
● Competitive differentiators (points of parity, superiority, and vulnerabilities)
● “Proof” or “pillars” supporting the benefits you are claiming
The framework then serves as a blueprint for what your messaging and storytelling will ultimately address, either directly or more subtly.
Develop a value proposition in collaboration with your key stakeholders. While you could develop a few versions of this on your own as thought starters, it’s best to do this collaboratively through brainstorming sessions, for which I would suggest a workshop format. It can be done in person or virtually. Regardless, the goal is to get diverse, cross-functional perspectives and create alignment before you begin creating actual marketing messaging. That’s because the value proposition (and your brand considerations, of course) should underlie all your content creation efforts. Bear in mind that you may need variations or versions of the value proposition, say by key segment or account. One size may not fit all, depending on your audience or audiences.
Create a messaging architecture. This tool articulates your highest-priority messages about your product. While it does not contain final copy per se, it does allow you to have a consistent reference tool to be used as part of your content supply chain. The best method for creating this architecture is through brainstorming sessions with your product marketing, content strategy, and marketing communications teammates.
Once developed, it can and should be shared with anyone who creates messaging for your product, from PR to creatives to UX to agency partners to thought leadership ghostwriters. The Content Marketing Institute explains it perfectly: “…while a message architecture consists of words, it doesn’t tell content creators what words to use. It tells them what messages their words (and images, etc.) should convey and the order of importance of those messages.” And it’s here you can document any critical considerations such as regional, cultural or language considerations when creating messaging. Above all, it should be actionable and focused, with clear, client centric-themes and 4-5 crisp messages per theme.
Test your messaging. A solid messaging strategy ideally includes both qualitative and quantitative messaging testing. Be sure to consider both key accounts and strategic prospects when choosing test participants. Examples of how you can do this:
● Qualitative – pick five customers per segment. You can do phone interviews, video sessions, in-person interviews, or even ask them to respond in writing to qualitative questions.
● Quantitative – use surveys or tools like A/B testing with campaigns or variable web site content. Some of the possible KPIs for this are opened messages, opt-ins/signups, or downloaded content such as white papers.
The goal is to be open to feedback and be prepared to adapt if needed, as participants may fully validate your messaging, or they may suggest improvements.
A little discipline goes a long way
While it can be tempting to skip a few steps and jump right in to creating the deliverables you’ll need to sell your product or service, taking the time to follow this simple process can reap big rewards. You’ll ensure you’ve made the most of existing insights, ensure your team is aligned, and have confidence that the messaging you create tells a story your clients and prospects want to hear.