Introduction
As product marketers, our most important function in the business is messaging. We are messengers. What we say, to which audiences, and at which venues is the foundational part of the role. This is why your most important asset as a Cyber PMM will be the ability to communicate by creating messaging that resonates with our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
And messaging is not easy. The corny joke I use is, “mess” is the root word for messaging. Everyone thinks it’s easy, but if you ask someone to create a tagline or to summarize their product’s value in a simple paragraph, they quickly realize that it’s not as easy as it seems. And the larger a company gets, the harder messaging gets. More input comes in from different groups, Legal has more problems with it, and more distance is created between you and your users. So don’t discount the difficult task of messaging and write it off as, “easy”.
Creating and Managing the Product Messaging Brief (PMB)
Ultimately, messaging manifests itself in the form of a Product Messaging Brief (PMB) document, or whatever you call it. It’s the place where the official message for our product lives. This is the “source code”. We are 100% responsible for creating this as the single-threaded owner. We maintain it, circulate it for input, and stand behind the message.
We are also responsible for ensuring it is used cross-functionally. If you have marketing teams that are running events and campaigns, and they come to you and ask for something to say, it’s a quick reply – “here’s a link to the latest messaging. Feel free to pull out what you need.” Stop hand-holding and writing for your peers – just send them to the PMB. Enable them to succeed and resist the temptation to own every single “write up” for every activity.
As rigid as that approach sounds, the discipline of using a PMB is critical for scalability. If you’re running around drafting email copy on a Monday, event booth copy on a Tuesday, and slides for a webinar on a Wednesday, without this type of asset you will burn out. It’s that simple. You can’t scale without the PMB at hand. And while it will never be perfect, you have to start somewhere.
And messaging is never “done” so if you’re the type of black and white thinker that I tend to be, this is a difficult pill to swallow. The second you say, “ok, it’s final”, you receive new feedback or information or product launches that impact your message. It’s constantly updated and is very much a living document. Embrace this and adapt. Don’t get anxious by this change.
Practical Tips for Developing a Product Messaging Brief
So where do you start crafting your message? Start with a template. Check what templates exist internally first. If nothing exists, your team lead should provide a template that every PMM should use – that’s their job. If that also fails, the team lead probably shouldn’t be there but that’s a topic for a different post! And if all else fails, just go ahead and create your own.
There are many free templates online that you can find with a simple search of “product messaging brief template”. Keep it simple. For individual products, it’s good to have all messaging summarized in a single page, with supporting information behind that. Essentially you need to cover about 10 structural elements including:
- Product Name
I know this sounds obvious, but you have to state exactly as it should appear externally. - Tagline
Imagine you had a Super Bowl ad with only 15 seconds – what would you say? - 10/25/50/100 Word Descriptions
Try to repeat the word usage across and build on each as a progression. These descriptions are the most often used component of the PMB. - Challenges
Ideally these are done first and validated with users and actually resonate. Limit this to 3 buckets and try to differentiate them, because if you fail to meet the mark here, your value pillars will not resonate. - Value Pillar Headings
I like to put the Challenges right in line with the Value Pillars. These value pillar headings are the top 3 value propositions that your product offers. They should address the top 3 challenges. They should be crisp and concise, 5-7 words each starting with action verbs. - Value Pillar Overviews
This is a short 25 word overview that summarizes your top 3 benefits, aligned to each value pillar. - Key Benefits
These are really the meat of how you’re delivering on the above value pillars for the customer. I like to limit this to 3 bullets/benefits for each value pillar. - Differentiators
Under each value pillar, describe what sets your product apart from the other options they have. My favorite way to describe this is using the Force Management method of 1 Unique Differentiator, 1 Comparative Differentiator, and 1 Holistic Differentiator. - Key Features and Use Cases
This is the “speeds and feeds” area for your product. This is where you provide more detail on the features that make the product useful for end users. Also, highlighting a few specific use cases that your product addresses is useful here. - Proof Points & Customer Quotes
What are your other users saying about the product? Do you have any public testimonials or case studies you can refer to? - Appendix and related information
This is where you put all supporting information that really isn’t critical but might be useful for select use cases.
It is also useful to have a simple narrative up front that brings it all together into a cohesive story. When it comes to storytelling, I recommend reading the book “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller. This is where he advocates using the SB7 Framework. Or just read the many posts and videos that summarize SB7. The author will be the first to admit that he didn’t invent how to tell a story. Storytelling has been around since cavemen were talking around the fire. He discusses the story elements so that a 5 year old can apply it. The way he structures a story is as follows:
- A Character (your customer)
- Has a Problem
- And Meets A Guide (you)
- Who Gives Them a Plan (how you help them)
- And Calls Them to Action
- That Ends in a Success
- That Helps Them Avoid Failure
Always remember the most important part of any message – it’s not about you (your company or product). It’s about the customer. The customer should be the hero of your messaging, not your product.
Tips for Avoiding Failure and Messaging Success
Early in my career I spent 100% of my energy doing the opposite. I would write product descriptions like, “Product X is an amazing tool that does awesome things.” But customers read that and say, “who cares, how does that help me solve Problem Y?” I learned over a long series of failures that messaging is best framed as solving actual customer challenges and framing it in “you” language. So instead of highlighting your own product it becomes, “You will become 10x faster at detecting anomalies that go unnoticed, responding to events that the C-Suite asks about before they knock on your door. You’ll be the hero of your SOC.”
Remember another very important piece of advice – as Cyber PMMs we are not product experts. We are market and customer experts. The business has plenty of product experts that are paid to deliver demo’s, talk about ‘speeds and feeds’, and discuss what’s under the hood in detail to guide implementation. If you try becoming the PMM that enters the product SME category, you are walking on dangerous ground.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad thing to have advanced product knowledge as a PMM. You have to know the ins and outs, have the ability to log in and do a basic demo, and speak to the overall workflows and use cases you resolve. But getting into the nuances of code and version #’s and containers or whatever the technical topic is best left to the experts. Don’t try to be an expert when it comes to technical knowledge. Leverage the SMEs in your business, and get used to asking for help from Sales Engineering, Technical Marketing or in Product Management. That’s why they’re there. I’ve seen PMMs bury themselves under the guise of technicality, only to lose sight of their core role as a messenger.
Everyone’s a Critic
Another factor of being a messenger is that everyone in the business will think they can do your job better than you. You will get people that majored in English in college and somehow ended up in a customer support role raising their nose at you for a poorly constructed sentence or a misplaced comma. You will get Product Managers that don’t even review your messaging. You will get sellers that ignore your messaging and build their own on a daily basis. You will get brand teams only focusing on your improper use of the Oxford comma per brand guidelines. It’s just a reality you won’t be able to change. All you can do is ensure you have an official messaging document that is the “source” for the business, that resonates with customers. Just expect complaints and criticism.
You will hear the following, guaranteed:
- “It’s too complex” or “It isn’t technical enough”
- “It isn’t differentiated enough” and “Our competitor says the same thing”
- “This needs to be simpler” or “This is too simple”
- “I don’t like that word in the tagline” or “I like this word instead”
- “Be more creative” and “Say exactly this – that’s an order”
I have been through messaging exercises that have lasted 6 months and gone through 40+ reviewers, a variety of analyst firms and 100+ user reviews. Trust me, I know how painful the messaging process can be. And while it is our job to finalize the message, we also have to prepare to be asked by a “ranking officer” to say something entirely different for a political reason. So even if we try to create a perfect message, as PMMs we’re often constrained by a lack of empowerment to make the final decision. It is a frustrating process.
Closing – Keep the Pen
When Thomas Jefferson was drafting the Declaration of Independence he was probably frustrated that there were so many other pens involved. He drove the document forward while begrudgingly accepting edits from Ben Franklin, John Adams and many others. But he had the pen. He had to compromise and collaborate for the greater good. Don’t be autocratic in your messaging effort, but listen to all groups without losing your patience. Work the process but keep the pen. The rewards at the end are worth it, and it’s through the struggle that you will take shape as a trustworthy PMM that can handle any messaging task.
And enjoy this short video brought to you by Cyber PMM productions.
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