AMA: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Product Marketing, Grace Kuo on Messaging

Anchor on the metrics that matter. You can track efficacy of messaging throughout the funnel - and at each stage, the KPI might be different. Decide/discuss with your team what objectives you're trying to accomplish and base your measurement plan off that. For example: if your main business goal is to drive revenue: * Top of the funnel: work with your data team/marketing ops to ensure you're tracking important metrics * Example metrics: * CTRs of ads * Site visitors * Demo requests * Sign ups * Middle of the funnel - talk to your sales team! Listen to Gong, or other services that gives you insight on sales conversations * Example metrics: * Qualitative feedback * Conversions => closed won deals

Great question - the difference can often be confusing to even marketers as well. I view positioning as the foundation to messaging. Your positioning should cover the following: * Your target customer * How your product fits into the market * How your product differs from competitors * Why it works Once you've researched and crafted the positioning to your product, your messaging is an extension and amplification of that core statement. Messaging then, should differ based on where it's landing (ads vs. website vs. email vs. press release etc.), who you're talking to (different personas, roles: buyers, influencers, decision makers, etc.), and all that should be tested and refined based on efficacy.

This is by far one of my favorite questions (and most important). As PMMs, we have to go beyond talking about the feature functionality but orient on what the benefit is for the customer. A practice I take is by asking a series of questions that will help you narrow in and articulate the customer value. An easy framework is to follow: * What is the feature? * How does it work? * How will this benefit the customer? * What will it solve/what were the challenges before this feature was built? * How do I now combine its benefit to how it works? A really simple example of this: * What is the feature? * A corporate development content marketplace can now directly share videos and content to Slack. * How does it work? * Press the "Share to Slack" button under the video. * How will this benefit the customer? * Create internal dialogue and momentum for the specific content shared that otherwise wouldn't happen when individual employees are viewing the content on their own. * What will it solve? * Buyers of this product often sees low engagement with their company, as their employees are competing with long to-do lists. However, when content is shared by colleagues via their main communication tool (Slack), it creates conversation around the content which results in a groundswell support for the content provider - resulting in more engagement, usage, and validation of the product. * How do I message this? * We make it easy to activate engaging conversations around content that encourages continuous learning and usage of [EXAMPLE COMPANY NAME] within your organization through Share to Slack.

Oh yes - startup mode often requires you to flex the skills of speed and scrappiness. When it comes to testing messaging, there are a few tools out there that are cheaper alternatives to give you signal on messaging effectiveness. 1. Subject matter experts: One of the best results I've gotten when testing out messaging is by working with SMEs (internal from the company or friends+fam). It not only produces fast results, but can give you deeper insights into what works and what doesn't. This can be done through conducting a quick interview with them, having them react to a doc with potential messaging, or a quick survey. I find that SMEs will generally give you feedback that will give your messaging more authenticity, less fluff (ah, the woes of marketing), and the directness you need to target your personas. 2. Sales teams: (if you're B2B) leveraging your sales team can give you insights on the effectiveness of your messaging. Since they're are on the front lines with prospects, they can give you a direct line into understanding what message works and what doesn't. Work with them closely on what to track/look out for when talking to potential customers, i.e provide them with talk tracks and have them gauge the appeal/resonance. 3. Setting up A/B tests: Whether you're B2C or B2B, you can get quick signal by setting up landing page tests on your website. Track what message gets more clicks to whatever CTA you're measuring.

Yes! As we know, personalization is key in reaching your target audience, driving sales, and increasing customer loyalty. A few segmentation options I've tried in the past that have been successful: 1. Based on pain points: You can create more resonance between the customer and your company by anchoring your messaging on the specific areas that your product/software solves. 2. Based on customer journey: Although this is a similar to a "customer group", centering messaging on where the customer is in the customer journey can also be effective. For example, messaging on an ad can be high level that hits on a customer need. When they go to the website, messaging can be more specific to what the product is and how it solves for their challenge. However, when they speak to a sales rep, the messaging is more strategic and personalized. 3. Based on personas: Personalizing messaging based on roles/personas can also reach your target audience in a meaningful way. By creating messaging centered on roles, you can speak directly to what they're looking for. For example, a functional buyer might want to hear more about how the product is used, whereas the economic buyer might want to hear about how cost effective your solution is, and then the technical buyer wants to understand more about integrations, interoperability, etc.

Generally my approach to this is to build a plan on how to socialize and get feedback. Ensuring that key stakeholders have time to review, provide input, edits, etc. will help refine and reinforce whether or not you're communicating the value prop. XFN teams that are critical: * Sales: is the messaging clear and concise? Do they understand the unique selling points of the product/service/software they're trying to sell? * Subject matter experts: is there authenticity to the messaging? Is it hitting on the right pain points/challenges they're experiencing? * Product team: to ensure that that's what they're building/accurately depicting what its solving for Obviously you want to set guardrails on the type of feedback you're looking - so as you engage with these teams, be explicit with what you're looking for and set expectations on what feedback will/can be integrated. For example, to avoid too many opinions, suggestions, etc., you can let them know beforehand that you're not looking for wordsmitting but rather feedback on whether the message effectively communicates what your product is trying to solve.