How do you get alignment on the launch message?

In crafting the messaging, we get input and feedback not just from product management, but also from sales, executive leadership, and other key stakeholders. We also reach out to analysts and to customers to make sure that our thinking will resonate with the external market in general. It is an iterative process that helps ensure that our message will land in the market and be used by our sellers and partners as they go-to-market.

I'm sure every marketer reading this can agree, everyone has an opinion on messaging! Getting alignment is amongst one of the hardest things we do as PMMs. Here are a few tips to get started: 

1. Develop a roles & responsibilities framework. The most important step! You will want to document who your stakeholders and ultimate decision makers are. Make sure these roles are agreed upon and socialized broadly. Both RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed) or RAPID (recommend, agree, perform, inform, decide) work great for this so everyone knows their place.   
2. Get qualitative feedback. Interview existing or beta users who have experience successfully working with the produt, internal stakeholders, key decision makers, and executive leadership that may have a vested interest.   
3. Get analyst feedback. Validate your message with analysts in your industry to ensure it will land and stand out in the market. Analyst feedback on market fit is great to have in your back pocket when trying to get that final signoff too!    
4. Test internally. Test headlines, calls to action, and taglines with your digital team and run a few mock sales cycles with your sales team to find any gaps    
5. Get signoff from your decision makers. A good goal is to never have more than 2 final decision makers otherwise it will take forever to get signoff. 

Alignment is critical to a successful launch. There are two types of alignment to consider: internal and external. For both, get alignment EARLY and OFTEN. Take time to outline which internal and external stakeholders you need to align with. For a large launch, this can include product management, marketing, customer success, leadership (internal) and key customers, analysts, general maket (external). Write out the key objectives and R+R and work forward from there. I recommend weekly internal meetings where necessary to keep alignment, as things often change.