How do you juggle the different voices wanting to weigh in on messaging, and make sure you're not watering things down with a "messaging by committee" situation?

Ah, a tricky one! There are a few things that you can do, starting with a core team that you trust to participate in the fluidity that is message development. Typically, this is a small group that can speak to all the core concepts that you need to discuss in detail. At Okta, this was our product management and product marketing team plus a couple of ‘super AE/SEs’ to provide field input.

Once a baseline message has been developed, then it’s best to iterate quickly via testing. For example, we use PulseQA quite a bit to get IT/security feedback on our messaging. Or 1:1 interviews of key reps and customers. You need a couple dozen data points to ensure you’re identifying all the core themes of feedback.

THEN, you’re ready to socialize with the other stakeholders. But you’re coming armed to that conversation with customer/field infused data vs. your opinion.

I find that the best way to get everyone aligned is to include them early in the marketing research and user insights phase. This will help set a baseline for what the narrative needs to be, removing already some of the personal assumptions other team members can bring to the discussion. 

The second thing I normally do is to test the narrative individually with multiple stakeholders, this allows everyone to provide unbiased feedback and feel 100% heard. 

Thirdly, I present the complete narrative as a combination of everyone’s input. Individual members are less likely to challenge your work if it is presented as a combination of every stakeholder’s feedback. 

Finally, testing and experimentation. You can’t argue with facts, use your experimentation to refine your message, and then present those results to the team. You will get a lot less push back if your narrative is founded on research, feedback from internal stakeholder and experimentation data.

I call this the "seagull phenomenon." It's kind of incredible how many folks can swoop in to make a mess on a messaging project. As a product marketer, your challenge is to find ways to make key stakeholders heard, but also curate their input on your path to messaging that works.

Four hard-won tips here:

• Start with who needs to be involved. I'm a fan of establishing a RASCI or RAPID framework before embarking on a messaging project. Drive alignment on roles and appropriate involvement.
• Get an executive sponsor. It's a huge help to have a single leader who can tell you when the work is done to their satisfaction and help you manage stakeholder feedback along the way.
• Socialize progress, not just final output. On big lifts, give updates on findings and how the messaging is evolving. I find this is great to do in 1-1's so you get full engagement from key individuals. If possible, present this as a story so stakeholders can give feedback and push on what's not working. Communicate timelines and next steps.
• Find outlets for those who want to problem solve. Some folks just want to give feedback, others want to be part of the solution. Creating space in your process like messaging workshops, brainstorms, etc. will help you get the most from the problem solvers in a communal context of editing and consensus building.

I recently ran into this issue when creating messaging for a new product page for our website. We had multiple stakeholders that weighed in on messaging and it definitely made the process take longer. I think there are a couple of ways to address this:

• Identify the driver and ultimate approver. If everyone is aligned to their roles, then as the driver, you can take their feedback into account and accept or reject it as you see fit. In my example, I was the driver and knew the product best so while I did take some feedback into account, I did reject some feedback based on my knowledge.
• If you do reject certain feedback, make sure they understand the reason for the rejection.
• If you accept the feedback, you can still tweak the message to get the point across in your style.
• Make sure everyone understands the key points you want to get across. This helps prevent too many 'ideas' from making their way in that waters the message down.
• Have a timeline for finalizing feedback. It's too easy to go back and forth and analyze messaging to death. Know when to make a final call.

If you frequently find yourself in a "messaging by committee" situation, I'd recommend working directly with your boss (e.g, the CMO) and the CEO to create a DACI document (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed).

Let's take company messaging.

You might be the Driver.

Your boss might be the first Approver, but the final Approver is the CEO.

Contributor could be the other C-level executives.

Informed could be the other people who typically weigh in, as well as other who need to use your messaging, but your CEO and CMO don't think should be Contributors.

When people try to weigh in later, you can show the DACI document, yet let them know that you're happy to ask the DACI committee if they should be included in future exercises.

All of that said, messaging is better when passionate coworkers weigh in. You might not change the words because of each person's opinion, but "voice of the coworker" should be second to "voice of the customer" when it comes to your research.