It feels like every startup wants to create a new category. Category creation has become the holy grail — but it’s not the only way to win. Differentiating your company within an emerging category can be just as powerful. (And it’s not all on you to explain what your new category means.) In the final episode of Season 2, Jason Gatoff, VP of Product Marketing at Pendo, shares a ton of great advice, including: --- Why colleagues and key stakeholders should be part of your messaging j...

Not enough people talk about using your intuition during messaging development. Because it’s a total secret weapon. The best product marketing teams have a gut sense about which messages will land with their customers, resulting in stronger hypotheses and faster messaging development cycles. And you can learn how to build your messaging intuition too. In this episode of Adventures in Messaging, Jordan Greene, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Outreach, shares how his team nurtu...

Sometimes product marketers have to launch a little early. Sometimes they have to launch a LOT early 🙂 So how do you create a positioning and messaging strategy for a product that isn’t fully formed or completely understood? When you haven’t got end-to-end use cases or customer feedback? You go back to basics and draw from what you already know. In this episode, Jiong Liu, Director of Product Marketing, Customer Identity at Okta, talks through an awesome example of how she did just t...

How do you bridge the gap between your product today and the vision for tomorrow? Pretty much every high-growth startup faces this messaging challenge: striking the balance between “what is” vs “what could be.” Luckily, awesome marketing leaders like April Rassa, VP of Product Marketing at HackerOne, have been there, done it, and developed a simple framework for it. In this episode of Adventures in Messaging, we dig into April’s approach, the real-life experience that inspired it, so...

In so many ways, messaging doesn’t belong to your company. It belongs to your customer. Your buyer. And the companies who get closest to the customer — and use their insights and language to help guide messaging strategy — are the ones who win. In this episode of Adventures in Messaging, the awesome Jarod Greene, VP Product Marketing at Highspot, discusses this outside-in approach to messaging and positioning, and some of the ways his team brings the voice of the customer...

When writing messaging, the natural reflex is to start with what’s so great about your product. (Especially when you know how amazing it is.) The trick is to consciously step back and start with the bigger picture. Why does your product matter to your audience? Why should they even care? Answer these first, then you can get into what they’ll experience and the outcomes. In this episode of Adventures In Messaging, Jack Wei, Senior Director Product Marketing at SmartRecruiters, gives great ...

The secret to messaging that resonates? Start with empathy, not features. Before you put pen to paper, make sure you truly understand your customer’s challenges, aspirations and feelings. That’s how you find the emotive hook to bring people into your story. In this episode of Adventures In Messaging, Christine Sotelo-Dag, Group PMM at Intercom, gives amazing advice on how to root messaging in empathy, including: --- Connecting the dots between the pains both customers and prospects ...

A CEO once told me he stayed awake at night wondering how many ideal prospects visited his site, struggled to understand what his company could do for them, and bounced for good...never to return. As marketers, we can all relate to that fear: is our messaging actually grabbing people? 😱 So what can you do to stress test your messaging? To get some feedback and fine-tune? To give you back that good night’s sleep? 😉 On this episode, the one and only Peep Laja takes us through his phil...

Product Marketers face the challenge of finding the perfect balance for their messaging, identifying which details illuminate the message and which ones just create extra noise. Caroline Walthall, Head of Product Marketing at Quizlet, has a few methods for narrowing it down. In this episode, she’ll share the platforms she uses for effective message testing and detailed customer research. She’ll also share advice she’d tell her younger self when it comes to adapting a test...

This may sound like heresy, but there are times when speaking to high-level business value isn’t necessarily the best way to go. Like when your buyer isn’t responsible for those top-level business metrics. Or when messages like “reduce costs” or “increase revenue” are a dime a dozen in your space. In this episode of Adventures in Messaging, Jeff Beckham, Head of Product Marketing at Mixpanel, shares advice on how to message your product’s true differentiation, including: --- How use cases...