How do you refine your messaging and content?

Begin with the persona - what they care about, what their accountable for delivering to their organization, how their success is measured, the nature of the environment they work in - even down to what their day is like and what occupies the majority of their time (managing? doing? reporting?). Consider how you show up to impact these people - what do you help the achieve and what do you help them avoid? Use that to frame messaging that will resonate and cause them to want to speak with you.

Its also important to ensure you look at your target audience holistically. Some tend to classify them based on demographics such as age, gender, locations etc. But you also need to understand their personality, values etc. These personas will help you better tailor your message. Demographic data is quantitative, while psychographic data is qualitative. That means the demographic data can tell you who a consumer is, while psychographics tells you why someone makes a purchase. And both are important!

Your value proposition is the main reason why someone will choose your brand over your competitor. It also allows customers to see your product's benefits and helps persuade them that your product is the best option to solve their problems. But remember, this isnt your tagline, slogan or mission. Its a 'WHY' of your product. Why this product, Why now and Why us The typical way to form your value proposition is to include 4 main elements: A headline, Sub-headline or a paragraph, unique selling points or key benefits of the product and a visual element.

Understanding how your offering is differentiated is important. More importantly, consider the level of differentiation. Is there a compelling and obvious difference between your offering and current providers or is it a "meh"? Is potential impact you stand to make worth the prospect putting time and effort into investigating, fighting for budget, and implementing your solution? The value proposition must also be clear - the prospect must understand it easily and see an obvious path to impact realized. They have to believe you can deliver what you're promising (proof points help) and see it won't take extraordinary measures or painful change on their part.

A positioning statement, tagline, core messages, supporting messages, and tone are good - better is making sure they're tightly aligned with your target personas. All of this should be condensed into a power statement that is readily and consistently expressed by everyone in the organization. Bonus points for those who can make slight adjustments for a specific persona.

Once you do that plan throw it out. Because that is your bias of what you think the audience wants. Interact with them and let them drive your content. If your audience wants easy and fun, but your plan is difficult and stiff, you lost them before it even started.

When considering content, think of pieces that teach your audience something they don't know - provide value to your prospects before they even speak with you. Make it about helping them do their job better or more easily even before they become a customer. It's a great way to start building your road to trust.

Most product marketers make all this more complicated than it has to be. Just answer three questions. WHAT IS IT? Product, feature, capability...what is this at its essence? WHAT DOES IT DO? Again, at its essence, what does this thing do? WHY DOES IT MATTER? Why will the people that should care about this thing actually care about it? Of course, more questions will come up as you try to answer these. That's the point. When you get to the essence of your offering and begin to connect it with the cares, wants, and needs of your audience, everything becomes pretty simple. BONUS! Your messaging is clear and compelling as a by-product! Wanna talk about this in more detail? Shoot me a DM. I love this stuff. #BOOMshockalocka 🤘👊💥😎