Loved

Chapter 25The One-Sheet Messaging Canvas

It was a chilly fall day when the CEO emailed leaders from marketing, sales, and product, urging them to come to an important meeting. They were getting beaten in head-to-head deals by a fierce competitor that told a much better story. Their company needed a better pitch fast.

At the meeting, the head of marketing chimed in with messaging that was working well in email campaigns. The head of product suggested a catchy tagline she felt captured the promise of the product. The sales managers didn't love any of the new ideas but didn't have any better suggestions. They reminded the group what was working well in the current pitch.

The product marketer was an individual contributor in a process filled with more senior leaders. Because all the input came from leaders above his level, he felt their ideas had tacit approval. He did his best to smooth out transitions between ideas, but one by one, he integrated them into the beginning, middle, and end of the existing pitch. In an effort to rush to get the new story out, the presentation wasn't tested in front of any customers or used in an actual pitch.

The end result was tolerable but not good.

This collaboration-to-mediocrity is all too common. Coming up with great messaging and the story to embed it in is a team sport, but it is product marketing's job to collect the inputs and craft a strong output. They are product managers to the product's story and how it gets messaged.

As I've talked ...