The Power of a Message House for Product Marketers

Time and time again, your product team develops a fabulous new product or feature, and now it is your turn as a product marketing manager (PMM) to enable the organization and promote the latest and greatest. Question is, where do you start?

I’ve personally found that creating a solid and comprehensive document, what I like to call a “message house,” can be extremely helpful.

When you have everything you need to know about this new product outlined (features, benefits, target markets, differentiators, etc.) in a central place that you can share with other teams, your job is 10 times easier. Think about it, how many times does sales or marketing send you an urgent email asking about feature details or the value proposition because they are in the middle of drafting yet another datasheet or PowerPoint presentation?

With a well-thought-out message house, all you have to simply do is pass along the document to your colleagues and they have all the information they need to create whatever type of asset they need. Message houses are extremely valuable for your corporate marketing department. Marketing doesn’t have the time to learn the details of a new product or feature. That is why there is product marketing. Product marketers are both product and market experts.

So, next time you have a new product to promote, craft a message house and pass that along to your marketing department so they can do what they do best: promote and drive demand through website copy, downloadable assets, social media, press releases, etc. They will have all the information they need right in front of them.

Key Components of a Message House

What exactly should go into a message house? It could be a variety of things. I’ve created very simple, one-page documents up to extremely comprehensive message houses that could easily be 10+ pages. Below is a list of what I’ve included in message houses over the years. Pick out what makes the most sense for your business and the time you have to commit. (These documents do not appear overnight!) And you may find some items that are missing from this list as well…

• Short Description
  I recommend keeping this to 25–50 words.
• Long Description
  Try to keep this description under 150 words.
• Target Audience(s)
  You need to know who you’re targeting — from a buyer’s persona as well as a user’s persona.
• Features and Benefits
  A basic description of the features and the benefits to go along is very helpful.
• Pain Points Your Product Solves
  Outlining the specific pain points your product/feature solves can really help marketing and sales frame up what they want to write and say.
• Differentiators
  Always helpful. What makes your product better than the rest?
• Use Cases
  Listing out the use cases helps to take an abstract concept and make it understandable to anyone reading your message house.
• Objection Handling
  Your sales team will love having this handy!
• Competitive Intelligence
  Keep it simple. Quick facts on your key competitors.
• Keywords
  This is great for marketing to use for SEO purposes.

Have you leveraged message houses in your career? Would love to hear about their structure and the value received in the comments below!

And if you want to learn more, check out Part 2 of the Message House series.