What Is a Product Messaging Audit?
In accounting, an audit is a systematic inspection of a company’s financial health, typically by an independent third party. In marketing, product messaging audit is a systematic inspection of how buyers actually perceive your company’s product (because of or in spite of what you’re telling them): the problems that the product solves, the value it delivers, and what makes it special.
Why do a product messaging audit?
If your product has been in the market for a while, buyers will have preconceived notions about it. Or, they may not be aware of it at all. Understanding your buyers’ vantage point helps you build more realistic, effective product messaging that will meet them where they are. It also helps you identify the areas where you have the most work to do in changing their perceptions.
When should you do a product messaging audit?
A product messaging audit is easiest to do when the “auditor” has some distance from the company: either because he or she is a new employee or an outside resource. I do some form of product messaging audit at the beginning of every client engagement.
You may want to do a messaging audit as a company “insider” if you’re planning a major repositioning, launching new capabilities with significant new value propositions, or beginning to reach out to new buyers. In this case, do everything that you can to establish your independence, both to the people you’re interviewing and the stakeholders that you’ll need to convince once the audit is complete.
How do you do a product messaging audit?
A product messaging audit can have both qualitative and quantitative inputs. These may include:
Customer or prospect interviews
Interviews of former customers
Focus groups
Analyst or thought leader interviews
Online surveys of customers, prospects, or representative buyers in your target market
A/B testing on your home page or landing pages (if your site gets enough traffic to generate statistically significant findings)
While quantitative data (such as survey data) is very valuable, you shouldn’t focus too much on depending on qualitative information. Not every company has the resources to access a large enough sample size. And relying on quantitative data from a biased sample, or one that’s too small, can lead you to the wrong conclusions. In my experience, you can build a pretty accurate picture from 8-10 interviews of the right people: that is, individuals who are both insightful and actually are in your buying group. (Read my customer interview tips here.)
Finally, your product messaging audit should include competitive analysis, both what your competitors say and how potential customers perceive those messages.
What do you do with the results?
Once you do your research and document your findings, socialize it with the key stakeholders for product messaging: sales, marketing, product, and key leadership team members. By getting everyone on the same page before you start writing or updating product messaging, you’ll do less rework and experience less drama when your messaging project is going full steam.