Messaging Framework: What is it? (FREE PDF Template)

Whether you’re launching a new product, pivoting in a new direction, preparing a new market entry, or even doing a total brand refresh, it is critical to get crystal clear about your brand’s reason for being. And this starts with the Messaging Framework.

What is a Messaging Framework?

A messaging framework is a structured written representation, more like a solid foundation for your business that identifies and clearly differentiates your product from the competition. It communicates who you are, what you do, why your product is different, how to talk about the product in a compelling way, how to communicate your beliefs impactfully, and how to tell a consistent, cohesive story.

Building a brand messaging framework is not just one of the most important activities but the most critical marketing activity that a business must do is establish a strong value proposition for its products.

If a salesperson or any representative of your company could not confidently describe your product in a sentence or two, how could a prospective customer understand what you do?

We don’t buy what we don’t understand.

And this is not because “less is more” — even though this is often true — but too much of the wrong information creates distractions, and too little of the correct information creates doubts, objections, and even more distractions. Neither of the two scenarios is any help when trying to sell a product.

This brings us to the next point — How does messaging differ from positioning?

When it comes to communicating the value of your product, both positioning and messaging are required. However, these are distinct but complementary concepts:

Positioning is an internal exercise to help businesses express their brand or product’s unique benefits fluently.

Messaging is an external exercise to help businesses translate the positioning into content to reach their target customers.

Positioning helps shape messaging and remains consistent over time. Whereas messaging can change based on campaigns, markets, trends, etc.

Types of Marketing Messaging and Where Can You Use The Framework

1. Marketing Messaging

Marketing messaging represents the actual words and phrases to be communicated to the brand’s customers, as well as the feelings and emotions associated with what they say in advertising, including:

social media posts, paid campaigns, promotional copies, website content, email campaigns, calls-to-action, etc.

2. Product Messaging

A product messaging framework provides better alignment on the most important messages that demonstrate the product’s value, including top-level messaging (benefits and outcomes) and feature-level messaging. The right product messaging has the capacity to hack the growth and boost sales traction.

3. Brand Messaging

Brand messaging refers to the underlying personality and essence of the brand, conveying its value proposition and expressing how it’s different or better than the others, which makes buyers relate to it and want to buy its products.

What is a B2B Messaging Framework

Because of the importance of repeat and referral business in B2B marketing, developing personal relationships, especially during the buying cycle, is crucial and can make or break a business.

A B2B messaging framework that aligns your marketing and sales efforts adjusts the brand towards the target audience and why the company or the product is the perfect solution for the target audience. This helps drive brand recognition and ramps up lead generation.

Messaging Framework Template (PDF)

Now that you understand the importance of a messaging framework and how it can help your business, you’re ready to create your own.

Creating the perfect messaging framework for your company will take time, effort, and dedication. To help you document your brand or product’s unique selling points, differentiate your company from the competition, and give you a foundation for building marketing messages, we’ve created B2B messaging framework template: The Ultimate Messaging Framework Template.

Use The Ultimate Messaging Framework Template to help you build a messaging hierarchy by deconstructing it into minor elements and understanding what your customers deeply value. It’ll ensure consistency across all your team members, improving clarity and your ability to launch products more swiftly.

Download The Ultimate Messaging Framework Template

How to fill out the Ultimate Messaging Framework Template

The Ultimate Messaging Framework Template is an easy-to-follow format with a top-down hierarchy. It starts with the core value statement that describes how your product or brand is unique and different, reaching the proof points that will back up your position and help you beat the competition.

Refer to the description box next to each step that will guide you through the process and provide more clarity on what goes into each stage.

Once you have your messaging framework structured, sales, marketing, managers, or other team members can use it for different communications purposes.