How to Create Key Messaging For Your Startup Product Marketing
- Charley Arrigo
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
No matter the product, a startup is only as strong as the message behind it.
What you say has the ability to change minds or open hearts. How you say it can be the difference between being forgotten or building something timeless.
In this Stupid For Startups article, we'll learn about two principles that improve product messaging. Along with an example of a market challenger getting it exactly right.
Not to mention, other stuff you won't find in some startup bro marketing blog.
How to think about COMMS: The best advice I ever got.
Once upon a marketing time, before Stupid For Startups, I sat there in front of my MacBook as befuddled and bewildered as Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
If you're not familiar with this 1993 classic. Shame on you. It's about a cynical weatherman trapped in a time loop, who finds himself reliving the same day.
At first, he falls into despair. Before eventually, his situation teaches him to become a better person, allowing him to break the loop.
While my version of Groundhog Day didn't demand near as much internal fortitude. Every morning, my marketing messaging had me trapped in that eternal loop, leaving me asking, "Should I say this? Or should I say that?"
Until it dawned on me, "Hey... wait a minute... didn't I solve this messaging yesterday?"
Finally, an early-stage founder whom I'd been volunteering for, said something poignant. His mentor after university, a British PR veteran, had shared with him with some advice.
"I was once told," he said to me. "Good communications is saying the same thing over and over and over again, in a slightly different way."
Aside from taking me out of Punxsutawney (the fictional town in Groundhog Day).
These words captured marketing messaging's great objective: To develop a distinctive branding behind your words without being reduced to redundancy.
This inspired one of my original principles of startup COMMS & marketing: The Groundhog Day Principle.
Marketing messaging: The Hollywood screenwriter approach
When I was writing a script for a class in college, a lousy one at that, I remember reading how a famous screenwriter, when writing, used to jot down a one-sentence through line on a small piece of paper. Then he'd tape it to his typewriter.
His name was Paddy Chayefsky. You may of heard of him. And that simple ritual he swore by is what the screenwriting world calls a "through line."
A through line, as it relates to marketing, is known as a connecting theme, plot, or characteristic in a story.
This was Chayefsky's way of throwing out anything that didn't communicate the story. Unimportant subplots. Minor characters. Scenes that were interesting, but not vital for the plot.
I think the greatest challenge for any founder is keeping their ambition contained. As it concerns COMMS that is. This ability to not get bored with messaging. But keep hammering away at the message over time.
There should almost be a fatigue that sets in. That's when you know your messaging is consistently on point, persisting against temptation to change it up.
When I began working as a startup marketing consultant, this reminder from Chayefsky came flooding back. It was a principle that, ultimately, kept me from failing my first client.
The Paddy Principle: Applying it for success
My first client founded a first-mover platform dedicated to Funding for Women Entrepreneurs.
The mission had a lot of genuine support.
There were, however, too many messages. Too much of this desire, although well intentioned, stemmed from wanting to advocate against every problem in the space. For a startup marketing program struggling to stay focused, The Paddy Principle is ideal.
As I did with my client, your first job in finding your through line is to strip the entire brand COMMS down to one single word.
In our case, it was:
Community
Why Community? Because this word conveys the product solution with the most dramatic contrast. Too many women entrepreneurs are Alone in their funding journey: Community is the 180 degree solution.
This word is also universally. This trait is very important if you want to build emotional messaging that can grow and appeal to a big, broad audience while still targeting your niche.
Before, the mission was using words like "catalyze." We killed them because people don't talk like that. Therefore, it's human nature for consumers to not put those words to memory. That creates an uphill battle for the COMMS & marketing.
Following along this same path, there's a bad trend social impact startups tend to fall victim to. Where the main marketing message is simply the status quo vision for the entire sector. For example, a sustainable housing organization that says "We're on a mission to end the housing crisis for future generations."
Great. There 781 other missions with that vision, too.
That's why when you're choosing a word to build your through line around, look first at the competition.
After researching my client's competitive market, the Community positioning was sorely missing in her particular industry. Choosing this word positioned the brand away from competition while speaking to an underserved target audience.
When you've identified a word, indicators that it could be a winner, can be found in consumer feedback.
For us, Community was noted by customers as the most important benefit of the product. They were already saying the word to describe and praise the product in their communications organically.
Next in the through line process, in the application of The Paddy Principle, is using it as your marketing filter. Or what can be described as "doubling down."
We expanded our one word, Community, into a marketable three word slogan:
Community is capital
The founder actually coined this during one of our many working sessions. It was an amazing moment.
Real quick, if we wanted to apply The Groundhog Day Principle (communicating the same message with variance). This is how it looked:
→ SLOGAN: Community is capital
→ KEY MESSAGE: Community changes everything
→ PRODUCT ONE-LINER: The global gathering place for women entrepreneurs
→ MANIFESTO INTRO: When women come together in pursuit of one common goal—that's community. Yet, community isn't just about strength in numbers. It's about connection. Confidence. It's about doing what we love for who we love to break the bias.
Anything that doesn't say "Community," won't make it into the startup COMMS. Not across any channel, platform, or landing page.
Your marketing department, as it hires creatives, as it works to maintain the integrity of its message across different mediums, will benefit from this through line approach.
But it's important to remember that the purpose of any through line is not only to focus marketing. But help consumers recall the startup brand with greater ease: a way to hack marketing memorability.
Positioning statements
Brand promises
Consumer sentiment
This is where your through line lives.
If you're having trouble coming to consensus on marketing messaging. Ask yourself, "What is the competition is ignoring? What is the underserved sorely missing?
My client's through line started with one word. Then was adapted into their slogan. But it doesn't have to be. It may be an internal filter. Something used by marketers, product managers, or those communicating on the product's behalf.
But no matter what you decide, your product marketing flows from your through line. Everything from online ads to product packaging to talent brand recruiting.
Ultimately, determining whether consumers can digest your message with ease.
Key product messaging example: DASH Water
If you want to know what good product messaging looks like. Take a glance at the title tag of DASH Water's homepage.
"Healthy Drinks | Fruit Infused Sparkling Water | DASH Water"
Their through line (The Paddy Principle) is "Healthy Drinks."
How they say this again and again in a slightly different way (The Groundhog Principle), starts with their product descriptor: "Fruit Infused Sparkling Water."
Another example.
Recently, DASH Water released new retail marketing in UK grocery stores like Sainsbury's. Their marketing messaging on the in-store packaging display read like this:
This product messaging is distinctive. Consistent but not redundant. This copy by DASH Water is what you want to strive for.
Beware of what you read on LinkedIn.
Despite the stamp of approval from 17,988 people. Your marketing messaging will never be as easy as saying "Ohh... let's just advertise like Nike."
"Ohh yeah... great idea, Martin!"
In this click-bait LinkedIn carousel above, it shows readers what Nike would've sounded like if they did marketing like a B2B brand. For example, creating product-specific ads that differentiate the product's attributes from competitors. You know... the thing prospects in B2B actually care about?
In all its cringey glory, it even gives us this line:
"The best product is not the winning one."
Eww.
Forget that this viral post fails to mention that Nike, as a sneaker company, has literally the broadest audience in the history of marketing. You can write just about anything when that's your starting point.
Not only that. But everything Nike did to become a smash hit was to position itself against the competition of the time: Reebok, Converse, and Adidas.
Those brands hadn't leaned into that super emotional, let's-get-into-the-shoes-of-the-athletes kind of advertising.
However, that's where you do share commonality with Nike. Everything you do in your marketing will be to own the position that isn't being occupied by your foes.
Remember: Startup marketing isn't like big brand marketing.
A lot of the marketing burned into our memory are those with those the most mental availability. Meaning those big brands with big budgets and even bigger audiences.
They send out general messaging because they can. They have years of dogged marketing programs on their side. Brand awareness is not their problem.
For an early-stage startup, sending out a general message is like pulling the pin from the grenade, only to decide at the last possible second you don't want to throw it.
Fully commit to your audience with specific messaging targeting a specific audience.
Awareness and momentum comes to life through targeted reach and the ability to engage a smaller, underserved audience through unique differentiators of product (think features) or mission (think values).
Stay specific. Stay within your like-minded audience. Then use that early support to gradually broaden the base.
Try the messaging manifesto exercise.
At first, I was really struggling to nail the messaging for that startup I told you about.
When that happens, and you're in your head. The best thing without a doubt............. is not to feed AI a prompt.
Your best move is to turn back the clock.
Open your Pages or Word Doc and start writing, writing, and writing until you feel those confused cobwebs dusting off and revealing the insights that you know were there the whole time.
I wrote this manifesto above to get unstuck. I wrote it to demonstrate how the messaging should look after you have that through line taped to your typewriter.
If you notice, the word "Community" is said 4 times in this manifesto. Everything word, every line, every feeling consistently reinforces this theme.
When you can get The Paddy Principle on a paper in a simple, emotional way, combined with The Groundhog Principle. This is a feeling of success that can take that messaging monkey off your marketer-back.
Give this messaging manifesto exercise a try. See what you come up with.
As a matter of fact, if you want to share what you write? If you want some feedback?
Send it to me: charley@stupidforstartups.com.
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