You need a messaging matrix.

It’s easy to overlook this exercise, but here are our top three reasons why you need a messaging matrix:  

1. Your team probably isn’t as aligned as you think they are
People can’t read each other’s minds, and everyone has a different view of the world. Try asking everyone on your team what they think are the three most important things your target audience should know about your project or product. If they don’t all have the same answer in the same order of priority, you need a messaging matrix. We’ve seen even small teams consisting of two closely-collaborating founders disagree over the fundamental value propositions of their product. Which leads us to the next point…

2. It can be a forcing function for clarifying your strategy and help you sleep at night
Your messaging matrix should be a clear reflection of the central tenets of your product or organization. This means knowing your team’s mission, your positioning in the market, your key audiences, and your most important value propositions. If you cannot quickly and easily identify these key components and write them down on paper, then you have some work to do. An exercise like this can quickly reveal gaps in your strategy, and forces stakeholders to get together and choose the words that will represent your mission, your product, and your value to your audience. Okay, “forces,” “choose,” and “value” sounds intense, and tl;dr, it can be. But when you do it, I promise you’ll feel relief. At Blokhaus, we often walk away feeling like we’ve helped facilitate the unsticking of something stuck when we accomplish this exercise with clients. 

3. It can help you scale your marketing efforts faster
Especially for a small team getting off the ground, a messaging matrix is an essential tool for scaling your marketing efforts quickly. Need to build out a three-month social or blog calendar? Need to harmonize language across social channels and owned web properties? Need to build out main stage presentations? Need to brief your creatives for an ad campaign? Your matrix becomes the source of truth and a springboard for all of these initiatives. It also means that no team member needs to start from scratch, whether it’s your social media manager or an executive taking the stage at an event. If your team members constantly ask you for a brief…this can be the brief that starts all briefs. When we develop messaging matrices for clients, we uncover who needs what and why. It crystallizes team goals and messaging priorities so that no one is starting from scratch, ever. 

A messaging matrix is the piece of homework you don’t really feel like doing but you later thank yourself for having done. So if you’re ready to get started, check out part two of this blog post: How to build a messaging matrix you’ll actually use.