Customer-Centric Messaging

In my article, "How to Formulate Marketing Messages", I describe three approaches to identifying possible marketing messages. As product managers, we are naturally tempted to focus on the attributes of our product when we communicate with customers. However, another approach is to focus on the attributes of the customers. In fact, we can often reformulate product-centric messages into roughly equivalent customer-centric messages.

For example, we might decide to position a new model of cell phone as "stylish". Such a formulation would be product-centric. A roughly equivalent customer-centric message would be to portray the users of the cell phone as "hip". In most cases, customers are much more concerned about themselves than they are about your product, so it makes sense to consider centering your messaging around them rather than around the product.

When you are formulating marketing messages, try wording them in at least two different ways:

1. Product is X.
2. Customer is Y.

You may find that the customer-centric wording is more powerful.

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