Stop reviewing messaging internally, because the most senior opinion wins and none of you are the buyer. Put the actual page or email in front of twenty five to thirty people who match your ICP and ask five plain questions: what do you think this does, who is it for, what is different, what would make you take a call, what is unclear. Test it section by section so you learn which line is broken rather than that the page as a whole scores six out of ten. Then triangulate with recorded sales calls, because the sentence a prospect repeats back to a colleague is the one that works, and you did not write it, they did.
3 hand-picked resources, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The actual method: which five dimensions to score, the open questions that get useful answers, and why you test section by section instead of judging a whole page. Laja's claim that a third to half of your messaging is not landing is a good reason to start.
From Wynter by Peep Laja 13 min read
Open wynter.com →Why we picked it Three real startup homepages taken apart, showing the whole chain from positioning statement to messaging to the actual sentence on the page. Seeing the translation fail in someone else's copy is the fastest way to spot it in yours.
From MKT1 Newsletter by Emily Kramer and Anthony Pierri 20 min read
Open newsletter.mkt1.co →Why we picked it The interviewing craft, not the theory: how to open so people feel safe being blunt, how to use five whys past the polite answer, and why you let the buyer talk ninety percent of the time.
From Klue 14 min read
Open klue.com →How positioning and messaging reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Understand your customers, our Starting Up track.
