Some KPIs, like revenue attribution, keep product marketers looking in the rearview mirror. What they ultimately need to seek is real-time feedback—or get as close to real-time feedback as they can.

Wynter CEO Peep Laja explored this theme in a recent Better Product episode. Listen for more context on how to keep focused on the right goals in product marketing and how to create product messaging that works.

The Actual Goals of Product Marketing

Product marketing has one goal, according to Peep, and that’s ultimately to support sales. Because product marketing is the bridge between your sales team and your product team, product marketers must take what’s most essential to the product vision and share it with sales so that the vision is clearly communicated to your buyers.

But the responsibilities can get trickier than that. Peep says product marketers often suffer from a curse of knowledge, where they know so much about the product they forget what it’s like to be new to it. As a result, product marketers need to stay attuned to their target audience and never lose sight of their ever-evolving market. They also need to know what outcomes truly demand their energy.

“Revenue and conversion rate are an effect,” Peep says, and they result from many intersecting parts. Revenue can’t be entirely driven by or connected to product marketing. But what product marketers can focus on are “cause and lead measures” that go on to support revenue and conversion. And a core way product marketers secure leads is through great product messaging.

Product Messaging Fundamentals

If the goal of product marketing is to create a foundation for taking your product to market—and then to help your product thrive once it’s in the market—one of the most important ways product marketers build that foundation is through product messaging.

Messaging, when done right, results in a story that gets results. Better messaging is better copy, which all leads to better conversion.

Peep recommends product marketers consider five attributes to make their messages count:

1. Clarity

Your messaging simply won’t work if isn’t clear. The story you tell needs to articulate an identifiable purpose and direct that purpose to the right audience when they need to hear it.

When seeking feedback on your messaging’s clarity, you should ask: does my audience “get” your product? Once that point is made, does your audience actually want your product?

2. Relevancy

If your messaging isn’t relevant to your chosen audience, they’ll abandon you. You have to know your ideal buyer so well that you speak the same language.

Knowing if your messaging is relevant starts with the basics. Always talk to your audience first. If something is amiss, you’ll be left with a choice: adapt your messaging to speak to the audience or change your audience strategy.

3. Desirability

Even the best messaging won’t save a product that isn’t wanted. While you as the product creator may see the relevance of a product, as we touched on in the last section, your audience needs to show they’re interested. If not, you’re at a dead end.

Once you’ve confirmed interest, you can get to messaging, which should ultimately capitalize on what makes your product desirable. What about your product make is worth using and sharing with others? Why should people care?

4. Differentiation

The digital product landscape is crowded, and there are many messaging tropes that can hold you back. Strive to be different.

What distinct value are you adding to the market that others are not? When defining your messaging, your time should be spent identifying these traits and testing if they’re true against competitors.

5. Brand

Brand is what ties everything together; it should work in parallel with your messaging to build further credibility for your product’s quality and presence. If brand and messaging aren’t calibrated to one another, you can confuse your audience with conflicting messages and create the wrong perception.

Speeding Up Feedback for Better Results

Once you create your messaging, you must go a step further. You can’t just assume your messaging will be effective, even with in-depth research at the beginning. You need constant feedback to understand if it’s really working—and the faster you can get it, the better.

There are new platforms helping product marketers test their messaging’s effectiveness, including Peep’s own company, Wynter. But in principle, product marketers should remember to spend more time analyzing and revising their messaging copy than they do on vanity metrics.

To hear more from Peep Laja, listen to his full interview on the Better Product podcast.