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SaaS messaging is about managing complexity. But this complexity multiplies exponentially as your SaaS grows.
It’s like conducting an orchestra that keeps adding new instruments. More than that—at some point, you may even find yourself conducting two or three orchestras at once.
It’s a nightmare.
So this morning, I created a framework that maps the SaaS lifecycle stages. Each stage contains one messaging challenge and ways to tackle it.
Let’s take them one by one.
At this stage, companies provide:
This is when SaaS brands must build the basis for messaging.
If they prioritize messaging now, they’ll create a strong foundation for further stages.
And by prioritizing, I don’t mean just copywriting—that’s only part of messaging. I mean setting up a robust messaging framework that includes:
This stage includes:
This is the stage where the software grows in complexity.
The challenge is to turn this complexity into clear, simple, consistent messaging.
That’s when you should look into standardization and ways to socialize it company-wide. And by standardization I mean creating and implementing a controlled language guide.
Controlled language is a style of writing that is clear, concise, and consistent. It typically uses a restricted vocabulary and simplified sentence structures.
This guide will help your team stay consistent. So everyone will ‘speak the same language’ when creating messages for external audiences.
Its characteristics are:
Like the previous stage, the maturity stage brings added complexity. This happens as the main software grows and new products are added to the suite.
The challenge is to navigate this cross-product complexity. At the same time, you must keep messaging simple while communicating advanced capabilities.
You can tackle this challenge by creating a full-fledged messaging architecture based on:
Predefined messaging pieces you can reuse in different contexts and across multiple products.
Each block may focus on a specific message, such as a core feature, a key benefit, or a common use case. These units help keep consistency in how you describe your products and capabilities.
They help reduce the effort required to create new messages. You can repurpose and adapt them to different contexts without losing consistency.
For example, you can reuse a "security and privacy" block. You can feature the same block across product pages, support documents, sales collateral.
This is a structured document that maps the software modules, features and functionalities. It usually compares capabilities across different products.
The document includes what each product does. It also shows how products overlap or complement each other.
Imagine you have multiple platforms, products or variations. This increases the chances of your messaging becoming unclear.
It’s especially challenging when you communicate with enterprise clients.
The matrix allows you to quickly tailor your messaging to your audience’s needs. It provides a quick overview of each product and how the different parts of the suite fit together.
This is a standardized term list that describes modules, features, sub-features, and actions.
What’s specific is that these terms may appear across multiple products. Standardizing cross-product terms maintains uniformity in how they are referred to.
Let’s say you call a particular integration capability by different names across products. This practice creates inconsistency that can confuse your target audience.
Cross-product terms guarantees that users see your suite as a consistent, cohesive ecosystem.
This stage involves:
Managing messaging becomes extremely challenging at this stage.
You have to maintain coherence, simplicity, and consistency. But that’s not all. You need to tailor messaging to multiple product lines, markets, regions, and audience.
How can you do that?
By creating a full-fledged messaging governance system. This is a set of rules that align different teams across different countries.
The messaging governance system includes:
These are specific guidelines adapted to different cultural, linguistic, and regulatory requirements.
As you expand globally, messaging that works well in one market may not resonate in another. These guidelines consider the unique characteristics of each region.
This way, they help align your messaging with local cultural and regulatory norms.
These are processes for creating and distributing messaging across teams and regions.
Workflows provide clear steps for creating, reviewing, and approving messaging content. This helps standardize processes, minimize inconsistencies, and reduce errors.
Training programs educate team members on the company’s messaging. They must include information about messaging guidelines, protocols, and standards.
Training helps talent working in new regions understand and apply messaging guidelines correctly. Training reduces the chances of miscommunication and keeps everyone on the same page.
There are many other aspects I would like to include.
But I’ll stop here.
The topic is quite complex and only shows how multi-layered SaaS messaging is.cSo don’t treat messaging lightly.
Depending on your lifecycle stage, you may discover challenges you never thought about. To make things easier, start thinking about standardizing messaging from the beginning.
This doesn’t mean adding layers of bureaucracy. Start small. Focus on creating clear, consistency messaging guidelines that will grow with your SaaS.
