Go-to-Market Plays #8: How to Improve Your Website Messaging Today

Summary

The Marketing Millennials Podcast

Episode Summary: Go-to-Market Plays #8 - How to Improve Your Website Messaging Today

Release Date: May 21, 2025
Host: Daniel Murray
Guest: Tamara Graminski, Founder of PMM Camp

Episode Overview

In the eighth installment of the "Go-to-Market Plays" series, host Daniel Murray teams up with Tamara Graminski, an award-winning product marketer and former VP of Product Marketing at Kajabi. Together, they delve into the intricacies of crafting effective website messaging—a critical component for any successful marketing strategy. The episode aims to equip marketers with actionable frameworks to enhance their website’s communication with audiences, ensuring clarity and emotional resonance.

The Challenge of Effective Messaging

Tamara Graminski opens the discussion by highlighting a pervasive issue in current marketing practices: the struggle to find messaging that truly resonates with the audience. She observes, “Good messaging is table stakes now in marketing” (01:38), emphasizing that while effective messaging is essential, many brands still falter by delivering either overly emotional yet unsubstantial messages or technical yet disengaging content.

Common Pitfalls:

1. Too Fluffy and Emotional: Messages that lack substance, often seen in high-profile ads like those during the Super Bowl.
2. Too Technical and Dry: Particularly prevalent in software and technical product messaging, where features are listed without connecting to customer needs.

Tamara argues that the optimal messaging strikes a balance—connecting emotionally while clearly conveying the product’s practical benefits and functionalities.

Introducing the VBF Framework

To address the messaging challenge, Tamara introduces the VBF Framework, an acronym for Value, Benefit, Feature, developed by Emma Stratton, a messaging expert and author of Make it Punchy.

Breakdown of VBF:

1. Value (V): The emotional driver—how the customer wants to feel.
2. Benefit (B): The practical outcome—the tangible result customers achieve using the product.
3. Feature (F): The capability or functionality—the specific aspects of the product that enable the benefit.

Tamara explains, “The VBF model hooks your buyer's interest by leading with a desirable outcome rather than leading with a bunch of features” (02:49). This outside-in approach prioritizes the customer’s emotional and practical needs over the product’s technical specifications.

Applying VBF to Real-World Brands

To illustrate the effectiveness of the VBF framework, Tamara revisits the messaging of three well-known brands—Duolingo, Notion, and Loom—and rewrites their messaging using the VBF model.

1. Duolingo

• Original Messaging: “The free, fun, and effective way to learn a new language.”
• VBF Reimagined:
  • Value: Feel confident speaking a new language.
  • Benefit: By practicing just five minutes a day.
  • Feature: Using bite-sized lessons built by language experts.

Tamara’s Insight: This revision shifts the focus from the product’s features to the user’s emotional gain and practical outcome, enhancing emotional engagement and clarity.

2. Notion

• Original Messaging: “Write, plan, collaborate with a little help from AI.”
• VBF Reimagined:
  • Value: Feel organized and in control.
  • Benefit: By managing your tasks, docs, and projects in one place.
  • Feature: Using customizable building blocks built for your workflow.

Tamara’s Insight: By clearly articulating the emotional and practical benefits, Notion’s messaging becomes more relatable and compelling to potential users.

3. Loom

• Original Messaging: “Easily record and share AI-powered video messages with your teammates and customers to supercharge productivity.”
• VBF Reimagined:
  • Value: Build trust faster.
  • Benefit: By showing your face and voice instead of sending long emails.
  • Feature: With instant screen and camera recording in Loom.

Tamara’s Insight: This transformation removes buzzwords and centers on the emotional benefit of building trust, making the messaging more impactful.

Practical Steps to Implement VBF

Daniel Murray inquires about the practical application of the VBF framework, especially for marketers facing a blank page. Tamara provides a step-by-step approach:

1. Start with the Feature: Identify what the product does and its core capabilities.
2. Define the Benefit: Determine the functional outcome—what the customer can achieve using the product.
3. Identify the Value: Pinpoint the emotional reward—the feeling the customer desires from the product.

Tamara emphasizes the importance of customer research in this process: “Talk to your customers, look at past customer call recordings, customer feedback, and start to really slot in all of those responses into these three categories” (07:50). This ensures that the messaging is grounded in actual customer needs and sentiments.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

The episode concludes with a recap of the VBF framework’s effectiveness in creating clear, compelling, and customer-centric messaging. Daniel underscores the significance of layering emotional payoff with practical benefits: “But when you layer in the emotional payoff, that's when messaging clicks. So it's not about being clever, it's about being clear, customer first and anchored in outcomes” (09:56).

Tamara adds, “It's all in fun” (10:42), reflecting the collaborative and iterative nature of improving brand messaging.

Notable Quotes

• Tamara Graminski: “Good messaging is table stakes now in marketing.” (01:38)
• Daniel Murray: “It's not about the what, it's about why it matters.” (04:11)
• Tamara Graminski: “Feel confident making the right call.” (07:50)
• Daniel Murray: “It's about being clear, customer first and anchored in outcomes.” (09:56)

Final Thoughts

This episode of "The Marketing Millennials" provides valuable insights into refining website messaging through the VBF framework. By focusing on value, benefit, and feature, marketers can create messaging that not only informs but also emotionally resonates with their audience, ultimately driving engagement and conversions.

For more actionable marketing strategies and insights from top industry leaders, subscribe to The Marketing Millennials on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Daniel]

Some social tools are too basic while some are too bloated. Sched Social is the best of both worlds, built just right for fast moving teams who need power without the price traps. Get 20% off a full year with code [e-mail] that's s k e d social.com what is up Marketing besties? We are kicking off a brand new miniseries called Go to Marketplace where we break down one go to market. Move in under 10 minutes. Real tactics, zero fluff. Just the kind of stuff you actually use to launch smarter, grow faster and win your market. And joining me for this whole series is someone who lives and breathes Go to Market, Tamara Graminski. She's an award winning product marketer, former VP of Product marketing at Kajabi, and one of the sharpest minds in the game. Let's get into it. Welcome back to another Go to Marketplace in 10 minutes or less. If you ever opened up a blank doc to write homepage copy and ended up knee deep in buzzwords, feature dumps or vague benefits that could apply to anything, this episode is for you today. And I've got back on the mic. Tamara Graminski, founder of PMM Camp. We're going to break down how to actually write stuff your audience cares about. So welcome back, Tamara.

[Tamara Graminski]

Thanks, Daniel. Really excited to chat today about messaging. I think we can all agree that like, good messaging is table stakes now in marketing. But if you look around you at some of your favorite products, whether it's like products you buy in the real world or software products, things you buy online, it's actually still pretty hard to find good messaging. And I find that that's because messaging will fall into one of two categories. Either messaging will be too fluffy, too emotional, and there's no substance. I think of like super bowl ads a lot with that, or it's too technical, too dry and no one actually cares. Which would probably be a lot of like software ads and messaging that we see. But it's my opinion that the best messaging sits right, right in the middle, right? So it actually connects with what people feel. It explains what people get and it shows how your product makes that happen. So today I brought a little framework with me. It's a framework that I love from a friend of mine. She's a messaging pro, Emma Stratton, and her framework is called vbf, which stands for value Benefit Feature.

[Daniel]

I'm super interested in this one. I've never heard of vbf, but I'm excited to hear what it entails. So could you break it down for us.

[Tamara Graminski]

Sure. So Emma actually wrote a book earlier this year called make it Punchy and I took the framework from that. But basically the whole concept here is that the VBF model will help you write messaging that's both clear and compelling. So it takes what Emma calls an outside in approach. There's three components. The value is that emotional driver. Right. It's how your customer wants to feel. The benefit is the practical outcome. So what they can now do using your product and then the feature is the capability that enables that change. So it's actually what you've built. And so the reason that the VBF model works is that it hooks your buyer's interest by leading with a desirable outcome rather than leading with like a bunch of features. So the how of it actually takes a backseat seat to the what they'll be able to do with it. And if we look at a lot of the messaging that we see around us, most companies will actually do the opposite of this. So they take an inside out approach. And we see this all the time. You go to a website, even if you're at the store, you just see a bunch of features listed, listed, listed. And there's like no real context for the customer and it doesn't really connect back to why the customer would even care about those features.

[Daniel]

So what I'm hearing from you, it's not about the what, it's about why it matters. So you're basically connecting the dots between what you built and what the your customer actually wants. But I know this wouldn't be a go to marketplace. There wasn't any real world examples of brands that would nail this. So do you want to get into that? Most social tools make you choose between simplicity and power, while sched social gives you both. Plan fast, loop in your team, and show real results without perceived pricing or shady upgrade traps. It's everything you need. Nothing you don't get. 20% off for a full year with code [e-mail] that's s k e-social.com.

[Tamara Graminski]

Sure. So I did something a little different for this episode because it's actually kind of hard to find before and after messaging. So what I've done is I've gone to a few favorite brands that we've already talked about on the show and I've taken their current messaging and I've actually rewritten it myself in the VBF kind of model to show how I think it could be even stronger. So we're going to have a little fun with this today. The first one is du lingo. So duolingo. What you'll see if you go to their current website, it says the free, fun and effective way to learn a new language, that's fine. But like, again, it's not connecting to that. Why? Like why would someone even want to learn a new language? So I flipped it around a little bit and I said, feel confident speaking a new language. That's the value. By practicing just five minutes a day. That's the benefit. Using bite sized lessons built by language experts.

[Daniel]

Yes.

[Tamara Graminski]

So that's my first one. Maybe I'll go through all of them, then you tell me what you think. The second one is notion. So notion obviously can do a lot of things. That's a hard one to build messaging for. If you go to their website, their current messaging is write, plan, collaborate with a little help from AI. So I thought, you know, we could make this a little bit better with vbf. So I said, why do you even want to write, plan and collaborate? Like, and how is AI helping? What's the why here? I think the why is feel organized and in control. That's the value. By managing your tasks, docs and projects in one place. That's the benefit. Using customizable building blocks built for your workflow. That's the feature. And now finally, loom, another tool that we love. So their current messaging says easily record and share AI powered video messages with your teammates and customers to supercharge productivity. Supercharged productivity Buzzword did not like that. So I flipped it around a bit and my new messaging says build trust faster. That's the value. By showing your face and voice instead of sending long emails. That's the benefit. With instant screen and camera recording in loom. That's the feature. What do you think about my messaging, Daniel?

[Daniel]

I think it makes a ton of sense, especially the part about flipping the script in inside out to outside in. But I really do think we need to make this practical. So if I'm staring at a blank page now, where do I start? Do we begin with the value? The feature? How do I actually go from like my raw notes that I have as a marketer to a clean VBF messaging system?

[Tamara Graminski]

Great question. So as you notice, when I was walking through my examples, I actually labeled each part of the sentence. And so I always encourage people to do that too. We actually want to kind of pull apart the three parts and then we bring it together in one kind of coherent message. But I like to start with the feature because that's the thing we've actually built that's what we want to market. It's the most tangible place to begin. So I always start by asking myself, what does this product actually do and what capability are we really talking about here? So I'm going to give an example just to help kind of nail this for everyone. So let's just say that we offer real time analytics dashboards. We're taking maybe more of like a SaaS approach here. That would be your feature, so we know what that is. Then we want to ask ourselves what's the functional outcome of that? So we need to go one level up. So what can the customer do now that they couldn't do before? Or what job does that help them complete? If we're using like a jobs to be done framework, this becomes the benefit. So maybe in this case where we have real time analytics dashboards, the benefit is you can now make faster data driven decisions. That's good. And a lot of people would actually stop here, but we're really still missing that emotional win. This is where we want to add that like extra layer of magic. How does the customer want to feel? What's the emotional reward if that product actually works? This is the value, right? So for real time dashboards, the value might be feel confident making the right call. Right? That's a super emotional benefit. Now again, if you're staring at a blank piece of paper and you're like, how do I start to answer these questions? I want to just reassure everyone that like, it's okay if you don't have the answers and you shouldn't just guess. This is where talking to your customers comes in. Because your customers are going to actually help you answer these questions. But that's a whole other go to Marketplace altogether. So we'll just leave it at that for now. But I'll say talk to your customers, look at past customer call recordings, customer feedback, and start to really slot in all of those responses into these three categories.

[Daniel]

That is the VBF messaging play in action like Tamara described. It starts one, start with what your product actually does. Two, translated into what your customer can do now, three, then connected to how they want to feel. And here's why I love this is because most teams either stop at the feature or or slap on a vague benefit on top of it. But when you layer in the emotional payoff, that's when messaging clicks. So it's not about being clever, it's about being clear, customer first and anchored in outcomes.

[Tamara Graminski]

I love it.

[Daniel]

And thank you, Tamara. Thank you, Tamara, for always coming with actionable stuff. Always coming with details, always coming with receipts. So that was it for another go to Marketplace with Tamara.

[Tamara Graminski]

Thanks and hopefully the brands love the little glow up I gave to some of their messaging. It's all in fun. It's all in fun.

[Daniel]

Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.