Why messaging fails.

Messaging work usually gets commissioned as a writing problem. Someone senior feels the copy is weak and asks for better copy. In my experience the copy is almost never the disease. Four reasons messaging actually fails, in descending order of how often I have seen them.

The product has no point of view yet. Messaging is downstream of strategy. If the company hasn't decided who it serves and what it refuses to be, the messaging can only be an average of everyone's hopes. You cannot write your way out of an undecided strategy, though many of us have billed hours trying.

It was written to be approved, not remembered. The lead essay covered this. Copy that survives seven reviewers has been optimized for the seven reviewers. The buyer was not in the meeting.

It describes the category, not the difference. "AI-powered platform for revenue teams" tells me which quadrant you want to be in. It does not tell me why you over the other nine tabs I have open. Category words are for being found. Difference words are for being chosen. Most messaging spends its whole budget on the first job.

It is aimed at the wrong reader. Written for the analyst, the investor, or the founder's peers, then shown to a buyer and found confusing. Not because it is unclear. Because it was never addressed to them.

Notice what is absent from the fixes: more words. Every cure on this list is a decision, and most of them are subtractions.