You don’t need more ideas. You need a message system
Building a Messaging System (That Doesn’t Suck)
Because duct-taping taglines together isn’t a strategy.
If you’ve ever sat in a conference room (or more likely a Zoom meeting) watching your team try to jam a mission statement, some scattered value props, and a few KPI slides into a homepage headline—this one’s for you.
Messaging isn’t about copywriting. Not at first.
It’s about alignment. It’s about coherence.
And alignment is a system problem—not a copy problem.
You and your team can’t communicate on behalf of your brand with clarity and consistency if your messaging guides are frozen in PDFs somewhere in a Google Drive or Sharepoint site. (Or worse yet, “let’s just go to LinkedIn and see what we write about last month.”) You have to put them in a system.
A messaging system is the connective tissue between your brand voice, your product value, and your customer’s decision-making process. Without it, even the best marketing tactics collapse under the weight of inconsistency. So instead of jumping straight into “we need a new tagline,” let’s walk through a smarter, more strategic approach to building a messaging system that sticks—and scales.
Step 1: Gather the Junk Drawer
Every company has messaging—it just might not be centralized or consistent. Your first job is to pull it all into one place. This is your Content Catalog, and it’s the foundational step most teams skip.
Think of this like dumping out your brand’s junk drawer onto the table. Pull messaging from pitch decks, landing pages, sales enablement materials, onboarding docs, product sheets, testimonials, FAQs—even Slack threads where people talk about “what we do” in plain English. Don’t worry about quality yet. Just gather.
The goal is to capture not only what you’re saying but how you’re saying it. This isn’t about rewriting—it’s about diagnosing. You’ll likely find duplicates, contradictions, and even forgotten gems. That’s the point. You can’t fix your message until you know what you’re actually putting out into the world.
I once helped a client do a messaging review across their website and sales collateral. All told, they had:
- One mission statement
- One vision statement
- One purpose statement
- One cultural statement
- Five cultural values
- Four business principles
- One pledge to customers with six points (phew!)
I mean, come on! These were spread across web pages, slide presentations, print pieces, and even email samples. I challenged them to explain how, as a company, they could find focus when being pulled in so many directions. And how a customer could ever understand what’s really driving the company through all the noise.
This is where hiring an outsider (like me) can be helpful, because we’re not bound by the same “curse of knowledge” as you and your team might be.
Step 2: Map It to a Messaging Framework
Now that you’ve got all the raw material, you need a structure to make sense of it. You can use any framework you want, but I’m partial to my MessageSpecs Pyramid—a six-layer framework for organizing your messaging according to emotional impact and audience relevance.
The layers of the MessageSpecs Pyramid stack up like this:
- Ideas – The big thematic statements. The “why.” These should emotionally hook the audience and encapsulate your worldview.
- Stories – Narrative elements. The “who and how.” Use these to connect to real-life experiences, industry frustrations, or aha moments.
- Values – Tangible and intangible benefits. The “what’s in it for me?” from the customer’s point of view.
- Mantras – Sticky, repeatable truths. These are your cultural rallying cries, shared beliefs, or internal catchphrases that your audience also identifies with.
- Proof Points – Data, social proof, and third-party credibility. These answer: “Why should I trust you?”
- Technicals – Features, specifications, process details. Essential, but never the first thing out of your mouth.
Sorting your content this way creates modular message blocks. You can use these like LEGO bricks—mixing and matching based on audience needs and channel formats.
You’ll also begin to see gaps and opportunities in your messaging. Where are you over-emphasizing (often the technicals)? And what’s missing entirely (usually the emotional core)?
Step 3: Run a Workshop (Yes, a Fun One)
Once your messaging is mapped, it’s time to get the right voices in the room. And by the right voices, I mean ALL the voices. Host a messaging workshop that brings together representatives or stakeholders from technical leads, founders, product owners, marketers, sales team, and yes—even the developers.
But don’t just throw a brainstorm. A good messaging workshop should be structured as “message therapy.” Use prompts and exercises to draw out insights, stories, and phrasing from across the organization—especially from the people who rarely get asked. Ask things like:
- “What’s the moment a customer ‘gets it’?”
- “What’s one thing you wish prospects understood earlier?”
- “What are we sick of hearing from competitors?”
Use frameworks like the MessageSpecs Pyramid and tools like the MessageDeck (or just a deck of sticky notes) to gamify the process. Keep it creative, casual, and safe for half-baked thoughts—because some of your best messaging will come from off-the-cuff analogies or metaphors that just feel true.
The goal is to build alignment, uncover hidden storylines, and extract phrasing that’s already working in the field—but hasn’t made its way into the marketing. But it’s also to collectively make decisions about what’s in and what’s out of your messaging.
For more information on using the MessageDeck as part of your workshop click here.
Step 4: Build and Systematize
Now that you’ve got the raw input and a structure in place, it’s time to build your messaging system. This is a living, breathing repository—not a dusty PDF.
Start by documenting the strongest, clearest message elements in a shared space (Notion, Google Doc, Confluence—whatever your team uses). Organize by framework level—Ideas, Stories, Values, etc.—so anyone creating content can pull from it modularly.
Yes, it has to be in a database. No, you cannot effectively do this in Excel.
Tag Your Messages
If you’re systematizing your messages, you can tag them however you want. This allows you to do things like filter down and focus your message when you’re developing your content.
Audience Tagging
Not every business follows the same funnel. Your audience journey might be linear, cyclical, multi-threaded, or a glorious mess of Slack pings, demos, and late-night Googling. That’s okay. What matters is recognizing that different people need different messages at different moments.
Instead of locking yourself into rigid lifecycle stages like “Awareness” or “Decision,” think in terms of intent and context:
- What’s this person trying to figure out?
- What do they already know (or think they know)?
- What’s likely to move them forward—not just “convert” them?
Channel Tagging
Finally, tag your messages by channel. The same core story can show up differently in a 90-second demo video, a sales one-pager, and a homepage hero line. Your system should support flexibility without sacrificing consistency.
Differentiation Tagging
You might think your “secret sauce” is the most compelling part of your messaging. But is it truly unique? You may want to check the things you want to say against what the market is saying. If your messaging looks, sounds, and smells like everyone else, now is your chance to massage it to make it stand out as truly unique.
The key is modularity: you don’t need one message to rule them all.
You need a system that helps you deliver the right message, right moment, right mindset.
The Payoff: Consistency Without Conformity
When you’ve done the work to build a messaging system, everything gets easier—and more effective. Instead of rewriting every headline from scratch, your team has a toolbox. Instead of sales and marketing going rogue with conflicting narratives, they sound like two halves of the same song.
You get a brand that’s confident, clear, and human—without having to “find the voice” every time you launch a new feature or campaign.
This isn’t about locking your team into rigid scripts. It’s about giving them a player’s handbook of language that works.
That connects.
That converts.
And most importantly, that feels true.
“It seemed like every 2 minutes you were dropping an “aha” moment into my hands when we last spoke. 🙌🏾”
“In our experience, cybersecurity companies can really struggle to communicate their mission and value proposition to various stakeholders, including investors and customers. It’s a huge pain point for our members.
When it came to creating an event around this topic, Joel was my first call. Again, he executed a very on-brand, high-quality product for our organization, from event ideation to follow-up call-to-actions.”
“I really enjoyed chatting with Joel, and took away some really great insights. He listened to what I’m currently working through and gave me advice and inspiration, specifically pertaining to specializing and understanding my own story, thinking about the big picture, and figuring out my core pillars. Highly recommend!“
“Ya’ll, go grab Joel’s MessageDeck. He’s a freaking wizard who can help turn your messaging from a hot mess sh*t show into brilliant copy that converts.”
“So cool! Pure gold. I’ve used it myself already. It really helped me think about Category design.”
“Some ‘messaging’ exercises can feel routine, and uninspired – the MessageDeck sparked more creative conversations. Even after the MessageDeck crash course, I left feeling empowered to tweak some of my messaging.”
“Many people claim to describe the complicated and technical simply. Joel is one of the rare professionals who can deliver on this promise. He synthesized ideas from many enthusiastic, over-caffeinated cyber marketing professionals, and birthed the More to MD Cyber Than You Think campaign to highlight the strength and diversity of the cybersecurity ecosystem in Maryland.
Like a ninja, Joel quickly identified the CAMI voice and brand personality and produced shorts that integrated perfectly with our identity: collaborative, forward-thinking, and a bit playful (who says cybersecurity can’t be fun?!).”
“EVERYONE should take advantage of this. Your stuff is killer, dude.”
“My session with Joel exceeded my expectations! He asked some great questions that showed he paid close attention to my situation and is genuinely interested in helping me. I walked away with several actionable tips. Joel’s had a long, successful career and I highly recommend taking advantage of this opportunity to meet/learn from him!”
“Because of Joel’s experience on both sides of the equation, he really is an advocate for the vendor and the buyer. And that is why I think his approach is so powerful.“
Want to Build One With Your Team?
I help teams facilitate messaging workshops, audit content ecosystems, and build modular messaging systems that actually get used.
If you’re a founder, marketer, or product lead tired of blank stares and bloated brand docs—set up a free 15-minute MessageTherapy session. Let’s build something better.