You’ve crafted a message you’re proud of. It’s polished, it’s thorough – and somehow, it’s still not landing.
The problem is that the message is written for the wrong audience: your internal team, your product roadmap, or your industry peers, rather than the buyer sitting across the table.
The right message moves buyers, drives engagement, and opens the door to real revenue opportunities. This template helps you get there.
Built around the So What? Why? Who Cares? framework – developed by product marketing leader and author Doug Kimball – it gives you a structured way to strip out the jargon, get honest about what you’re actually saying, and rewrite your messaging so buyers not only understand it, they feel it.
What is a message pressure-testing template?
It’s a simple but rigorous worksheet designed to help you stress-test any piece of messaging before it goes out into the world.
The template walks you through your current message and challenges you to interrogate it from the buyer’s perspective – identifying what’s too technical, too feature-focused, or too internally oriented, and replacing it with language that speaks directly to user needs and motivations.
At its core, the template is organized around three deceptively powerful questions: So what? Why? and Who cares? Together, they force you to move from describing what your product does to articulating why it matters – and to whom. The goal isn’t just cleaner copy; it’s messaging that drives engagement and opens the door to revenue conversations.
Who is it for?
This template is for product marketers who want their messaging to do more than sound good. Specifically, it’s a great fit if you:
- Have messaging that’s technically accurate but isn’t resonating with buyers
- Are preparing for a product launch and want to pressure-test your core narrative
- Are working with internal stakeholders who default to jargon or feature-speak
- Want a quick, repeatable process for evaluating messaging at any stage
If you’ve ever had a prospect nod along in a meeting and then completely misrepresent your product when talking to a colleague, this template is for you.
How to use the template
The template is organized as a three-column worksheet in the top section, followed by three deeper-dive rows. Here’s how to work through it:
- Write down your original message: Start with your current messaging exactly as it’s written. Don’t edit it yet. This is your baseline.
- Identify what’s too technical or internally focused: In the second column, pull out any jargon, feature references, or internal language. Be ruthless here. If a buyer wouldn’t use the term themselves, flag it.
- Identify user needs and pains: In the third column, shift your perspective entirely. What’s motivating your buyer to consider a change right now? What’s keeping them up at night? Grounding your message in their reality is what makes the next steps stick – and what sets up meaningful engagement down the line.
- Work through So what? Why? and Who cares? These three rows are where the rewriting happens:
- So what? Why does your message matter? What changes for the buyer because of it?
- Why? What’s the actual value you’re delivering? Not the feature, the outcome.
- Who cares? Is this relevant to the buyer you’re targeting? Would they describe it this way?
- Validate your rewrite: Before you finalize, do one last check: could a buyer repeat your revised message back to you in their own words? If yes, you’re done. If not, go back to step four.
This template was contributed by Doug Kimball, product marketing leader and author of So What? Why? Who Cares? – a practical guide to building messaging that actually moves buyers.
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