How product messaging impacts your onboarding
The biggest lever to improve your onboarding is often outside your product—it’s getting your product messaging right.
This is a preview of my new book, EUREKA: The Customer Onboarding Playbook for High-Growth B2B Companies (coming June 2025).
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Enjoy the preview!
The biggest lever to improve your onboarding is often outside your product—it’s getting your product messaging right. Your homepage and product marketing content should answer four critical positioning questions:
What is your product?
Who is it for?
What does it replace?
Why is it better?
If you don’t nail those questions, your onboarding will suffer because users arrive with misaligned expectations. They'll struggle to connect your product's value to their needs, leading to confusion and early abandonment.
That’s why I partnered with Anthony Pierri and Rob Kaminski from Fletch PMM to host a webinar a few weeks ago. You can watch the replay.
We discussed the three direct impacts of product messaging on your onboarding:
1. Paints the picture of user success.
A strong product message gives people a clear vision of what success looks like when using your product. It helps them understand not just what your product does but how it will transform their current situation. This mental model is crucial during onboarding because users can better connect each step to their desired outcome.
For example, June, a product analytics tool, positions itself as "Product analytics designed to help you retain more customers." This clear positioning helps new users understand that every feature they encounter during onboarding—from cohort analysis to retention tracking—serves the ultimate goal of improving customer retention. When users grasp this connection, they're more likely to complete key setup tasks and engage with the product's core features.
2. Sets clear expectations about your product’s use cases.
Clear product messaging helps users understand exactly how and when they should use your product. When users see specific use cases that match their needs, they’re more likely to know how to get started and what actions to take first. This clarity reduces friction during onboarding and helps users quickly reach their "aha moment."
For instance, Monday.com, a product management tool, clearly outlines different use cases on its homepage, from project management to CRM and marketing campaigns. This targeted messaging helps new users quickly identify their specific needs and follow the most relevant onboarding path. When users see examples that match their use case, they're more likely to complete setup and reach activation faster.
3. Motivates new customers through the onboarding.
As discussed in my previous post, the challenge with B2B onboarding is that users often need to invest significant time and effort before seeing value. Strong product messaging helps motivate new customers during this critical period by reinforcing the benefits of your product over their current approach. When users clearly understand the transformation your product promises, they're more likely to push through initial setup friction.
Let’s take Kit (formerly ConvertKit), for example. They use social proof by showcasing well-known authors, musicians, and creators who use their products. By doing so, they establish themselves as a more credible alternative than other email tools that target multiple verticals and industries. This targeted messaging helps creators stay motivated during the initial setup, knowing they're joining a platform trusted by peers in their industry.
Great onboarding can’t overcome weak positioning and messaging.
Even the most polished onboarding experience will struggle if users arrive confused with misaligned expectations about your product. Your positioning and messaging have a clear impact in painting a picture of user success, setting expectations about your product’s use cases, and motivating them throughout their journey.
So, how do you nail your positioning and messaging? My focus with this book is building a successful B2B onboarding experience. Others have more expertise and have written books about that topic, including April Dunford’s Obviously Awesome and Emma Stratton’s Make It Punchy.
That's all for now, folks!
I'd love to hear your unfiltered thoughts about this preview:
What do you think about the three pillars of B2B onboarding?
What questions come to your mind when you read it?
What else should I discuss in the book?
Leave a comment below.
And, of course, you can get exclusive updates, resources, and snippets from the book by subscribing to Delight Path.
