The structure, and how to tell whether yours is working.
A messaging framework is the short document that lets everyone in a company describe it the same way. It sits underneath the website, the deck, the sales call and the recruitment ad, and all of those come out of it rather than being written separately.
Companies usually discover they need one when they notice that three people have described the business three different ways in the same week.
Start from customer evidence rather than a workshop with the marketing team. Write the proposition first, because everything below it is downstream. Draft the pillars from what buyers already say about you rather than what you would like them to say. Then write the objections honestly, since the ones you avoid putting in writing are the ones costing you deals.
Ask somebody who was not involved in writing it to explain the company. If what comes back resembles the framework, it is working. If they reach for their own words, the framework is a document rather than a shared understanding.
The other test is the sales team. A framework that people find useful gets used without being mandated.
A strategy is the thinking. The framework is the artefact people use day to day.
Two or three. Companies that arrive with seven have a list rather than a position.
Marketing keeps it current. The chief executive owns whether it is true.