diff --git a/pulsar/message.go b/pulsar/message.go
index 3779cafc9c..0cd077eee3 100644
--- a/pulsar/message.go
+++ b/pulsar/message.go
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ type ProducerMessage struct {
 	Payload []byte
 
 	// Value and payload is mutually exclusive, `Value interface{}` for schema message.
+	// If you encode message externally (for ex: with a different avro encoder), leave
+	// Value nil and set the `Payload` to encoded `[]byte` value
 	Value interface{}
 
 	// Key sets the key of the message for routing policy
diff --git a/pulsar/producer_partition.go b/pulsar/producer_partition.go
index d67c0c0af2..9762efae0a 100644
--- a/pulsar/producer_partition.go
+++ b/pulsar/producer_partition.go
@@ -409,7 +409,8 @@ func (p *partitionProducer) internalSend(request *sendRequest) {
 	payload := msg.Payload
 	var schemaPayload []byte
 	var err error
-	if p.options.Schema != nil {
+	// if msg.Value is nil, encoding can happen externally to set msg.Payload directly.
+	if p.options.Schema != nil && msg.Value != nil {
 		schemaPayload, err = p.options.Schema.Encode(msg.Value)
 		if err != nil {
 			p.log.WithError(err).Errorf("Schema encode message failed %s", msg.Value)