Alissa Lydon

Head of Product Marketing, Dovetail

Content

What messaging and persona framework do you use and how much of competitive positioning do you cover in Messaging?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • April 27

At its most basic, messaging is about answering 3 key prompts: * What is the problem facing the market today? * What solution (generally) will help solve this problem? * What does your product do to help solve it? To me, competitive falls squarely underneath that third bullet point. It's o......Read More

1865 Views

Would you have any great external resources about becoming better at messaging that you can share?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • October 12

I've read a couple of great books on building messaging. The two I enjoyed the most were: The Aha Moment by Andy Cunningham. She has worked with some of the most iconic brands in tech (including Apple during Steve Jobs' heyday). She provides a great framework for understanding what she calls "......Read More

1237 Views

How do you showcase or describe to interviewers your work in messaging and positioning, without actually showing documented work?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • April 28

When I am looking for messaging and positioning validation from outside the org, I find that people engage more with a story than with a static framework. And as far as stories go, everyone much prefers pictures to reading dense Powerpoint slides! To that end, putting together a solid "marketect......Read More

1109 Views

What documents do you create for messaging of a new product and or feature. What are ways in which you differentiate the messaging? Do you create a matrix of messages via vertical, persona etc?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • May 6

For new products and major features, I find it invaluable to go through a complete messaging exercise. This is an iterative process that involves collaboration with Product, Marketing, and Sales. I've developed a template for this over the years that combines the things I liked most from the past......Read More

1058 Views

How can I use data for creating an ICP (instead of just relying on SMarketing brainstorming sessions?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • May 6

Let the data tell the story of your ICP! Use your existing customer base as a starting point. Take your best customers and look at them in aggregate - what patterns emerge across industries, company size, tooling adoption, maturity indicators, etc.? From there, you have a great base to help infor......Read More

998 Views

For a team member newer to the discipline, how do you train messaging and positioning?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • October 12

Almost everything I learned about messaging I learned by watching other companies who do it really well. These can be similar players in your space (even competitors), or even products/brands you really admire. What are the things that they talk about that help them stand out, and how can you app......Read More

956 Views

What are your best sales enablement practices for a product launch?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • May 6

Just like in marketing, sales enablement is all about knowing your audience. At the top level, that means understanding what motivates them (i.e. closing more deals, expanding existing customer base, etc.), and tailoring your enablement to help them understand how a new product/feature will help ......Read More

919 Views

What template (or suite of templates) have you found to be most useful for launch planning and maintaining alignment & visibility across a variety of (very!) busy cross-functional stakeholders?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • May 6

For organizing and keeping track of launch activities, I created templates that I have carried with me from company to company. They contain all of the best elements from past launches (both my own and other PMMs I have learned from). And frankly, there is nothing fancy about them - they are most......Read More

872 Views

How do you consider messaging hierarchy in the messaging of the product?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • October 12

Messaging is made up of two equally important components - Brand and Product. Brand messaging encompasses the product, vision, market, customers, culture, and more. It can be much more aspirational and future-facing. This is normally owned by corporate marketing, or maybe you have a specific b......Read More

815 Views

What are some of the KPIs that should be focused on when launching a new feature of an existing product?

Alissa Lydon

Dovetail Head of Product Marketing • May 6

There are two levers I think about when deciding how we should measure launch success: * Are users successfully adopting the product/feature? * Are we successfully attracting users to adopt the product/feature? The first bullet point is all about the product experience, and speaks to the part......Read More