Get answers from product marketing leaders
Quinn Hubbard
Matterport Head of Global Brand & Product Marketing, Director • May 4
A thorough go to market (GTM) plan can provide incredible clarity for the many, many stakeholders who are involved in a launch. That’s why it’s so important for the GTM plan to be self-serve when you don’t have the luxury of walking your colleagues through it. The goal is to align your core team, plus answer the top questions for anyone else who needs to be looped in. I suggest using these 9 sections as your core elements: 1. Business context, goals and projected impact → why is this launching? 2. Product experience → what is launching? 3. Audience insights, definition and targeting strategy → who is this launching for and what need(s) are we solving? 4. Marketing brief → what are we saying and how? 5. Channel plan → where are we sharing this? 6. Campaign creative → how does it look, feel and sound? 7. Launch timeline → when is it launching and how is it being rolled out? 8. Measurement plan → how will we know what success looks like? 9. Roles & responsibilities → who owns bringing this to life? There are plenty of times when this list expands or contracts, but as long as you are answering why, what, who, where, when and how, you’ll have a solid starting point to create a successful GTM plan.
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Alex Gutow
Snowflake Senior Director of Product Marketing • November 5
I actually tend to take bits and pieces from different ones that I've used in the past to create my go-to. Whatever framework you use should help you get to a focused opinion on the tagline, elevator pitch, and 3 benefit pillars. This means it should capture who is this for (primary personas) and what you're competing against (competitors) as "givens" to set the stage. Then the most valuable thing to have in the messaging are the 3 key benefit pillars of your product/solution/feature that are untouchable by the competition and matter most to your target audience. To justify your 3 key benefits, it's important that a messaging framework make you "show your work" so to speak. For each, why was it a challenge prior? How do you make it better? What's unique? What's the impact to your customer? Answering these in the framework also can make it easier when you're collecting feedback and buy-in, because it gives enough background for folks to debate. And then once you've nailed those pillars, the tagline and the elevator pitch tend to stem from there.
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In my experience, this is one of the toughest things as a PMM. You always see the potential upside for making an announcement, and you can spin a story out of anything / convince anybody why something matters. But really, you need to exercise a lot of restraint to avoid overloading your sales teams (in B2B companies) and customers with the sheer volume of releases. I like to group features into regular channels (e..g monthly newsletters and webinars) so customers can appreciate the feature velocity but only have to think about digesting information once a month. For small features, it's not just about the splashiness of the feature, but the impact to customers. Here are a few examples: * Planned downtime -- this is not splashy, but users should know and be informed to plan around it. Think about the channels that you have to reach your target audience. Users may be active in the product, or it may be more effective to deliver notices via email. A multi-channel approach works well here. * Small polish features / improvements to their experience -- let's say you have a small improvement that isn't going to break workflows, but is just going to improve quality of life. Oftentimes customers will discover this improvement on their own. But, it can be helpful to highlight these features in some sort of monthly newsletter, to demonstrate how your team is continually delivering features to delight users.
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Kevin Zentmeyer
Jobber Senior Director, Product Marketing • April 27
The best product marketers have the following traits in common: 1) They are type A. All of them. 2) They have a growth mindset. There is no finished product product marketer. This role requires constant learning to succeed day-to-day and only people who enjoy the treadmill of non-stop skill building will last. 3) They are sharp. If the candidate isn't incredibly sharp, I won't trust them, and this cannot be micromanaged. 4) They are "tactfully pushy" which is my term for people who can convince people to change their opinion or roadmap etc. without ruffling feathers. Passive doesn't work. Jerks don't either. 5) They're already good at something and succeeding in their current role. Entry level PMM roles are something that you are promoted into, not fall back into. This is also what you will build around from a training perspective.
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Manav Tandon
Cisco Head of Product Marketing, Collaboration SaaS | Formerly Adobe, Samsung, Verifone • February 17
Here's a non-comprehensive list of KPIs to choose from: * Launch content * # of press articles mentioning your product * # of views on blog posts * # of visitors to landing pages * # of downloads of gated content * # of social media post impressions * # of users adopting the product/feature 30-60-90 days post-launch * Demand Generation * # of sourced MQLs (through activities like webinars) * # of sourced SQLs (through activities like webinars) * Position in Analyst Reports (e.g. Gartner, IDC, etc.) * Position in Software Review sites (e.g. G2, Capterra, TrustRadius) * Sales Enablement * # of views/downloads of sales collateral (e.g. pitch decks, FAQs, one-pagers, etc.) * rating by sellers on sales collateral * # of deals influenced
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Michele Nieberding 🚀
MetaRouter Director of Product Marketing • January 11
Every launch is different, but here is a good starting point! 1. Identify key stakeholders - I like to do a kickoff before a big launch wiht a POC from key teams including legal, pricing, CS, etc. as needed 2. Align the team around the product - talk about WHAT the product is, WHY it matters, and the opportunity this brings for the company 3. Develop a story behind the product launch and define your messaging 4. Prepare a launch plan (and find a streamlined way to track progress) 5. Define your success metrics 6. Identify marketing channels for launch - work with demand gen 7. Complete beta (if applicable), and use customer feedback to tweak story and approach as needed 8. Select your product launch date (clearly communicate tech ready vs. market ready if there is a difference) 9. ENABLE! Communicate the product launch with all the employees--the WHY this is happening, and what their role in the success of the launch will be 10. Plan EXTERNAL communications 11. Create an ongoing adoption strategy and check in points Most importantly (IMO), celebrate the victories, even the little ones. Did you get some awesome logos on your launch webinar?? Did you move prospects into a later stage opp? I find that excitement goes a long way!
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What are some of the best resources for Product Marketers to refer to as they grow in their careers?
Tiffany Tooley
Workday Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly Salesforce, IBM, Silverpop, Blackboard • March 9
Great question! I'd recommend 4 things: 1. Stay up on current trends in the industry. This seems like a no-brainer, but it's one of the things that I see folks deprioritize as they're working to get things done early in their careers. Whether it's AdWeek, Forbes, you name it! Stay up on the recent trends and technologies on a weekly basis. 2. If your organization has a sales team, get to know them and your customers. They're your primary "customers", so spend time listening - understanding their challenges, the opportunities they have, and identifying valuable ways to help them. 3. Mentorship matters! If you don't have a mentor, reach out to the senior leaders and individuals within your company that you admire, so you can learn from them 4. I highly recommend programs like The Marketing Academy, which are cohort-based and meant to help support both your personal and professional growth. Best of luck to you!
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Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • July 14
Great question - you'll see the answer is some of the my other answers. I'll add a few other steps here: First, be intentional about the core working group. Go-to-market can be vast, so it's important that you have key functions (sales, customer success, marketing, revenue operations, and more) represented. Second, align the team on the stage of the business. Sangram Varje and Bryan Brown recently published MOVE: The 4 Question Go-To-Market Framework which offers a maturity assessment of where your company is in its evolution from defining problem-market fit, product-market fit, and platform-market fit. Third, make sure that your go-to-market strategy is aligned. I recently worked with a coach who helped us develop our market vision (our sense of where the market was headed) and then the company, product, GTM, and operational strategy to respond to the changes that we saw in the market. It was an exercise that helped me sync GTM with the broader company strategy.
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Patty Medberry
Infor Senior Director, Product Marketing | Formerly Microsoft • July 28
Successful product marketing, even outside of launches, requires close collaboration with the product management team. I encourage the PM team to consider product marketing as part of their team. Attending their staff meetings, business/planning meetings, and regular sync-ups are a must to understand and execute on the business. Choosing which features and products to focus on is a joint effort between the two groups. PMMs work with the PMs to understand what problem these new capabilities will solve or the opportunity this brings to customers. We also work with them to understand feature revenue potential, target market, etc. At the same time, PMMs are looking at our bigger story to the market and how these capabilities support that. All this helps us decide what to focus on…. We have two standard messaging templates (one long, one short) that include who we are targeting, the problem we are addressing, customer benefits, and key proof points. The longer version will include competitive information, the narrative, etc.
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Jasmine Jaume
Intercom Director, Product Marketing • October 27
It depends a little on what the situation is with PMM in the company you join (i.e. size and maturity, what the team is currently doing, what your role is going to be, whether you're an IC or a manager), but here's some things to think about: 30 days - this first month is all about getting the lay of the land and meeting everyone you'll be working with, building relationships and establishing your credibility! You won't get all of this done in the first 30 days but it's good to get started on these areas. I think it's really important to listen and understand in this early stage, rather than come in and start immediately changing things - every business is different, and what you've done before might not necessarily be right at your new place. So seek to learn and understand first, before making a ton of changes. * Build relationships: Meet with stakeholders across the business to understand how they work with PMM, what's working, what's not, and what they think is the highest priority. Ask lots of questions! This is also a great opportunity to start establishing how you'll work together. Identifying some small 'quick wins' can help establish your credibility and build relationships with those stakeholders. * Get to know your team: If you're starting in a management role, start getting to know your team and building a relationship. Establish with each person how they like to work, what support they need, how they like to be given feedback etc, and set expectations about how you like to work also. Get up to speed on what they're working on, what they think is working in the team, and what could be improved. Also get to know them as people! * Get to know the product: Understand what it does (actually use it!), what's good and bad, and understand the journey customers go on from prospect>customer * Start to learn the business strategy and goals: This will help you know what you're working towards, and then you can prioritise what to focus on. Understand from your manager what the expectations of your role and team are, and start to identify where you can have most impact. * Get to know your customers and your market: understand your current position in the market, how your product is perceived, how you stack up against competitors, what your customers say about you and so on. Read everything, listen to calls, talk to your sales team, research your competitors etc 60 days - as you begin to understand the current state of things, start to think about what you want prioritise working on and build out a plan. I like to identify some small quick wins and some bigger meatier longer-term projects. If you're a manager, you'll likely be building out a roadmap of sorts on what you want the team to work on, what your goals will be, and then getting buy-in from your team and other stakeholders. You'll also want to start having more in-depth discussions with your team members about their career growth and ambitions. 90 days - start executing on your plan! It really depends on what you've identified as the highest priority things to work on but hopefully you've got some quick wins under your belt and are starting on some of your meatier initiatives.
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