AMA: AlertMedia Vice President Product Marketing, Harsha Kalapala on Messaging

Don’t overcomplicate it. Just find the fastest way to talk to customers. You could set up a formal feedback session with surveys, incentives, and all the jazz - which still gives you biased feedback. Or... you can just hop on an already scheduled customer call TODAY and casually ask customers for their quick qualitative feedback. Here is a sample message to your customer success folks: Hey {CSM name] - I am just trying to get a quick and casual reaction from our customers on this new messaging I ...Read More

Every company needs the following building blocks of marketing: Upper funnel - Content engine (Attract eyeballs), Brand (Build a reputation) Mid funnel - Demand gen engine (Turn eyeballs to drive demand) Lower funnel - Product marketing (Help turn qualified prospects into customers) Beyond the funnel - Customer marketing and advocacy (get the customers to become voracious users and raving fans — an extension of your marketing) There will be a lot of connective tissue, partnerships, and dependenc ...Read More

Most early to growth-stage tech companies have 1-2 products. For those companies, product marketing and brand have a significant overlap. Their product identity makes up most of their brand identity. For larger orgs we see more distinction between brand and product messaging where there are multiple products, services, and solutions in place. Though my experience has mostly been in startups and growth companies, the approach I have seen work for my peers at larger companies is to start with a co ...Read More

I would first define ownership of each product marketer - whether that is by product, solution, vertical, etc. depending on your business and market. I would then work on positioning guardrails together to collaborate on how you will and will not tell the story of your products. At the end, the most important thing is that your product narrative is consistent across all channels and your audience should see it as coming from one cohesive voice. Collaboration is important, but just as important i ...Read More

Some of the best performing product launch emails I have seen have the following elements: Cuts to the chase - Skip the prologue and get to the point within the first couple of lines. And then add in the necessary context. Human - Write like you talk. Avoid jargon and be believable. Provoking - Human emotion is the most powerful driver of action. If you can tap into the emotional pains and benefits for your audience, you hit gold. Helpful - Offer something of value in the email. An insight, or a ...Read More

You begin with the customer - either buyer, user, or both, depending on the objective of your messaging. We should definitely consult with internal experts in product, sales, customer success, and other customer-facing teams. However, it is important to take their input as one source of information. Messaging is actually the middle step of product storytelling. The order of formulating a story starts with: Positioning - How do we want our product to be perceived in the market? What unique value ...Read More

Winning your category and taking control of it can be a super powerful strategy. However, I think too many go straight to creating a new category. We should first strongly consider how we can redesign a category that exists and win by renewing how people think about the category. Category creation isn’t for everyone. It is really hard to do. While it can be powerful, it can also be really difficult to pull off, take a long time, get expensive, and become a major distraction for your team if it’s ...Read More

Getting messaging right is hard. We tend to get biased on our own messaging and copy after staring at versions of it for hours and days. It is important to get objective pulse checks from people closely resembling your target audience. If the message tends to focus heavily on features and the product’s benefits vs. the customer outcomes, that’s a sign of missing the mark. I always say the story should not be about what the product can do for you, but about what you can do with the product. The l ...Read More

Trying to get buy-in over a theoretical outcome is always an uphill battle. I would focus on making meaningful progress by yourself on category design. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Test things out and gain some traction. And then worry about getting buy-in to do more of what works. It will also be important to educate your team on why category creation (or redefinition) is the right strategy for your company at this time. Get them to read the book “Play Bigger” by Christopher Lochhead. F ...Read More