AMA: Braze Vice President Product Marketing, Kelsey Nelson on Market Research
June 13 @ 10:00AM PT
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👋 Kelsey Nelson
Hi all, my name is Kelsey Nelson. 👋
💼 Job: VP of Product Marketing at Braze, formerly Okta, startup comms and Teach for America
📍 Location: New York, NY
🍦 Favorite ice cream flavor: Mint Chocolate Chip
Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Events/activations and community-based initiatives can provide interesting avenues to try something new to build buzz for a new product. For a simple idea: can we take th...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Definitely. Like many companies, we've always sized our launches (S/M/L/XL; Tier 1/2/3; etc.) and follow different templates for different tiers. The foundational differe...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
There are a few different ways you can do this (and also a lot of tools out there that can help! Pendo, Chameleon, and Braze as examples.) The top three that I've seen in...
3865 Views
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
I will continue to beat the drum that your goals for launching a new product should be grounded in impact: Why did you build this? Open up new TAM? Improve win rates? Red...
761 Views
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How do you think about bundling or 'holding' launches for a regular launch cadence vs releasing when ready?
What approaches have you tried, and did they work? How did you get buy in from the product team?
Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
I'm a big fan of bundling, especially for small/medium (Tier 2/3) launches. You could bundle into a one-off launch, but I've seen more success at just setting a regular c...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
First question I'd ask: Why did you build this? Is it to open up new TAM? To expand ACV? To reduce churn?That should define what success looks like -- if you're trying to...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
My biggest piece of advice here is to loop as many folks in as possible, as early as possible, and to keep a close tracker on when/who was involved in those conversations...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
PMMs have two key superpowers that I'd lean on here. Demonstrating excellence in each has been a major driver in my experience for building credibility and shifting out o...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
My strategy here would depend on the timeline for rollout. Are you planning to only make this available/roll out to XX% as a part of the overall strategy? Or is this an o...
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What tactics do you use to effectively incorporate new, creative aspects into product launches that can so easily become routine and mundane?
In the SaaS world especially, I feel like it's easy for PMMs to fall into the pattern of checking off the "traditional" product launch activity boxes. This may be because of limited bandwidth and resources or restricted budget, which can ultimately keep PMMs doing the same things that have previously worked. For me, this has often stunted my creative aspirations, and led me to feel more like a project manager than a standout Product Marketer.
Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Totally hear you -- how do you balance the need for consistency and meeting the expectations of partner teams with consistent materials, with more creative ways to break ...
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Make sure you are clearly aligned on an impact-oriented goal for your launch, e.g. Is this intended to help you improve win rates? Get more at-bats? Open more TAM? Then, ...
869 Views
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
One framework I really like in great/creative launch storytelling -- and just overall storytelling -- is starting with the end goal in mind: What do you want people who i...
2681 Views
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Most PMM's I've worked with have done a great job identifying market signals:New competitor releaseNew partner releaseAnalyst research publishedCustomer/prospect newsetc....
1197 Views
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Wiz Senior Director Product Marketing • 1y
Ultimately what you're looking for is for a true partnership: to be more in the loop on what product is building, why, and what initial feedback is from early customers -...
3846 Views
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