AMA: Calendly Head of Product Marketing, Jeff Hardison on Messaging
May 17 @ 10:00AM PT
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👋 Jeff Hardison
Hi, everyone. I'm the former VP of product marketing at Calendly. Also have had product marketing leadership roles at Clearbit, InVision, and HP.
•👋 Based in: Portland, Oregon
• 🧠 Top of mind: Balancing AI use with what humans do well
• 💬 Ask me about: Anything!
• 🍦 Fun fact: I used to compete in Moth-style storytelling events
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
Good product marketing helps build the brand. Good brand marketing helps drive usage of the products. To me, they're like cousins in marketing. Perhaps more so than any o...
1378 Views
1 request
How do you lead a team to create aligned messaging for multiple areas?
i.e., How to ensure various PMMs, vertical managers, campaign managers nail their specific value props but remain in line with your overall narrative/brand positioning?
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
I recommend collaborating with your executive team to first create "umbrella" positioning/messaging that covers your entire product line. Then, the product-line product m...
537 Views
1 request
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
For me, there are few types of "Why's." There's the lowercase "why." And the uppercase "Why." Lowercase "why" gets at communicating why a prospect should choose your offe...
978 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
There are so many ways to test messaging, but here are some of my favorites:1. Work with your Sales and Customer Success teams to reach out to your customers with an offe...
607 Views
4 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
One of the biggest category creation mistakes is trying to create your own category — when there's already a category you could join and dominate as the leader. Many of ...
683 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
We've all seen this and cringed, right?Over-reliance on benefits: "Our scheduling automation platform help you shorten your sales cycle! Want a demo for something that yo...
431 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
One thing I've seen work is positioning "positioning" as business strategy or a business plan versus marketing "words" we want people to think about and use.Positioning i...
606 Views
4 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
Repeat, repeat, repeat. As our CMO Jessica says, once you start getting tired of sharing the messaging, then you're just getting started. Of course you need to email, sha...
609 Views
3 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
One of my first jobs in tech marketing was promoting Amazon's software development kits (SDK) to developers. What I learned from everyone at Amazon is the power of using ...
480 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
One of the biggest mistakes I see marketers make when talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning (ML) is they just throw the terms around. Like their ...
628 Views
1 request
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
The best ways I've found to ensure your messaging lives for more than a few weeks:1) Collaborating with your company leaders to not just review, but also develop the mess...
466 Views
1 request
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
If you frequently find yourself in a "messaging by committee" situation, I'd recommend working directly with your boss (e.g, the CMO) and the CEO to create a DACI documen...
526 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
If the product's audience includes a handful of large Enterprise customers, I'd ask for approval from Sales and Customer Success to reach out to the customers and run the...
613 Views
2 requests
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
First off, I recommend reading my friend Adam DuVander's book Developer Marketing Does Not Exist. He is the master of teaching people about how to work with developers. I...
888 Views
1 request
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
It's never too early to first write down some words about either the problem you're trying to solve (pre-product market fit) or are solving (post-product market fit) — an...
489 Views
1 request
Sanity.io VP of Product Marketing | Formerly Calendly, InVision, Clearbit, Amazon (consultant) • 2y
One thing I've seen work is positioning "positioning" as business strategy or a business plan versus marketing "words" we want people to think about and use. Positioning ...
482 Views
2 requests