AMA: dbt Labs Former Director of Product Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Product Launches
September 1 @ 10:00AM PST
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Dbt Labs Former Director of Product Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Product Launches
Top Questions
Can you share any experiences around putting spend behind bigger launches?
Or, some of the tactics used (traditional or otherwise) for splashier launches you've been a part of
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
Video or advertising is likely where a lot of your spend will go for high priority launches, and justifying it would likely come down to whether you're expectlong this launch to have meaningful impact on pipeline, deal-size, market share, etc in the next 3 quarters. If it's a brand new product......Read More
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
I'd say this can change based on the organization, contributing teams, goals for the launch, market you're in, audience... but a few things I would never launch without: 1. Naming. Sounds simple, but the way that your engineering team refers to something is very often NOT the way you should be......Read More
727 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
Good question! Mindset shift suggestion: Every release, or update, or upgrade is a launch. BUT there are different tiers of launches which enable us to provide a very low level, but consistent level of support. It's not the job of PMM to create fanfare around every single update, but it IS our jo......Read More
311 Views
2 requests
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
Answered above but everything is a launch in my opinion—you just tier them differently. The value of this approach is that you have a documented plan for everything, even the very small things, that includes messaging and enablement (maybe even just for the support team), at minimum. Bug patch......Read More
617 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
I might be misunderstanding the question but you usually can't get them to prioritize new products unless it's built into their targets :) Introducing a new product into their deal could unecessarily complicate and extend sales cycles (which isn't good for them or you—as an employee of a business......Read More
272 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
Like what could cause it to fail? 1. You don't have a handle on the target audience, and what they'll find most valuable about the product, or the frame of reference they hold when introduced to it 2. You don't have an accountability partner in product management that is equally on the hook f......Read More
529 Views
1 request
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
Normal caveat of "it depends." But generally, if you're hiring your first PMM, focus them on becoming your audience expert. I think a lot of folks tend to focus too severely on ensuring PMMs are product experts in the first 90. "HOW CAN THEY TALK COMPETENTLY ABOUT THE PRODUCT IF THEY DON'T KN......Read More
937 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
I wish it wasn't different, to be honest. If I say what people normally say here, like, "it's more honest, it's straight-forward, it gets right to the meat of it," I'm left thinking... Why don't we market that way to everyone? Why don't we create tiered experiences that let you get right to the d......Read More
1117 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
We have a strong community in the dbt Slack channel, but it's not inclusive of all dbt practioners. So we use four main channels to get in front of our target audience: 1. The dbt Slack community, when announcements are highly relevant to their work 2. Quarterly product launch events targeting ......Read More
1734 Views
3 requests
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
I wish I was able to ask this person to expound a little more on this one! I'm not entirely sure what's being asked but my top tips for developer-focused messaging during launches are: 1. All PMMs love to elevate the why over the how, but in developer marketing your why is worthless if it's no......Read More
744 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
I use 30 day adoption as the primary KPI for measuring launch success (did we target the right audience with the right message and make it painfully obvious to do the thing?). I think success of the product or feature, over time, is another matter—where message testing and evolution is critical. ......Read More
656 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • September 1
I think everything new in the product is launched to some degree, but we do use a launch tiering system— Tier 1 to Tier 3. I've seen this model at other organizations and it works well to align on a standard set of actions for each launch depending on the goal. Major product initaitives that will......Read More
1080 Views
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What’s have been the most valuable projects for sales team that they directly leveraged to close more business
Examples could be ROI analysis, battlecards, demo deck, etc
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
Detailed use case stories. Not just case studies--not "customer in healthcare vertical uses us to ensure data is correct" but the nitty gritty details--"Customer in healthcare with a distributed data team uses our product to keep payroll shipping on time every week." The more detailed, inclu......Read More
954 Views
1 request
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • August 31
Curiosity and a desire to be understood. These two qualities over nearly everything else. You can easily learn the frameworks--steps for a successful launch, format for a battle card, considerations for pricing... you can also improve your writing to align with brand and write high impact choppy ......Read More
1022 Views
1 request
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