AMA: Narvar Former Director of Product Marketing, Jen Ottovegio on Product Marketing / Demand Gen Alignment

I believe that the person ultimately responsible for the results, will most incentivized to succeed. So it comes down to ensuring incentives are aligned and expectations and responsibilities are clear.   For every product or feature launch, I create a go-to-market checklist that includes timelines, deliverables, dependencies, owner, and KPI. Some projects (like building out a message map) require input from both the PM and PMM, so I spell out specifically what pieces should come from which owner ...Read More

In my experience, product marketing is the nucleus of the marketing team - driving and informing strategy for demand generation, sales enablement, and other channel owners (field, content, etc).   Good Product Marketers first need to know what is coming down the pipeline (on the product side) and be able to translate that into why it matters (for the sales team). That’s why great relationships with the product and sales teams in this role are critical. Once the strategy is set from that alignmen ...Read More

I hope the details and features of the product change and improve often… but hopefully the overarching story of what you do and why does not often change. If you keep the “canned demo” focused on the vision and benefits of your product or solution (rather than features and specific functionality) it should stand the test of time. If you need to include more specifics on “how it works” you could always at the end of the video or webinar point to a more detailed “how it works” page where you dive ...Read More

I’ve not personally sat on a product team (so I’m admittedly biased.) But I would vote for it to live in marketing. Here’s why - the essential functions of these teams are different: Product Team - exists to build great products  Marketing Team - exists to communicate the value of the product to market and drive adoption   Narvar is a smaller (sub 200 employees) B2B SaaS company. This division of responsibility has been organic and feels pretty obvious.   With larger companies, it can get more n ...Read More

  To put it simply, ABM is a more targeted approach to storytelling and demand generation. Instead of telling 1 or 2 broad stories to large groups of prospects and/or leads, ABM forces the PMM team to narrow in on our top target accounts (both customers and prospects) and identify what story will resonate with that account… and sometimes more specifically, that department, or that person. While sales and marketing alignment is always important, ABM requires even stronger ties with sales or accou ...Read More

Every PMM should answer this question based on 2 factors -- the needs of the business and the strength of the funnel.   (1) Org & Biz Needs - If you have a strong sales team established with sky-high close rates, the strongest need might be in widening the funnel (demand gen). If you have a green sales team that is drowning in leads, but not effectively closing, then focusing your efforts on sales enablement or nurturing might make more sense.   (2) Funnel Strength - It’s like running a rela ...Read More

At Narvar, demand generation is under the product marketing umbrella. It helps us closely align on priorities, collaborate on campaign plans, establish goals, and measure revenue impact. This alignment is critical because we want to enact campaigns to generate demand where the business needs it most.   That said, make every effort to treat channel initiatives like campaigns. For example, if we have an event coming up, we want to ensure it fits into a broader campaign strategy. For example, have ...Read More