Communities
Sign Up / Sign In
AMA: Fivetran VP of Product Marketing, Catlyn Origitano on Messaging
April 13 @ 10:00AM PST
View AMA Answers
Fivetran VP of Product Marketing, Catlyn Origitano on Messaging
Top Questions
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
We do - but we are also iterating here as we speak! In the past, I have reached out to some customers and folks I know in the industry to sit down and do some quick validation on messaing. For example, when we launched our new website and put up our first billboards, we had a good sense of what w......Read More
582 Views
4 requests
Where does in-app copy fit in your org? (Under Product Marketing, Design or other?)
Particularly interested in technical products, but also curious for nontechnical.
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
In-app copy does fit with Product Marketing - and Product! So technically, our PM team owns the in-product experience but PMM has full access to the tool. We have a slack channel for all in-app messaging and anyone who wants to do one posts in there following a format that says the purpose, how l......Read More
324 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
200%. The way that, when necessary, I defend messaging is with customer feedback and validation. For example, with our website copy and billboard - I got some push back that it wouldn't really resonate. So I scheduled some sessions with customers to get their feedback. With that in hand, it was a......Read More
324 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
We work with our PM team to create a quarterly roadmap. This helps us align with them on the major releases that are happening, discovery work we need to do, and align on key activities to influence growth. We also then do a big marketing team-wide planning every quarter to ensure that, for e......Read More
351 Views
3 requests
How do you measure the impact of product marketing in your company?
The demand gen teams can optimize pipeline, MQLs and costs per lead. The sales people work to meet their quotas. Marketing support completes tickets within a time window. What objective measures do we PMMs have?
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Most of our PMMs are in Pods - where a PM and PMM focus on a certain area of the business. Each pod shares a North Star Metric - most of which are revenue based and come down from our overall business goals. While of course we aren't 100% responsible for that goal - that is, sales has to sell it!......Read More
405 Views
2 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
We use Workramp for formal trainings - so we can see with that tool completion rates and if there are quizzes or assesments, how folks did on those. We have more informal training sessions called Scoops for our sales / csm team and then a Technical Scoop for our technical teams. We also hold offi......Read More
323 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Absolutely! I have been hearing more and more PMMs being the first hire - or leading the team. Our own CMO is a former PMM. I think a lot of it has to do with the industry - when you talk to a technical buyer, having a PMM as your first hire can really help accelerate your ability to find the rig......Read More
289 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
We are a slack heavy company. So we have our own announcement channel for all things Marketing that I actually started so that we could share our updates! We also do quarterly roadmaps and retros where PM + PMMs present their upcoming roadmap and a retro on their activities from the past quar......Read More
512 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
If it is a new product or feature, we use promotions to get customers to adopt asap. The other tactic we look to weave throughout our messaging is the promise of what their workloads could look like if they adopted this new system, tool, feature, etc. If we make it about them, about what they cou......Read More
468 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
At Fivetran, we actually have a few different Product Marketing teams in order to be able to do both core product messaging as well as more portfolio messaging. At Fivetran, folks find us / use us for particular analytic challenges - like Marketing Analytics, Finance Analytics, Sales Analytics, e......Read More
610 Views
4 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
I am a project manager at heart. So I push the team to be the same. We have our roadmaps which we present and then turn into tickets for overall tracking. We also have a monthly reivew on areas of the business - so this let's us check in on how things are going and what is getting done. For m......Read More
327 Views
2 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
At my previous company, Sojern, we had this very problem! We wanted to translate all of our sales decks and materials but every time we tried we found that it took more effort, time, and money than it seemed to be worth - that is, the translations would always come back and be considered poor by ......Read More
389 Views
3 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Generally speaking, the way we've gone about it at Fivetran is with a few key gates. First, we have a messaging doc template that we use. It contains things like business pain points, personas, messaging in 10 words, 25 words, glossary of terms, etc. This is usually developed with the lead PM on ......Read More
451 Views
5 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Ultimately, we make both kinds of information available - or at least we try to! So for example, our website has a lot of high level messaging about our secruity capabilities, for example. But we also have links to our security whitepaper - which most security teams need to read as part of the pr......Read More
399 Views
2 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Start with the facts. Then add in what actual customers or prospects have said. Or if you don't have that yet - a respected third party - like a Gartner. And only then try to make it clever. I think too often marketing folks start with the clever and work backwards - but especially developers, th......Read More
430 Views
2 requests
Who owns messaging and positioning in a product marketing org?
Specifically in the context of having only~2 product marketers, both of whom are counterparts vs. a team lead and direct report. On that note, if it's such a small team, who is best equipped to lead positioning and messaging (based on skill sets) or should this be a collaborative effort?
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
At Fivetran, product marketing owns it. One of the main reasons is because our buyers and users are very technical folks who are turned off by fluffy marketing. As a result, our messaging must be very straight forward, factual, and concise. So it makes sense for that to originate with our Product......Read More
349 Views
2 requests
Catlyn Origitano
Fivetran VP Product & Portfolio Marketing • April 13
Our PMM intern - who is now a full-time Associate PMM - has this exact background! And we will be hiring another such intern in a month or so! :) If you don't have the PMM experience per se, try to do activities associated with PMM work - like creating sales enablement, doing customer intervi......Read More
876 Views
2 requests
Upcoming AMA's
Show All