AMA: G2 Former VP Product Marketing, Alina Fu on Stakeholder Management

To be successful in a remote working environment, leaders and employees must be willing to think and work differently. Shared context: The most critical component to drive alignment cross-functionally, especially with a remote team, is to provide clear communications and establish shared understanding of expectations and goals. It is important that everyone is aligned on what the project is. Project briefs: We use project briefs to provide an overview for the cross-functional teams to understand what is this project, status quo challenges, key deliverables and milestones, and most importantly, metrics for success. Then, in the kickoff meeting with the cross-functional groups, we discuss what is needed from each function using the brief as a working document to get buy-in from the other stakeholders. Connect Asynchronously: We outline the critical information in several channels for asynchronous dissemination of information. It was frustrating when my team members could not find content/resources that seemed straightforward because they were buried under comments in an obscure Asana task under a hard-to-figure-out-unless-you-knew-the-exact-name board. With a remote team, we needed to adapt on how we relay information and be patient with when to expect a response because of the distributed time zones and flexible work hours. It also requires open-mindedness on establishing new rituals and habits for the team. For instance, we established team norms and processes for when and how we communicate (an area I was personally actively engaged in defining) because information silos became problematic and pockets of people had very specific work styles that weren't conducive to the overall group needs.

Because a launch has so many different moving parts across very distinct disciplines, it is always handy to be agile as pivots may occur. The best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback is throughout the launch process - at the beginning, during the middle and definitely at the end. There are different stakeholders that you want to involve at the various stages of a launch. If unsure, you can use a RACI to determine who is in the “need to get” vs “nice to get” feedback camp. In the beginning, the alignment on launch goals, deliverables and roles/responsibilities of each department are crucial to get started. I spend more time on getting stakeholder feedback here to make sure we are all working towards an aligned vision and expectations. However, it has always been my experience that new information or changes in direction from the leadership team makes the middle checkpoint necessary. In the middle, I “gut check” with the stakeholders to make sure the components for a successful launch are on the right track. Usually, these stakeholders are the “practitioners” who are doing the actual implementation of the different components of launch. If changes are needed, this is the time to gather those new requirements to minimize the impact on the launch timeline. At the end, this is broken into 2 parts: the actual launch and the post-mortem/learnings from the launch. This group of stakeholder feedback is pretty diverse because I want to understand their point of view on how the launch impacted their teams or their account list in ways I did not anticipate at the beginning of the launch preparation. This feedback is the most valuable in terms of helping you refine your process, who to include for stakeholder feedback at the beginning of the next launch, and as a resource for creative ideas. Different ways to get the feedback include: 1:1s, Office Hours, Workshops, Councils. Find what works best for you, the stakeholders, and the project depending on what type of feedback is needed.

I take a relationship-based approach when I think about stakeholder management. I prefer to tailor my style to the individual, so it doesn’t matter as much which department but what type of personality they have and their communication preferences. For instance, a leader in department X may prefer pre-reads days in advance and then a discussion over feedback while a stakeholder in department Y prefers video conferences to spitball ideas in real time. At the end of the day, the goal is to foster a productive relationship with an enthusiastic stakeholder who will be a thought partner and collaborator. A wise mentor once shared with me the rule of 3, especially if the stakeholder management is for someone on the senior leadership team. 1. If the topic is something I’m willing to go to battle over, I will push until I hear a firm “no”. 2. If I’m convicted but not all in, I would try 3 times before I accept that “it’s not going to happen”. 3. If I feel indifferent either way, I would want the person driving the project to make the decision. I can share my thoughts but I want to empower them to own the call.

Because Product Marketing is at the cross-section between Marketing, Product and Sales, there are times when they are barely treading water to keep up with all the product launches, become a “catch all” function or have multiple conflicting stakeholder priorities. Thus, I think these additional other soft skills are must-haves to succeed in product marketing. Takes Initiative: Acts ahead of need/anticipates problems, proactively sees things through, steps up to challenges even when things are not going well Results Orientated: Focuses on and drives toward delivering on goals, documents activities and outcomes to learn from the past, invents new approaches with measurably better results, delivers performance improvements Communication and Impression: Delivers messages and ideas in a way that engages an audience and achieves buy-in; uses listening and other attending behaviors to reach shared understanding; solicits opinions and concerns, discusses them openly and adjusts communication; remains cool under pressure during conflict or crisis; channels emotion into positive action Influence without Formal Authority: Engages and works with people over whom one has no direct control, uses tailored approaches to connect with others, influence, and achieve results, influences a network of strategically chosen individuals to improve collective outcomes

I don’t know if there is a turnkey framework but there are definitely lots of framework options available. You can find one that fits your needs or make your own (like I do). Core to a GTM strategy include these essentials: * Core Bill of Materials (pitch deck, demo, battlecard, FAQ/data sheet) * Customer Journey across the funnel (or bowtie, which I prefer since it covers retention marketing) * Brand positioning and SWOT analysis * Messaging house (value prop and messaging pillars) * Segmentation and Targeting * Personas playbook * Cross-channel marketing strategy * Partner ecosystem I believe in a product marketing org that covers all of these, which means multiple stakeholder groups. This is where the RACI for their signatures with time stamps would come in handy to document alignment and approval.

Customer Success or Customer Marketing teams are your secret weapon when thinking about Positioning & Messaging frameworks and GTM strategy. Retention is a key metric for the business, so who better than Customer Success Managers or Customer Marketing leaders to represent the voice of the customer in your marketing narrative? They have seen the good, the bad and the ugly and have a more in-depth perspective with what resonates with customers, where customers get frustrated or struggle, and why customers love your brand/product.

This one is challenging because I’ve witnessed year long integrations from newly acquired products into the overall strategy, and even then, it wasn’t “fully” absorbed into the main strategy. First, I would recommend looking at the reasons why this product came under the fold. What was the vision and use cases of how it connects? Sometimes it's for strategic reasons, sometimes it’s to complement the product. Understanding the why will help with the how. Then, I would analyze the target segment for the newly acquired product and identify any overlaps with the current product portfolio. This will help the rest of marketing understand how this new acquisition fits in with their campaigns and programs. Product should be a key partner with product marketing to identify the market needs, use cases and solutions to come up with a joint strategy or narrative on how this new product ties into the existing pitch.

Salesforce immediately comes to mind. When you think of CRM, what other solutions do you think of? They do a great job explaining the product in digestible sound bites, by gamifying the learning experience and making advanced progression and product enablement fun. When they introduced the Trailblazer community concept, it was so distinctly memorable and innovative

I would recommend first uncovering the root cause of the confusion. Is the confusion causing redundancy, disagreements over roles & responsibilities, are mismatched expectations of results? The best partnership between product marketing and marketing is when there are clear metrics that will make each team successful. Usually, this is pretty obvious for Tier 1 product launches given the level of resources and prioritization to warrant its own marketing campaign. The easiest way to outline how product marketing can make the marketing team successful is through a project brief that covers the proposed launch plan with product marketing calling the “play” - what channels, marketing mix, cadence of communications, etc - and have the marketing subject matter experts weigh in on what’s possible and what’s recommended given the audience, priority, and timing. Some PMM leaders use the hub and spoke model, with PMM described as the hub, working with the other teams (Marketing, Sales, CS, Product, Research, etc) In most of the organizations I’ve been in, Product Marketing sits in Marketing but works closely with Product Management to achieve successful launches. Product Marketing and Product Management have clear, complementary objectives. When Product Marketing is best buds with Marketing, the Marketing team benefits from having a greater understanding of the company’s products and services to create campaigns and targeting to more efficiently generate and close opportunities. Some companies delineate Product Marketing as Inbound and Outbound product marketing. If your Marketing organization is more focused on marketing-led or sales-led growth vs product-led growth, this could be a source for tension or the lack of clarity on what team is responsible for what aspect of the launch. To address this, our Product Marketing team hosts the kickoff meetings with the rest of Marketing to discuss the handoff points and use Asana to project manage to completion. It stays high level enough so each Marketing department’s role is clear across comms, creative, demand gen, campaigns, marketing ops, and other groups. The ideal product marketing organization would cover both - inbound and outbound product marketing so they can influence product innovation and GTM strategy. However, I have experienced that not all PMMs get to do both.

ABM is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, as we just announced 7 new ABM integrations and hosted a webinar about ABM strategies. Data-driven marketing has extended beyond analytics, social, SEO/SEM, and A/B testing into insights and 3rd party data on customers’ wants and needs to tailor and target more relevant messaging and content to the recipients. How does this impact what product marketing focuses on? It has made targeting and segmentation a greater focus for the team. In the past, I had to convince B2B leaders to run deeper segmentation beyond firmographics because the only segments they wanted to use were small business, mid-market, and large enterprise. But not all organizations based on size have similar tech adoption maturity, motivations and challenges. I prefer to use 2x2s to determine the target sweet spot, greenfield opportunities, and secondary audiences. This has made product marketing more influential and collaborative with demand gen, growth and campaign teams because of the retargeting opportunities and MarTech solutions available. Gone are the days when leaders say “We offer our products and services for everyone. We are one size fits all”. Now it is “what is your size and preference and we will find the perfect fit for you”.

I partner very closely with the VP of Rev Marketing to make sure we have a coordinated funnel strategy. We are in constant communication and alignment for acquisition, conversion and retention. In addition, product marketing measures deals influenced for attribution. Our product marketing team’s metrics are quite different from rev marketing team’s metrics, so I don’t feel the need to own more of TOFU. However, I have a vested interest in conversion and retention, which is where my product marketing leans in most heavily. It depends on the type of organization you’re in (marketing-led, sales-led, product-led) and your relationship with Rev Marketing. I have mostly worked in product-led environments, so product marketing isn’t reactive to rev growth, but rather a main stakeholder in coming up with the campaign concept, putting together the strategy and plan, and working with rev marketing to execute it.

I am a big believer that mismatched expectations are most often the root cause of complicated relationships. Some companies delineate Product Marketing as Inbound and Outbound product marketing. What are the expectations from leadership and from Product has for which type of product marketing you focus on? Inbound focuses on providing feedback on product roadmap, developing product enablement, and landing a successful product launch. Outbound focuses more on the GTM strategy, communications, social, etc. I have product marketing managers lead both so they can own the process from end to end for continuity and efficiency. I subscribe by these 4 rules of engagement with my product teams: Alignment on priorities Agree upon priorities with leadership, be strategic and deliberate with a roadmap and plan Open and Regular Comms Check in frequently, consistently and provide a feedback loop for product development Trust and Respect Always approach with best intentions, earn mutual respect, make their product land successfully Delivering Value Proactive and creative in driving adoption and measuring the right success metrics

What I’ve learned from great leaders who are able to inspire and motivate is to gain consensus before you walk into the room. This is pretty much how I have shared messaging guides internally to ensure alignment. If you are really starting from scratch, hosting a workshop to hear everyone’s opinions works well. If you are adding value to something that already exists, have 1:few meetings to get specific feedback on voice, tone, choice of words, etc. Then, share it more broadly at a team meeting. Then share it with all leaders in Rev org. Then share it with C-level, backing up how much consensus you’ve already built and the alignment that’s been established.