AMA: Glassdoor Product Marketing Lead, Sophia Fox on Messaging

Once you are clear on the value proposition of a product/feature and/or a positioning statement for the company or product, you are ready to pull together a messaging framework that your cross-functional stakeholders (from marketing to product) can leverage.  In terms of a messaging framework, I have found that formats vary by company but all fundamentally cover a combo of key elements based on what your teams require for a successful launch (ideally delivered as a 1-sheeter or 1 slide format): ...Read More

Change is inevitable! So whenever possible, going to market with “final” messaging should include room for evolution over time based on various external and internal factors. Markets change and evolve, and customers’ needs or perspectives also change and evolve based on whatever is important to them in that moment--sometimes even driven by trends or current events that cannot be ignored (think, Covid!). If in a B2B org, you can quickly leverage feedback from the field to validate whether your me ...Read More

Market & Competitive Insights - What do we know about our target market? What do we know about the competition? What do we know about our prospective customers' pain points? What don't we know about all of the above? Once research is conducted, is it enough to get started?  Business Goal & Target Customer - What does success look like for the business? What is the primary objective - new customer acquisition, current customer adoption or retention? Who is the target audience? The more sp ...Read More

Per our head of PMM (Eric Petitt), it is important to think about and understand the market leader positioning because the leader often defines category expectations… as well as their weaknesses. And when a challenger tries to play catch up to the market leader, the copy-cat will die over time because they are not adding value. The recommendation then is to pick a tighter target audience and a differentiator that will “de-position” the market leader. Your strengths should call out their weakness ...Read More

At Glassdoor, we have a not-so-secret secret weapon… we have a Head of Market Insights within the product marketing org that is at the center of what we do from influencing product roadmaps to positioning and messaging, and enabling our GTM and marketing channels. One of the biggest things being established is a customer advisory board (both in B2B and B2C) to create a feedback loop to ensure that messaging (and our product!) is “hitting home”. I have seen the success of these types of programs ...Read More

Great question and critical to the success of any product launch! At Glassdoor, we start by creating a digestible framework with initial messaging recommendations and “seed” this throughout the process with key stakeholders. The initial messaging recommendations are developed using insights from previously conducted research and feedback from key stakeholders or subject matter experts/SMEs. Two of our greatest advantages at Glassdoor Product Marketing are (1) our Head of Market Insights who is l ...Read More

When a company has many product offerings, getting really clear on who you are targeting will be critical to ensure that you are "spotlighting" the right product/features/packages to the audience most likely to buy/adopt/care. Prospective buyers may become overwhelmed or stop caring when content is too general or straight-up irrelevant to their needs.  Pro tip: Segmentation to inform your target audience will help bring direction to your messaging framework for your product/feature launches up f ...Read More

It is so easy to fall into launching with technical jargon when you've been living and breathing it as a PMM! Two ways that I have found helpful in simplifying, and even transforming/replacing techncial jargon are (1) launch customer interviews, listen and use the language they use, and (2) crowd source ideas internally and externally with as many different POVs as possible. Pro tip: Get inspired by looking outside your field to see how others are taking tricky technical language and turning it ...Read More