AMA: HubSpot former Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Mary Margaret on Sales Enablement

Great question! Core things to keep in mind:  1. You will be selling to a committee, versus one person/one core contact 2. Due to that, you'll want to really understand the composite of that committee: what are their roles, what are their pain points and objections. Moving upmarket means coming face-to-face with buyers that might be outside your core sweet spot of understanding.  3. Once you get that understanding, you need to understand what they value and how: what content do they need and wha ...Read More

If you are one person it is all about ruthless prioritization. That is the one thing that will make or break you and your efforts.  Through feedback from the team and from any data you might have, zero in on the core competitors (and restrict that number based on your bandwidth) that are going to be the most impactful and focus on those.  Then, in terms of keeping up to date more broadly, set up google alerts, subscribe to newsletters, to keep up with any breaking news in the space.  And every q ...Read More

It really depends on the size of the marketing team and the level of specialization across the teams: Are there channel/audience owners? Is there a Solutions Marketing team? Product Marketing will always own the content and foundational assets that need product subject matter expertise.  In terms of a go-to-stack, the usual suspects are:  (*note: I use "comparison" and not "battle" cards because, thanks to our wonderful competitive intelligence lead, we moved to more inclusive, thoughtful langua ...Read More

The important word in this question is "global"---the challenges of scaling enablement efforts across the world are primarily across 3 buckets:  -language: scaling localization of core assets and training -insights: scaling understanding of regional markets so that nuance informs the approach to that market  -bandwith/HC: to really be effective, you need in-market specialists (pmm and enablement) but that's not always feasible and often in-market marketers are tasked with every marketing functio ...Read More

This is a similar question to another one so sharing the same answer :)   The best way in my opinion is to zoom out and look at it through the lens of the company's main goals (usually revenue goals). Are those areas being served well? And prioritize from there. Also, where are there the biggest knowledge gaps? You have to be careful on this one though since while there may be a knowledge gap in one space if reps are not going to prioritize that space, it will likely be wasted effort. So alignme ...Read More

This is a meaty question with answers that don't fit neatly in this rectangular box, but will try! First, make sure you are telling a story: Are you clear on who you are serving? Are you clear on the pain points to be solved? What is the change in the world that has caused those pains? How do your products uniquely address/solve/ease those pain points?  Secondly, within that story, make sure you don't lose the value props of the individual products. Not every buyer is going to be a multi-product ...Read More

My answer depends on the content and size of the team. Ideally:  A lot of the ones listed--help articles, knowledge base, how-to, FAQs---should likely live with a technical writing team.  On product videos, that should ideally be a partnership between the product (and product design team) and the marketing team if they are external assets. Product Design/UX will have the highest fidelity assets and also be (usually) most adept at doing creative things to those files to bring them to life creativ ...Read More

There should be involvement when it comes to alignment on the year's go-to-market strategy and any refreshed or new product positioning.  Because it is the one opportunity to set the tone and focus of the year, product marketing should view it as the time to rollout any new strategies (campaigns, launches) and positioning/messaging (products) to ensure that buyer enablement is strong from the start and the sales team is fired up!   Also, I don't think product marketing needs to be present or a p ...Read More

The best incentive is to show them the opportunities it will unlock for them.  Example: Let's say you are trying to shift reps from talking about single products to a suite. There is resistance because they worry that will make it a tougher sell since it's a bigger decision. What do you do?  First, acknowledge their anxiety and triage that effectively. In this case, that means making sure you deliver a way to make sure that new messaging continues to support existing sales motions.  Secondly, sh ...Read More

Really good question and there are many ways to address this. The best way in my opinion is to zoom out and look at it through the lens of the company's main goals (usually revenue goals). Are those areas being served well?  Also, where are there the biggest knowledge gaps? You have to be careful on this one though since while there may be a knowledge gap in one space if reps are not going to prioritize that space, it will likely be wasted effort. So alignment with the business goals and sales s ...Read More

It's really mainly two primary questions for reps when it comes to content requests:  -What problem are they trying to solve?  -Who is the audience?  -What is the distribution and adoption plan?  ...maybe a 4th, depending on the answers to the above, is if there are examples they can point you to. It helps with any miscommunication or misaligned expectations.  All three questions above will help you prioritize how this request fits with your overall priorities and whether it merits being added t ...Read More