AMA: Klaviyo Senior Director of Product Marketing, Jenna Crane on Self-Serve Product Marketing

Introducing new features in-product is often the best way to drive awareness and adoption, because it's in context of the user's workflow and timed when they're actually thinking about your product (vs. email, social, etc.).  Generally speaking, you want to: 1. Make users aware there's something new 2. Provide a product usage fast-lane to users who already 'get it' and want to try 3. Provide additional detail to users who need more hand-holding Here's what that looks like:  Make users aware that ...Read More

Courses, certifications, and books can definitely help transition into product marketing, but the best way to learn is by doing. I would see if there are side projects you can take on with the PMM team, in addition to self-driven learning.  For courses and certifications: I typically recommend the PMA. They have a variety of programs depending on how broad or narrow you want to go, and how much time you have.  I've also had great experience with General Assembly; depending on your location they ...Read More

I've generally seen that the most successful product <> PMM partnerships are based on shared goals, not split goals. Here's what that usually looks like.  Both teams should agree on a feature adoption target based on similar features and the scale of the launch. Feature adoption (usually measured 30 days post-launch) is influenced by both launch effectiveness (PMM) and how compelling & easy-to-use the feature is (Product).  From the PMM side, adoption success is a reflection of how com ...Read More

I know this situation well; it's the same here at Klaviyo!  First, you need to understand the composition of both audiences. Are the self-serve customers smaller businesses that don't need to talk to sales to feel comfortable using the product? Are at least some of them actually enterprise customers poking around in the product before they talk to sales? Is this a product-led company that makes it easy for end users at enterprise companies to self-serve? Maybe a combination of the above?  With t ...Read More

Even in sales-enabled businesses, sales enablement is just one aspect of product marketing responsibilities. The bulk of the work is consistent across both self-serve and sales-enabled product marketing teams, such as: Owning positioning and launch of new products and features Building, maintaining, and enabling the company on foundational insights: Messaging, competitive intelligence, customer/buyer journeys, personas, proof points, etc. Creating content that drives revenue and retention: Websi ...Read More