AMA: Motive Head Of Industry Marketing, Sina Falaki on Industry Product Marketing

In a proper program, Industry Marketing & Campaigns have joint ownership of communicating the right messages, in the right channels, at the right time, in order to build pipeline and win NARR. I say this as a preface because Industry and Campaign leadership should work together to:  Establish business objectives Set targets, goals, and key intiiatives Help with cross-industry efforts This should then yield to:  Pipeline generation Open Pipe NARR As such, they should hold each other accountab ...Read More

Product Marketing and Industry Marketing should both own: Deep category knowledge: ICPs, personas, and competitive Pitch deck, demo script, demo video, customer stories/heros, campaign messaging Voice of the market Competitive insights Win/loss Inputs on Pricing & Packaging Where it differentiates with Product Marketing is: Category & Product Positioning & Messaging Value story, strategy, training on message, pitch decks Launches Demos Category advocacy Industry Marketing should then ...Read More

Storytelling, bringing the customer vision to life, and having a wide variety of skillsets (I always love ex-entrepreneurs) is vital for an industry marketer to be exceptional.  The industry marketers job is to bring the buyers vision front and center. A key difference here is that product marketers are more focused on ensuring the product is the centerpiece; Its features and benefits are all around the product, not the customer. Solution marketing, which ties into industry product marketing, br ...Read More

A firm grasp on the market, understanding sales, empathy, great copywriting, amazing storytelling, understanding of campaign operations, an entreprenurial spirit, and leading with solution marketing is key to being a succesful industry marketer.  In my opinion, a great marketer is an ex-salesman. Marketers should always be trying to sell and close, this allows them to create the best possible collateral and pitches for sales teams.  You must be keen on directing and developing target markets, se ...Read More

You must first:  Identify overall approach for alignment with brand and company priorities Identify primary target segments for programs Determine program-specific messaging Communicate plans to stakeholders From there an Industry marketer must then define: New market opportunities  Define overall messaging & positioning & personas Win / Loss analysis Market segmentation and sizing Competitive intel gathering + analysis From there you then execute on the measurement and reporting:   Trai ...Read More

The focus should always be on the needs and wants of the customer. Storytelling needs to be at the center and strategy should be based on customer problems and marketing should align to the solution.  Industry based marketing should be a priority once product market fit has been established across an intiial target market. Targeting subsets of customers by vertical and segment is key in order to align value based messaging with customer pain. Creating seperate marketing strategies allows for acc ...Read More

Always remember - be a storyteller and understand your customer through and through. Highly recommend Aaron Sorkins masterclass on screenwriting, it gives a fantastic framework for storytelling. I typically read and listen to thought leaders that are customer centric, almost to a fanatic sense. With that being said, its also important to be well rounded as an industry marketer, reading and listening to things outside of marketing helps understand the bigger picture. I see the role as revenue foc ...Read More

Industry KPIs should encompass sales and marketing performance. Sales and marketing teams need alignment on pipeline, revenue goals, and rep productivity.   In many instances, when a proper solution marketing team is created, KPIs should encompass market penetration and sales performance. Even if quota isn't tied to the industry, benchmark figures must be baselined to grow off of: New Logo ARR Cross Sell ARR Rep Productivity  Upsell ARR Close Rates  Cycle Times Pipeline All of this then translat ...Read More

Product based differentiton is gone. Get rid of the problem - solution approach. Brand differentiation is now key. A company story should align to the buyer: Show the industry trend and market shift Talk about the threat Story the dream The journey is constantly evolving and changing, for example, b2b smb customers now expect a b2c like experience (self service, fast sales cycle, quick checkout). Segmented messaging and targeting is necessary and relaying messages that administer value has shift ...Read More

Most organizations do not properly understand solution and industry marketing - mainly because it is different from how the company currently operates. Industry marketing requires a different GTM approach than a product focused company. Some companies may benefit from having a product, solution, and industry team that is part of product marketing while in other companies, especially if you have multiple products and solutions encompassing different target customers, industry and solution marketi ...Read More

In the early stages, as teams are starting to get built - trust and dividing responsibilites is the biggest factor in ensuring alignment, especially between PMM's and PM's.  How do you build trust and clearly divide responsibilities? Communicate and clarify your end goals.  Align on goals - Ownership from both teams is necessary. Product Marketers are customer and market facing, while PM is developer and product facing. PMM's must ensure product adoption is critical and their highest priority. M ...Read More

A company that has multiple products, different buyers, and leans towards vertical SaaS needs solution oriented messaging in order to speak to the aspiration of the buyer. In this case, industry marketing is a priority to build. When you speak to value and pain of the buyer vs product centricity per industry, you're message not only becomes authentic, but you're speaking to a critical path for the buyer to succeed, their aspirations, their problems, and you paint a vision which shows how they ca ...Read More