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Ivan Dwyer

AMA: Okta Product Marketing Lead, Ivan Dwyer on Technical Product Marketing

February 17 @ 10:00AM PST
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Okta Product Marketing Lead, Ivan Dwyer on Technical Product Marketing
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Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
I’m not allowed to say Stripe. Everyone says Stripe. So I’ll say…. Stripe? I kid, I kid. I’ll always have a soft spot for Heroku – they’ve always stood out to me as a company with a unique brand presence that never compromised on technical value and authenticity. Some of the Product Marketers I ......Read More
3661 Views
3 requests
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
Great question, something I think about a lot. I’m a huge proponent of specialization with technical products. I wouldn’t expect every member of our enterprise field organization (which is in the thousands) to be able to carry a highly technical conversation from end-to-end, nor would I want them......Read More
792 Views
1 request
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
I’m a huge proponent of Jobs To Be Done, both for building products and for marketing products – in product marketing, though, you don’t necessarily have to be able to do the job of your audience, but you most definitely have to get it. I often joke that I’m just a good enough programmer to know......Read More
2165 Views
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Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
I should have a better answer to this than Twitter, but I haven’t actually hired for that role in a long time, so might be out of touch, sorry! One thing I’ll say, and this might be a bit controversial, but I’m personally cautious of high-profile developer evangelists. There is absolutely a ton ......Read More
1147 Views
1 request
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
[Insert “Why not both?” meme] :) The best thing you can do is bring these stories together – when technical value solves business value, you have yourself a winner. (I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the inverse of that, now that I think about it) This manifests itself in a number of ways, bu......Read More
1048 Views
1 request
Do you have a CTO, CIO or developer persona profile that you can share?
Looking for slides or document that spells out what particular personas like or don't like as well where they congregate (what media they read, what groups they follow, etc)
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
I have a fairly extensive persona methodology which I wrote about here (https://www.workinproduct.com/blog/elements-of-a-positioning-system-part-2-customer-personas). Rather than get prescriptive with an explicit example here, I’ll share something I run i nto a lot that I think gets it wrong – b......Read More
1772 Views
2 requests
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
Great question… this is easy to over index on either side – too much buzzword bingo or too deep in the weeds. Personally, I like to follow a narrative from top to bottom – anchor to “the what”, hook with “the why”, and win over with “the how”. But each section in that narrative has to be punchy......Read More
1063 Views
2 requests
For a heavily dev-centric product, how do you approach the balance between classic content/SEO, product marketing, and sales enablement - and how do you find the right channels to reach out to developers vs. commercial audiences?
What are some considerations when setting up a Product Marketing discipline to keep the focus on the product value for developers, without sacrificing expectations from the commercial teams?
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
Great question, I get in arguments about this all the time! Heh. You ask the question the right way - it’s about balance. Starting with my least favorite topic – SEO! The benefits of SEO isn’t lost on me, but for technical products, authenticity trumps all IMHO. I always cringe when I come acros......Read More
809 Views
2 requests
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
Good question – it can depend on a few things. In many companies, you’ll have to wear both hats... I know I sure have.  As Product Marketing teams grow, where it starts to break out into dedicated roles is at the target persona level – your more traditional PMM may focus more on the executive ......Read More
1361 Views
1 request
Ivan Dwyer
Ivan Dwyer
Okta Product MarketingFebruary 18
Great question that's very top of mind! The broader GTM organization will own the growth targets, while the broader Product organization will own the adoption targets. I believe where tech PMM can make the most impact on both sides of the house is with velocity targets. On the GTM side, that's......Read More
1233 Views
1 request