AMA: Quizlet Head of Product Marketing, Caroline Walthall on Product Launches
January 14 @ 10:00AM PT
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👋 Caroline Silverkorn
Hi all, my name is Caroline (Walthall) Silverkorn. 👋
💼 Job: Director of Product Marketing at Freed. Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet.
📍 Location: SF East Bay (Moraga, CA)
🍦 Favorite ice cream flavor: Matcha Doodle (Humphrey Slocombe)
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
Build from what you know If you’re doing this to prepare for a launch, I’d consider whether this new feature or product is for a similar audience that you already target....
1619 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
No clear messaging target - it’s almost impossible to write copy for everyone, so it ends up being for no one. In this scenario, we also become more tempted to use our i...
1256 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
I don’t have a framework, per se, but here’s a list of actions I tend to go through when creating the plan. Strategy steps (Pre-tactics) Give the thing a name and decid...
1212 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
Data! Everything you do once the launch has started should be about strengthening the feedback loop between your tactics and your outputs. Make sure to have everything y...
677 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
This is a good question. It depends how much buffer time you have leading to launch and whether you’re in a comfortable place to execute on each phase and collect feedbac...
672 Views
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How often is too often when it comes to launching a new product feature/enhancement publicly?
Our CMO wants us to do a major product announcement every quarter.
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
If your industry thrives on frequent technology updates, quarterly can make sense, or potentially even more frequently than that. It really comes down to how you balance ...
1916 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
Beyond the 5 “don’t”s I listed in another question, here are two others: Not having tight enough clarity and communication about what the launch stages look like for all...
2031 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
I think it really depends on the scope and scale of launch and your launch cadence. It’s important to strategize with company leaders and your head of PR to agree on an i...
815 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
There was a similar question below, so I encourage you to check that out, but otherwise here’s a list of other thoughts that come to mind: For initial launch campaigns ...
1014 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
Some of our success is up to us, and there are also conditions for success that are out of our control. You can learn to recognize when those conditions are and aren't pr...
834 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
It depends on your product and business model. Since Quizlet is a freemium model that offers a ton of value to more than 50 million students each month, we focus a lot on...
1630 Views
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Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 5y
I'd love to ask folks the same question! We haven't had a lot of luck with solutions that cater specifically to PMs or PMMs. Our product and eng teams use Jira most and m...
1563 Views
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