AMA: Salesloft Senior Director Product Marketing, Gray Hardell on Go-To-Market Strategy

Everything is anchored in storytelling and positioning; without that, your product marketing function will be lacking, so that is step one. But other fundamental functions must be prioritized - here are my top 5: Storytelling, positioning, and messaging are the heart of PMM. Without strong storytelling, everything below will suffer. Product Launches: You need someone to own the launch story and strategy behind how products and features go to market. This includes your internal stakeholders, cust ...Read More

Product marketing for a service rather than a traditional product has similarities and many differences. It all starts with the story, the outcome, and a product-market fit. A service is still a work product. In some ways, when you sell a service, you can achieve the desired outcome faster than with traditional products, which can take 1-2 years to reach the promised result. On the other hand, the GTM strategy is often very different, and therefore, you need to have a plan that supports the busi ...Read More

We are using Gen AI in a variety of ways. You need to remember that when using AI, it is only as good as it is trained. Here are my key tips for using Gen AI (my preferred is ChatGPT Plus) in PMM: Train your instance in your instance, market, customer base, and point of view. Invest in making the model understand your way of thinking. Create custom GPTs/gems/etc for repetitive use cases, such as custom demo scripts, web copy, etc. Find ways to accelerate your team - for example, I have various s ...Read More

A global GTM can be tricky. Cultural nuances must be considered, but the approach and story you're telling have to be consistent. One of my biggest pieces of advice is that if you are entering a global GTM for the first time (especially if you are an American SaaS business entering EMEA, APAC, LATAM, etc), avoid unnecessary qualifiers that do not translate well. Use simple language that will resonate across cultures. A lot of PMMs use jargon like "supercharge", "boost", "unleash", none of which ...Read More

The most common gap I've seen in experienced product marketers is that they lose their curiosity and their beginner's mindset when solving a new problem. They tend to use the same frameworks, templates, etc, without looking at it like the new puzzle it is. Think of it like this, if you love jigsaw puzzles the way I do, then yes, you have common strategies: sort the colors, edges, and find the patterns, but becaused I solved the botanical puzzle before, doesn't mean every piece is the same in the ...Read More