AMA: Seismic Vice President, Product Marketing, Eve Alexander on Storytelling

My biggest failures have typically come down to unsuccessfully driving behavior change with the field. Even the best stories, which are grounded in research and validated with customers, aren't always adopted by the field. I've learned that working closely with enablement and sales leadership is crucial to driving success. A few specifics: Include well-respected members of the field in crafting your story. Ask for their help and support not just in developing the narrative, but in lending their ...Read More

I'm a huge fan of Donald Miller's Storybrand framework. I typically like to use a simplified version of it, as I find that the full framework can be onerous and heavier than we need it to be in our fast-moving company: Define your hero (your customer) and what they are trying to accomplish. For example, at Seismic our hero is an enablement leader, and she wants to improve her ability to impact business outcomes--and demonstrate that her team directly contributed to those outcomes. Articulate the ...Read More

Whenever I'm working a project that involves many people's opinions, I look for ways to bring objective data and a variety of stakeholder viewpoints into the conversation through win-loss interviews, x-functional brainstorms, and digging into differentiated value. Win-loss interviews: This is the objective data that tell us exactly what the market views as our differentiators. It's hard to argue with! At Seismic, we interview approximately 25 recent buyers or would-be-buyers per quarter and ask ...Read More

I'll start with the premise that our brands (or companies, or products) should be the protagonists of our stories. I'm a huge fan of "Building a Storybrand"--a book by Donald Miller. His framework emphasizes that our company or product is best positioned as the guide that helps the hero (our customer) achieve success. E.g., make your brand the Yoda to your customer's Luke Skywalker. So, my first two pieces of advice are to consider taking your brand out of the protagonist role and make it the su ...Read More

It can be challenging to navigate articulating differentiation when a capability is highly technical and your audience is not. As I mentioned in another response, focusing on differentiated value can be really helpful here. Rather than try to do a lot of messaging or education around the algorithm/technical capability itself, focus on what it uniquely delivers in terms of the outcome for the customer. For example, at Seismic, our product includes a unique architecture for organizing sales conten ...Read More

As is the case for most of the work we do as PMM, I often try to think about metrics across three altitudes: outcomes, behaviors, and inputs. For a new narrative (e.g., evolving the company pitch) I often look at: Outcomes: Some of the measurements I have looked at include win rate, increase in market share (e.g., if you're entering a new market), increase in deal size, and increase in multi-SKU deals (e.g., if the narrative is designed to help move from single product to multi-product sale). It ...Read More

Customer evidence is so valuable to provide proof that your product/service/solution drives the outcomes you claim! A few techniques I've used when I can't use a customer name/logo: Aggregate results. For example, do you have a dozen customers in a given sector that are all measuring the same outcome (e.g., faster sales cycle times). Then use that to say "on average, customers in X segment achieve Y improvement in sales cycle times". Genericize the company. You can still use quotes, testimonials ...Read More