AMA: Sendbird Head of Marketing, Jack Wei on Product Marketing / Demand Gen Alignment

There is 1 foundational action PMMs must complete before touching ABM: Define a clear ICP (ideal customer profile). That ICP (which should comprise of target persona at companies of a certain segment / vertical / geo / compelling event) can then be expanded upon by demand gen, sales, and ops into a target account list. The target account list should be realistically manageable based on the size of your marketing & sales teams. A list more than 100 means you're not choosy or specific enough. Now that's out of the way, the most efficient way for PMM to add value in ABM that I've experienced: "Templated" tailored assets. Just like how PMM doesn't want to be slide monkeys for AEs, PMM doesn't want to be eBook or 1-pager machines for ABM marketers. By templated, I mean take the highest performing asset your business already uses, keep 80% of that asset fixed, and revise 20% of it to be flexible -- able to be tailored per account by the ABM Marketer or AE directly. This is a very tactical way to build for scalable ABM from the PMM perspective. At the end of the day, account based marketing is all about tailoring your message and tactic per account to open and accelerate opportunity flow -- and that's the piece to do differently if other more foundational PMM responsibilities have already been addressed. If I wasn't clear earlier, the foundational items should be addressed first.

While Demand Gen is responsible for lead, MQL, and pipeline target attainment when it comes to evergreen marketing programs, Product Marketing gets join in on the fun and think about lead and pipe generation more directly and holistically when it comes to product launches. 1. Product marketing can set a lead, pipeline, or revenue target within 30-60-90 days of launch (this is the KPI, depending on your business type and stage) 2. Leading up to launch date, key cross-functional stakeholders sync to align on the plan required to reach objective as set in step 1, as well as to discuss approach, timeline, milestones, bill of material, roles & responsibilities 3. Demand gen should have a representative as part of step 2, where Demand gen can be responsible for specific activities as outlined in the plan; typical examples include: * paid search/social conversion targets * traffic required to hit X meeting inquiries or free trial signups (X is determined based on the backwards calculation of business objective) * webinar or field event where the launch is announced * social reach and reactions * # of organic content and the traffic + leads generated 4. PMM then is responsible to make sure Demand gen is supported and enabled to run these launch-specific campaigns, as PMM would own the top OKR to report on success of launch (which require coordination with several other teams to have a shot at success)

Not clear on this question... do you mean "describe" instead of "define"? The relationship between product marketing and demand gen is symbiotic. And at my organization thankfully the relationships is highly collaborative. It wasn't always this way. When I led product & customer marketing, I should have set a better example for the PMM team by synching with the head of demand gen more frequently and voicing my concerns more aggressively. Why should PMMs be more tightly connected to demand gen marketers when their manager wasn't? In any team or organization, there has to be push/pull between individuals to get the most out of one another. PMM needs Demand Gen to scale programs while running experiments to ensure continuous product-market fit, while Demand Gen needs PMM to iterate on messaging and collateral to diversify hooks that either capture or create demand.

Messaging framework all the way. Designate a 'source of truth' messaging doc that everyone at the company (not just demand gen) refers to, and therefore writes/presents derivatives of. This source of truth can be as simple as a starred google doc, or a published confluence page, notion page, pinned/bookmarked in Slack or MS Teams, etc. At smaller companies I've seen demand gen marketers request product marketing to write emails, ad copy, and campaign briefs in order to start a campaign. IMO those are not constructive (or scalable) in growing into a world-class marketing team. If a messaging framework is in place Demand Gen marketers have the opportunity to take a stab and ask the owner for input and feedback. It's amazing how far effort and thoughtfulness goes into building trust and facilitating stronger relationships.

Product Marketing over-indexes on the qualitative elements of marketing, while Demand Gen over-indexes on the quantitative side... when, to truly do marketing effectively, you need a harmonious balance of both. Ever meet product marketers who geek out on positioning and messaging, nitpicking the quality of and wordsmithing 1 landing page or slide but ask them about how marketing is doing on pipeline and they look at you with a blank stare?; how about a demand gen marketer who makes decisions purely off a spreadsheet model, or one program at a time and have absolutely zero clue what the eBook they just set up a campaign for is about? This happens all too often, and only creates siloes in each team working on their own "specialty areas." Just like in life, marketer can strive for better balance whether you're growing your career through product marketing or demand gen. Some structural moves to mitigate this: * Include demand gen in product launches; product launches aren't just a PM<>PMM thing anymore, get Demand Gen and Marketing Ops involved early and often in the weekly syncs * Include all of marketing in enablement sessions; ensure that demand gen can do the basic first pitch just like any SDR or AE can; every marketer can do their jobs better with better understanding and context of the product, not the other way around * Even if the Demand Gen team is org'ed by region or channel, assign each member a product, area of functionality, or some such so they have a vested interest in learning about and keeping updated about what you're selling, which incentivizes frequent syncs with PMM

I've seen Content: 1. Stand as its own team 2. Roll up under PMM, or 3. Roll up under Demand Gen. But I've never seen either PMM or Demand gen report into Content. Which goes to say, I don't think content aligns PMM or DG. It's the other way around. When Content's OKR/KPI is traffic and leads, my preference is to org Content under PMM in order to solve for messaging accuracy and content quality, establish basic SEO first. Once that is nailed, where traffic isn't falling off a cliff upon landing on the website, consider to org Content under Demand Gen, where the goal is then to scale leads and SEO, and figure how to turn those into paid users and/or sales meetings.

Get the teams to recognize that they need each other to succeed. Sure, marketing has grown and become more specialized over the years where there are many teams within a marketing org or department (which at times cause internal competition), but at the end of the day, the north star KPI or OKR is to grow the business through leads, pipeline, and/or revenue. If team members culturally or structurally cannot collaborate and align, some tactics that have forced at least an understanding and empathy of what the other team is experiencing: * Include demand gen in product launches; product launches aren't just a PM<>PMM thing anymore, get Demand Gen and Marketing Ops involved early and often * Include all of marketing, including demand gen and content & SEO, in enablement sessions; ensure that demand gen can do the basic first pitch just like any SDR or AE can; every marketer can do their jobs better with better understanding and context of the product, not the other way around * Even if the Demand Gen team is org'ed by region or channel, assign each member a product, area of functionality, or some such to be the Demand Gen subject matter expert, so they have a vested interest in learning about and keeping updated about what you're selling, which incentivizes frequent syncs with PMM