AMA: Zendesk Former Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Katherine Kelly on Product Marketing Stakeholder Management
July 30 @ 10:00AM PT
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How do product marketing key stakeholders from other departments change as your company grows?
Ex) <10 employees you meet with CEO and Head of Product—how does this change when you're 100, 500, 1000 employees?
Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
Such an interesting question because I actually think it doesn't change that much. My last role was a company that was ~150 employees, Zendesk is now ~3,000 I think. In b...
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Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
When you launch as quickly and regularly as we do, as soon as possible! :) But to be more descriptive - the goal is for these teams to have some visibility and control o...
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Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
The best way to get yourself in the driver's seat is to know where you're going and how to get there. If you understand the needs of each of these stakeholders and can st...
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Do you feel it is necessary to dip your toe in these other orgs/roles (ex. Demand Gen, Product) being a product marketer to fully comprehend your work and excel?
Product Marketing is such a cross-functional role.
Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
Empathy is incredibly important for stakeholder management. The more you understand what your stakeholders need, can talk to them in their language, take feedback and get...
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Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
We have partnered with our integrated campaigns team to formalize roles and responsibilites and then we actually aim to share KPIs. I think it makes us stronger to feel l...
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Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
There's really no perfect way. I'm not sure if you're asking at a broader level, how do you prioritize product's needs against sales or marketing needs, or if you mean on...
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How do you update stakeholders, and the company as a whole, on the recent activities and achievements of product marketing?
What channel/form, what content do you include, formats, etc.
Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
This is a great question that varies by company size. In a smaller company it may be appropriate to present recent wins in an all-hands from time to time. But at a medium...
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Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
One of the best alignment tools we rolled out in the last two years was a messaging source document. This document includes overview / background on the market, descripti...
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How do you approach an environment where there has been no formal launch process and make sure you get the buy-in from engineering and product management?
This is especially a problem in smaller, owner-led companies who don't realize they need product marketing and/or an official launch process. Thanks!
Instructure Head of Product Marketing | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • 6y
I actually don't have much experience with this, I'm sorry! I wonder if you should just start rolling out / following a lightweight launch process to show-not-tell how it...
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