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AMA: Zendesk Former Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Katherine Kelly on Product Marketing Stakeholder Management
July 30 @ 10:00AM PST
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Zendesk Former Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Katherine Kelly on Product Marketing Stakeholder Management
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Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 like we are succeeding and failing together vs being able to say Product Marketing "succeeded" in a quarter where we didn't hit ......Read More
1394 Views
1 request
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.
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 better at predicting and proactively providing the information they need the more trust you will earn from them. I don't think......Read More
1468 Views
1 request
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 a granular level. I think the first step is understanding what is a short-term ask vs. something that should be owned, and the......Read More
1696 Views
3 requests
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 over planning for their workload, and for you to have all the resources you need for a launch. So I think it's helpful to look......Read More
1325 Views
3 requests
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 start to anticipate their questions and put that proactively in your plans and communication I think you will start to feel like ......Read More
984 Views
2 requests
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?
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 both companies, my biggest stakeholders were: * CEO * Head of Product * CMO * Head of Sales Often it feels like the job of......Read More
1202 Views
1 request
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.
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 - large company, just like all product marketing, you have to think about your audience first and then plan the message and de......Read More
1766 Views
3 requests
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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, description of the thing we are launching or marketing, details of the audience and related personas, etc. This document can be used by ......Read More
1519 Views
2 requests
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!
Katherine Kelly
Benchling Head of Product Marketing • July 30
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 can help? I'm getting an error that my answer is to short so I am typing more but again, I haven't really experienced pushback......Read More
1062 Views
2 requests
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