AMA: Zuora Former Product Marketing Senior Director, Natalie Louie on Stakeholder Management

At two previous companies I worked at (Zuora and Hired) we have OKRs and each group creates their own and works with each other to define theirs. We can also view everyone's OKRs in our Workboard tool. Alignment begins before any project begins. Each quarter we all get better at aligning our OKRs. And, with each project we improve on how we report back on how we acheived our OKRs together. We also focus on shared frameworks and process we all agree and align on. During and after each project we keep iterating and improving our frameworks and share learnings with other members of our teams. With OKRs and agreed up frameworks, this helps us run and execute integrated marketing campaigns and product launches as smooth as possible. (Below is a similar answer to a prior question.) For demand gen and PMM, here’s what we do together and what we each own separately: Together we discuss themes but demand gen owns the tactics and PMM owns the strategy. We both own the results. Demand Gen: focuses on launching and driving campaigns, optimizing them to drive pipeline, working with SDRs and AE’s, managing large budgets for paid media, seo, organic. They own and run the tactics. Product Marketing: we are the experts in our product, personas, competitors, solutions and verticals so we own messaging, positioning, hypothesis and angle. We own the strategy and direction of content. Demand gen will own a calendar and kick off a template or framework on how they want to run a digital campaign. I’ll populate it with all the relevant information and messaging. If I have a product launch, message or position we want to own, I’ll weave it into the campaigns. Demand gen will activate the campaign, run the campaign and if it's a webinar I will help build the content or be the moderator/speaker on it. We set target results together and demand gen will track actual results -- then we all review results together and iterate.

With traditional marketing we have a wider audience and are doing a marketing volume play and casting a wider net. With an ABM strategy we know exactly who we want to go after and it’s a targeted, smaller audience. More time is spent sizing the accounts, looking at the data and deciding which to go after. It’s also a larger cross-functional lift. I have to include more cross-functional stakeholders to understand the account and map out our touch points so they are personalized or targeted for these select accounts. We are also reaching out to more stakeholders at the account and have a different message, position and tactic for each of the personas. This is not a volume play but a high quality, high touch play that brings focus to your efforts. * Example: a ABM/targeted webinar invite will go out to 80 accounts and we hope to get 20 people to sign up and 7-10 to attend. Tactics leading up to the webinar may be more high-touch i.e. a direct mail campaign, a sequence of outreach emails that are highly tailored. The content will also be very targeted to that audience. A traditional webinar with a wide audience will go out to hundreds or thousands accounts and we’ll have 400+ sign up and 100+ attend and the content will be geared to cover a broader audience.

As a PMM I’ve always had a close relationship with demand gen, from startups to public companies. Here’s what we do together and what we each own separately: Together we discuss themes and ideas but demand gen owns the tactics and PMM owns the strategy. We both own the results. Demand Gen: focuses on launching and driving campaigns, optimizing them to drive pipeline, working with SDRs and AE’s, managing large budgets for paid media, seo, organic. They own the tactics. Product Marketing: we are the experts in our product, personas, competitors, solutions and verticals so we own messaging, positioning, direction of content, hypothese and angle. We own the strategy. Demand gen will own a calendar and kick off a template or framework on how they want to run a digital campaign. I’ll populate it with all the relevant information and messaging. If I have a product launch, message or position we want to own, I’ll weave it into the campaigns. Demand gen will activate the campaign, run the campaign and if it's a webinar I will help build the content or be the moderator/speaker on it. We set target results together and demand gen will track actual results -- then we all review results together and iterate.

The more technical your product and complex your use cases, i.e. selling to enterprise customers, then PMM can report into Product. This is what we do at Zuora and other companies I’ve worked at. The less technical the product and the less complex your use cases, i.e. selling to SMB/MM customers, then PMM can report into Marketing. This is what we did at my prior companies too. When PMMs need to understand complex use cases and technical products they have more air to cover and it’s better to have alignment with PM's to make sure knowledge transfer happens properly and nuances are picked up. PMMs will find themselves having more questions about the product and asking PMs or SMEs to check their work and make sure they aren’t mis-stating something. Size of the company can also dictate which group you report to -- smaller startups (series A-D) may have smaller marketing teams and PMMs will take on additional marketing areas and report into Marketing. PMMs will wear many more hats. In larger, later stage or public companies who have larger marketing resources and teams, PMM may roll into product and be more focused on core PMM activities. PMMs may also be more focused and specialized, i.e. tied to a specific product, solution or industry. Regardless of which group you report to -- the PMM and company should decide what makes sense for them -- there has to be strong alignment to both Marketing and Product orgs. PMMs should join all cross-functional meetings with both teams and move between both seamlessly. As a PMM, I’ve always felt like a core team member of both Marketing and Product, despite which group I’ve actually reported to.

This is a similar answer to a prior question. There are two parts to your question that I’ll address separately. 1. Get stakeholders aligned on a decision making framework: treat each stakeholders like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are and what their goals are. Do a 1:1 with them, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to internal stakeholders works just as well. Find your champion and executive sponsor and align, nurture and leverage those relationships. 2. Everyone wants to get involved on what you want to communicate: Whenever you role out a new framework, message or piece of content, label everything “draft” and share it with stakeholders in advance of any meeting where you plan to role out something new. Having these smaller meetings or 1:1’s to get their early feedback and buy-in is key to get everyone on the same page individually vs. introducing new ideas at a larger meeting where people can be influenced by group think -- i.e. someone doesn’t like it and others, who wouldn’t feel that way on their own, start to jump on the bandwagon. Successful people already have buy-in on their ideas before a meeting vs. presenting their ideas for the first time at the meeting. This isn’t feasible for every decision but for the big ones, this strategy has worked very well for me. Depending on your situation, you can apply strategy #1 or #2 and I think you’ll be well on your way to smoother sailing.

PMMs can be more proactive to own more of the funnel and customer journey when they expand their expertise to have a say in or own the pricing and packaging strategy. PMMs already connect the dots between customers and products and know how to deliver value across the entire customer journey. We deliver value through our positioning, messaging, story telling, content creation (pitch-decks, case studies, webinars, campaigns, white papers, website, etc..), product launches, competitive intelligence, analyst relations, etc... But, if you look at a customer journey from the first touch point and interaction with a campaign, website, event, deck, demo, all the way to a conversation around packaging and pricing -- the customer has to find value along each interaction and it needs to be consistent. If pricing and packaging was done in a silo with no PMM input, the customer isn’t experiencing consistent value and I’ve seen deals fall apart at that stage or sales struggle to close a deal when pricing comes up -- and they rely heavily on “discount to sell” strategies to get a deal over the finish line. PMMs who add pricing and packaging to their toolkit can deliver value at every step of the customer journey and can be a part of the entire funnel strategy and help build customer lifetime value from acquisition all the way through retention and expansion revenue. * Extra tip: expansion revenue is the bucket companies often forget about, and when you can double down in this area with strategy, execution and results that bring significant revenue and value to any company -- you will be handed more of the funnel. In order to make proactive strategic decisions, I am always analyzing customer data: usage data, purchase data, discount data, segment, expiration, etc... and I’m bucketing the data and looking at trends based on what our company’s OKRs are. The data tells a story and I discuss the insights with other stakeholders and through this process, it helps uplevel all the decisions I’m making for pricing, packaging, content, messaging, positioning, campaigns, sales plays, etc... * Example: at a prior company, our churn was higher one quarter and reducing churn was our company’s OKR the following quarter. I decided to look at customer data and study what customers purchased vs. what they were using. I looked at which customers were expiring that quarter, how much they spent, what usage tier they purchased and what their current usage was for our product. Then, I grouped customers into 3 buckets (I actually had 6 buckets but will use 3 for simplicity): 1) those using most of what they purchased, 2) those using half of what they purchased, 3) those using little of what they purchased. Bucket #3 was our high churn group we were worried about and bucket #2 was a group we wanted to keep our eye on, so I came up with a different pricing & packaging strategy, messaging, positioning and marketing campaign that sales used to engage with the customers in these two buckets. By having a view across their entire journey, I came up with a proactive funnel strategy and we reduced churn that quarter.

To get people excited about a new deck, make sure the message and content is solid by getting feedback from sales, subject matter experts, product managers, executives, sales engineers, solution consultants, analysts, consultants, customers -- as many stakeholders as possible. The magic is in the iteration and fine tuning. Put it in the hands of a target group of highly engaged and successful sales folks and battle test it in the field with these “beta” users, even offer to join their calls and help deliver it to a prospect (or customer if it’s for a cross-sell) -- goal is to get one or several sales people to close a deal with it. Then, BOOM - sales folks will come flocking to you to get their hands on that deck and it will spread like wildfire on its own. This is a tactic we run at Zuora. Is this for a new product you are cross-selling to your install base? If yes, then you are luckily sitting on a bunch of data on how your customers are using your existing products or you can find out from your CS team if they have pains this new product can solve, and you can take this data to craft a story on why they would be ideal users of your new cross-sell product -- which was ideally built based on current customer pain points. Customize the pitch deck with relevant data that provides insights on why the customer has a “problem” and therefore needs a new “solution”. This sets sales up for success to be a true partner to your customers by offering unique insights and even benchmarks around data driven conversations. We also do this at Zuora and these decks are highly popular and successful. When sales knows a deck has already been battle tested in the field and can close deals, or that it sets them up as a strategic partner offering insights no one else can -- those are the pitch decks that sales wants. By the time you schedule a meeting to present that deck to sales, they’ve probably all been sent it by your “beta” users already -- and the deck launches itself.

Product Market yourself. Start by thinking about why you want to move to PMM and how you would position and message yourself -- and write it down. Be clear in why you want to move to PMM. Then reach out to your internal PMM leader and ask for a skip-level 1:1 and conduct an informational interview -- if your interest is still piqued then ask to work on some projects and collaborate with them, also let them know you plan to talk your manager to get their approval too. Then, talk to your existing manager about it and let them know about your interest in PMM and get their support to work on projects together. You want to get early buy-in from both sides to make sure everyone is on the same page. If you are crushing it on your projects, as soon as a PMM spot opens up, you will be the first person they tap for that role.

Here are 4 ways this can be mitigated: * There’s always a reason why you don’t agree -- when you can get to the data and root cause driving the disagreement -- then you start to build bridges to get back on the same page. Instead of disagreeing, a good response is to keep asking “why”?... “Why don’t you agree?”...”Why will that be an issue?”...”Why do you think this won’t work”...”Why, what does that mean?”. Keep asking “why” and digging until you unlock the root cause. People often have access to different information and facts, or they are using words differently. I find as a PMM I’m constantly level setting with people to make sure we all have the same facts, understand the same meaning of all the words we are using and get down to the “why”. * With each strategy or project I always refer to our company and shared OKRs (Objective and Key Results) -- or maybe your company has MBOs, KPIs, etc... I use this to prioritize projects so when I engage with a channel owner and speak to their/our OKRs, it’s hard for anyone to not agree on a shared strategy. The key is making sure your OKRs tie to channel owners and this requires coordination in advance with those stakeholders and managers. PMMs are a strategic hub who are there to connect the dots between cross-functional stakeholders so we need to mold and wrap ourselves around other groups. * Example: Channel owners are always trying to drive pipeline and I know they have OKRs around this, so I was on board with having a PMM OKR to drive $4M of pipeline for a product launch I was working on. My launch went very smoothly because I put the OKR on my slides when I was presenting ideas or metrics to channel owners. It’s always good to level set on the shared goal at the onset of any launch or meeting so that everyone is on the same page. * Treat each channel owner like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are and what their goals are. Do a 1:1 with them, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to channel owners works just as well. * Whenever I roll out a new launch, framework, message or piece of content, label everything “draft” and share it with channel owners in advance of any meeting where you plan to present it the first time. Having these smaller meetings or 1:1’s to get their early feedback and buy-in is key to get everyone on the same page individually vs. introducing new ideas at a larger meeting where people can be influenced by group think -- i.e. someone doesn’t like it and others, who wouldn’t feel that way on their own, start to jump on the bandwagon. Successful people already have buy-in on their ideas before a meeting vs. presenting their ideas for the first time at the meeting. This isn’t feasible for every decision because it takes time, but for the big ones, like your upcoming launch -- this strategy has worked very well for me.

Yes, I always do. Treat each stakeholder like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are, what their goals are, what words they use and what’s important to them. Do a 1:1 with them, get to know them, their OKRs, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to internal stakeholders works just as well. I even apply my PMM ability to speak to and treat personas differently in my personal life, with my kids, family and friends -- it really brings alignment across the board! I find our PMM skills in this area are a best practice for approaching life :) Find your champion in each team and build a relationship with them. They can be your go-to person when you need advice on how to work with their team, you can bounce your ideas on them first to get early feedback and they can help socialize any of your ideas or strategies within their team. I find during this process, I end up refining my thinking, strategies and ideas too, so it’s win-win. Test your ideas on stakeholders in each group and socialize early. The longer someone is exposed to an idea, certain words and strategies -- the more time they’ve had to process it and start weaving it into their thoughts and initiatives. Eventually, they will start taking ownership of those ideas too. You have to be patient, the bigger the idea, the longer it will take to be adopted. When I was at Oracle, a few of us had a novel idea and strategy and I socialized it across stakeholders in groups across the years...I never gave up. It was finally brought to market 3 years later. If you truly know your idea is a good one and have done your research as a SME (subject matter expert), then be patient and consistent and you will get there. On the other spectrum, there are of course ideas that can be socialized and have buy-in within a few days/weeks as well. Use storytelling and examples for context and back everything up with data -- use customer data, market data, OKRs, MBOs, KPIs, industry benchmarks, customers stories, quotes, etc… When you can have data driven stories with stakeholders, tailored to them, you are validating your thoughts while using storytelling to give context and relevance, while making your ideas stick. People remember stories that are put in context, they don’t remember a list of facts.

I mentioned this in a prior question - treat each stakeholder like one of your “personas”. Understand their role, what their pain points are, what their goals are, what words they use and what’s important to them. Do a 1:1 with them, get to know them, their OKRs, interview them and find out how you can help them and work with them. Once you have a clear idea on how to deliver value to them, incorporate that into how you work with them, message them and position your work to them. You already do this as a PMM for customers and prospects, so applying this same tactic to internal stakeholders works just as well. Whenever you role out a new idea, strategy, message or piece of content, label everything “draft” and share it with stakeholders in advance of any meeting where you plan to present something new. Having these smaller meetings or 1:1’s to get their early feedback and buy-in is key to get everyone on the same page individually vs. introducing new ideas at a larger meeting where people can be influenced by group think -- i.e. someone doesn’t like it and others, who wouldn’t feel that way on their own, start to jump on the bandwagon. Successful people already have buy-in on their ideas before a meeting vs. presenting their ideas for the first time at the meeting. This isn’t feasible for every decision because it takes time, but for the big ones -- this strategy has worked very well for me. Also socialize ideas earlier, the longer someone is exposed to an idea, certain words and strategies -- the more time they’ve had to process it and start weaving it into their thoughts and initiatives. Eventually, they will start taking ownership of those ideas too. You have to be patient, the bigger the idea, the longer it will take to be adopted. Find an executive sponsor and senior level person (your power persona) and get their alignment -- this is key is having them also drive the same ideas and strategies in their org that are aligned with you. Data can also be found anywhere - they can be stories, quotes, examples and best pracitices from other industries. Data can be qualatative and quantatative. The more research and interviews you do, you can collect your findings and summarize them into your own data chart to use to build consensus.