Category Creation

Do you use any specific frameworks for your messaging/positioning? If so, which and how does the process look like?

5 answers

Product Marketing Leader at | Formerly Twilio • May 10

I've written about this in detail on my blog here, so I'll summarize my thoughts below! Messaging and positioning work is never complete, so always treat your positioning doc as a living document that

34 Saves

Nisha Goklaney

Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot | Formerly Intuit, American Express, Sage • November 9

I have used several different messaging frameworks, but one that we are leveraging quite a lot these days is the Jobs to be done framework, accompanied by durable, evergreen messages that are centered

97 Saves

Julie Brown

Product Marketing & Event Leader, Strategist, & Consultant at 56th Street Productions, LLC | Project Product | Formerly STANLEY Security (Securitas), Conga (Apttus), SAP, Aprimo (Teradata), Salesforce (ExactTarget) • January 12

Great question! I am a HUGE fan of templates and frameworks. I create templates and then modify them for each company so it better suits the needs of the business. I've written a couple of articles on

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Andy Yen

Global Partner Marketing Director at ServiceNow • January 17

The frameworks that I use for positioning and messaging have changed over time, as I've advanced in my marketing career in enterprise tech. Earlier in my career (when I was in product marketing), we w

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Lawson Abinanti

Co-Founder at Messages That Matter • March 23

I use and teach a positioning framework that was developed by my partner while he was at Microsoft. We have evolved and enhanced it over time, and I have taught the framework to more than 1,000 market

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Product Marketing

What is your overall process when developing a messaging platform from scratch?

4 answers

Nipul Chokshi

Head of Marketing at Atrium • September 8

For me, great messaging always starts with two things: Point of View - which articulates your perspective on the problem(s) your target market is looking to solve [why is the problem worth solving, w

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Sarah Lambert

Head of Product Marketing at Symphony Talent • October 20

You have to start with understanding your audience and your product. For the audience – understand their key business issues and pain points and for the product, understand the differentiators / value

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Priya Gill

Vice President, Product Marketing at Momentive (SurveyMonkey) • December 8

There are 3 core areas that I ensure I have a solid understanding of before I create new messaging and positioning: Target buyer(s) & their pain points: Get a clear understanding of who my target

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Kylee Lessard

Senior Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn • February 27

I'd sum up my process as: JTBD > target audience > buyer journey > market, competitive, VoC > insight > internal positioning > external messaging > GTM strategy Expanding on the

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Product Marketing

How do you approach messaging and positioning when your product isn't the market leader?

6 answers

Michael Peach

VP of Marketing at Rimsys Regulatory Management Software • August 4

I actually don't think this matters all that much. Messaging should be anchored in the outcomes your product delivers to your target persona, and the key differentators that make you uniquely suited t

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Nipul Chokshi

Head of Marketing at Atrium • September 8

One approach here is to re-define your market in such a way that you’re the leader of that market. That’s kind of what category creation if all about.Another approach here (again, leaning in to how yo

23 Saves

Sophia (Fox) Le

Product Marketing at Glassdoor • June 3

Per our head of PMM (Eric Petitt), it is important to think about and understand the market leader positioning because the leader often defines category expectations… as well as their weaknesses. And

30 Saves

Jenna Crane

Head of Product Marketing at Klaviyo | Formerly Drift, Dropbox, Upwork • July 15

You change the conversation. Positioning is all about defining a target audience and a place in their minds where you are the market leader. There’s some great inspiration in the ‘Positioning of a F

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Malli Vangala

Chief Strategy Officer at Circana | Formerly Microsoft, SAP, McKinsey • October 7

I am a believer that your messaging/positioning has to be consistent with how differentiated your product really is. Customers will quickly figure out what is marketing fluff vs. product truth anyway!

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Lawson Abinanti

Co-Founder at Messages That Matter • February 24

You differentiate by first creating a perceptual map that makes it easy to see how your competitors are positioned relative to each other. Use the perceptual map while creating positioning statement o

2 Saves

Product Marketing

Would you have any great external resources about becoming better at messaging that you can share?

4 answers

Diego Lomanto

Chief Marketing Officer at Ada • May 11

Hi - yes - I definitely recommend sharebird's resources. I also love a few books on positioning. First the classic book here is from Al Ries and Jack Trout and it's called "Positioning: The Battle fo

22 Saves

Alissa Lydon

Head of Marketing at LEVEE | Formerly Mezmo, Sauce Labs • October 11

I've read a couple of great books on building messaging. The two I enjoyed the most were: The Aha Moment by Andy Cunningham. She has worked with some of the most iconic brands in tech (including Appl

22 Saves

Nisha Goklaney

Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot | Formerly Intuit, American Express, Sage • November 9

Yes, there are plenty resources out there for you to continue to sharpen your toolset and learn from others in the community as well. Here are some of my favorites 1. Listening to podcasts - Women i

94 Saves

Lawson Abinanti

Co-Founder at Messages That Matter • February 24

I have created an on-line course that takes you through positioning and messaging – they go hand in hand – step-by-step. Here is a link to the sign-in page; it is free: https://messagesthatmatter.com

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Product Marketing

What internal messaging efforts have helped you shift your company's mindset from a product company to a solutions or platform company? What worked the best? What mistakes did you make?

5 answers

Nipul Chokshi

Head of Marketing at Atrium • September 8

I found that making the shift to “solutions” or “platform” requires becoming more business outcome focused in terms of your messaging. Rather than speak to individual user-level features/benefits (e.g

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Natalie Louie

Product Marketing, Senior Director at Replicant | Formerly MobileCoin, Zuora, Hired, Oracle, Responsys • April 13

It starts with the PMM team to come up with messaging that positions the benefits of your solutions/platform. PMM’s own the WHY and not the WHAT. Please refer to my other answers on frameworks and bes

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William Davis

Vice President of Product Marketing at Workato • September 28

When moving your messaging from product-centric to solutions-centric, you're going to bring in experts in the solutions you're trying to organize around. Whether that be industry, departmental or some

9 Saves

Vishal Naik

Product Marketing Lead at Google | Formerly DocuSign • January 25

Great question. To be frank, even for companies with a reputation of being open and extensible, this one is always a challenge when you're in a Platform role. Because at the end of the day, the Platfo

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Jack Wei

Head of Product Marketing at Sendbird | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte • January 10

Embrace repetition, and get influential stakeholders on board. I've been lucky to have worked in very collaborative, supportive cultures where any repositioning and messaging was broadcasted at major

3 Saves

Product Marketing

What analyst activities actually help reinforce your brand differentiation vs are expensive and produce little ROI?

4 answers

Anthony Kennada

CEO at AudiencePlus • January 28

It may be a controversial pov, but my perspective is that the analyst community is getting disrupted by DTC user review sites like G2, TrustRadius, and the others. Customer voice is just as powerful a

70 Saves

Hila Segal

VP Product & Customer Marketing at Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • May 31

Analysts will not endorse any vendor directly. Your goal with AR is to help shape their POV about the market, especially if this is a new category and ultimately get well positioned on MQs and Wave re

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Tracy Montour

Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29

I recommend creating a more high-level analyst stategy that outlines your actual need for analyst partnerships. Once you and your stakeholders are aligned on the need, you need to carefully select ana

2 Saves

Daniel Kuperman

Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions at Atlassian • December 19

Spending more money with analysts won't guarantee a good placement in a Quadrant or Wave. I've seen companies mistakenly spend money on: - Buying more seats or licenses than they actually need; - Sign

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Product Marketing

I'm a product marketing team of 1 - what would you recommend as easy, every-day tools/actions that will help me understand our customers that little bit better?

3 answers

Nikhil Balaraman

Senior Director Product Marketing at Roofstock • March 21

Well first of all, it’s always tough to be a team of one. You are definitely going to have to ruthlessly prioritize and as a team of one, it can be easy to get stuck as the sales content/collateral &a

10 Saves

Hila Segal

VP Product & Customer Marketing at Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • May 31

Listen to sales/CS calls. As a team on 1 you can't be on every call but make it a weekly habit to listen to at least 5-10 calls (you can listen at 1.5 or 2x speed 😊). Be strategic about the calls you

12 Saves

Daniel Kuperman

Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions at Atlassian • December 20

First, start with what you already have at your disposal, which will likely include: - written customer case studies or success stories - requests that customers have made in the past about product fe

11 Saves

Product Marketing

When creating a category how important is it to have a new title to sell into? Can you create a category with an existing role as main user?

3 answers

Anthony Kennada

CEO at AudiencePlus • January 28

Not critical. In fact, you may be better off launching a new category into an existing (and much larger TAM) than also taking the task of creating / expanding a smaller TAM. The work that Gong and Dr

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Nipul Chokshi

Head of Marketing at Atrium • September 8

I don’t think it’s super critical for there to be a “new role” when creating a new category. When I was at Yammer, for example, we defined the “Enterprise Social Networking” category but made it a mus

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Mike Berger

Vice President Product Marketing at ClickUp | Formerly Momentive, Gainsight, Marketo • December 20

You can create a category either way, but either way it isn't easy! Gainsight is a great example of a company that created a category by building a platform for, and championing, a new role that had

6 Saves

Product Marketing

Do you have any top tips for layering and reviewing your messaging?

1 answer

Product Marketing

For a team member newer to the discipline, how do you train messaging and positioning?

where do you start? what kind of classes? etc.

3 answers

Diego Lomanto

Chief Marketing Officer at Ada • May 11

There are a host of good training options out there. Sharebird is a good place to start and you can google alternatives as well. I mentioned a few books earlier on as well - Al Ries and Jack Trout

12 Saves

Alissa Lydon

Head of Marketing at LEVEE | Formerly Mezmo, Sauce Labs • October 11

Almost everything I learned about messaging I learned by watching other companies who do it really well. These can be similar players in your space (even competitors), or even products/brands you real

10 Saves

Nisha Goklaney

Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot | Formerly Intuit, American Express, Sage • November 9

There are a host of good training options out there: 1. Sharebird - a great place to start. Here you can get real industry expertise and resources from folks in the field 2. PMM Alliance - They have

60 Saves