What do you look for in a candidate when hiring for a leadership role— what are a few key value adds that they need to bring to the table for you on day 1?

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All related (51)

VP, Product Marketing at UiPath

I look for a growth mindset, collaborative personality and humility. Obviously they need to be good at the core product marketing skills and have demonstrated success in other roles but for a leader I want to see them drive unity across the org. Regarding a growth mindset - I want them thinking about what are we not doing that we should be doing. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day work of product marketing and end up being tactical. I want them thinking strategically about how to drive growth and product success beyond the work right in front of them.

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Kristen Ribero

Senior Director of Corporate Marketing at Handshake

Insights are extremely important and should always be an input into your messaging architecture or recommendation. Market and customer insights are one of the best ways to make a case for your recommendation, in fact. So you don't get stuck in an analysis paralysis state, I'd do a quick audit to understand the current state of data and insights as it pertains to your product/market/etc. Find out: * What research is complete and available? This could be something like a survey to your database that was run in the past, research you paid for, data and analysis from things like a T...more

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Sarah Lambert

SVP, Marketing at Buckzy Payments

There are a lot of messaging frameworks out there to choose from, but I take a bottom up approach: I start with the differentiators and proof points and then build my elevator pitch, value prop statements and long descriptions from those foundational components. I also use the rule of 3 for my differentiators and proof points. If you find yourself with a laundry list of differentiators or proof points, start looking for similiarities among those components to create larger "buckets" so that your audience has an easier time remembering your message.

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Diana Smith

Director of Brand and Product Marketing, Twilio.org at Twilio

These are all interrelated.

Messaging: Includes value propositions, your story, and pitch. Also includes things like naming, alternatives, and taglines.
Value Proposition: These are the top benefits you want to focus on for your product based on customer and competitive unput
Pitch & Story: These should be the same. Your pitch about the world before your product, the current approach, why it’s bad, the business consequences, and the new world with your product should tell a story. This story should hit on your main messaging points and value propositions.

Hope that helps!

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Derek Frome

Vice President Marketing at Ouster.io

Painted door tests are your friend here (google it). You could create two or three landing pages with different message variants, each of which leads to a "request access" form. Depending on what your campaign is for, your message testing could be as simple as running it by product managers or account managers. Or you could grab a few web visitors through a Qualaroo survey and interview them. You could grab people and buy them a coffee at a conference. Basically, there's no big trick to this - you just have to do it. If you're getting feedback on your messaging from your target audience or ...more

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Priya Gill

Vice President, Product Marketing at Momentive

As counterintuitive as this may sound, simple messaging isn’t always the way to go. It really comes down to your target buyer(s) and the set of messages that resonate with them, which may need to be simple for a line of business buyer like Marketing or HR or more complex/technical for an IT/Developer buyer. But it always comes back to understanding your target audience and their pain points, and ensuring you're tailoring your messaging for them. Also, depending on the channel/medium where your messaging is shared, it may necessitate varying altitudes. For example, Social Media is a clear c...more

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Matt Hodges

Head of Product Marketing Craft at Atlassian

I'm out of time, but real quick, Patagonia and Apple are favorites of mine. They both have brands that stand for something, and they continually demonstrate their commitment to their vision in their actions. On top of that, they both have high-quality products.

I believe that product and marketing are two sides of the same coin–you can't be a successful, sustainable business without one or the other.

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