What does a product marketing team do differently when targeting SMB buyers vs enterprise buyers?

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Head of Product Marketing, Narvar | Formerly Iterable, HubSpot, IBM • April 7

Great question. I think there's a number of different things in these motions - but fundamentally SMB is more of a "one to many" motion, whereas enterprise is a more ABM-centric motion.

Given the team structure question here, this means that Solutions Marketing in SMB/Mid-Market thinks about and works with our Demadn Gen team in marketing around campaigns and positioning, content, and offerings, that can appeal broadly to a specific trend, iniative, or vertical. Whereas with Enterprise it applies to a specific company and going deeply into strategy and solutions.

Product Marketing overall should have "brand level" programs that are global and for the entire market, and then tailored initiatives -- in concert with our counterparts in Sales and Marketing of course -- that specifically go deeper.

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Rekha Srivatsan

VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • July 27

Obviously, the target personas are different which informs the messaging, positioning, pricing, and packaging strategy.

But at a high level, in SMB, the user and the decision-maker are usually the same person. This means the ROI of a solution or feature is extremely important and needs to be highlighted more in the messaging.
SMBs are also really big on word of mouth, so use that tactic to your advantage -- a referral program is a great example.
Leverage your customers as much as you can in your marketing mix for SMBs.
Website is a great lead channel for SMBs, so make sure your website is up-to-date and has relevant SMB messaging.

Hope this helps!

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Priya Gill

Vice President, Product Marketing, Momentive

First off, I'll say that I'm never a fan of making someone create messaging/positioning and defining a GTM plan about the interviewing company's product because you're never going to get to the level of knowledge as someone in the company...and it takes way longer to do it right. OK, rant over. :) Typically when I ask candidates to give a presentation, it's less about the specific products they're presenting, but rather HOW they present it. Can the candidate articulate how they effectively approached their GTM strategy, from ideation to execution and beyond. Can they clearly understand t...

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Brianne Shally

Head of Product Marketing, Nextdoor

* B2B and B2C are both H2H (human to human) marketing at the end of the day. I’ve seen folks try to say there's a strong distinction and to ‘pick a lane’. I’m of the mindset that B2B and B2C are more similar than different. I’ve found my experience in B2B especially, in demand gen, has helped me with B2C thinking through app store activations and vice versa. * That said, here’s the minor nuances that I’m oversimplifying: * Sales Enablement: You must work closely with the Sales team to ensure they are prepared with a deep understanding of the marketplace, personas, ...

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Claire Maynard

Marketing, Magical

(This answer is copied from a previous question) I believe it's important to start out with how product marketing is the same across a self-serve/product-led motion and a sales-led motion. In my opinion, the core pillars of the product marketing responsibilities remain: * Target audience and buyer definition * Positioning and messaging * Pricing and packaging * Product narrative and storytelling * Product and feature launches * and so on... With either motion, you have to be an expert in your product, customer, and market. Where the function starts to differ is how you design your...

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Christy Roach

Head of Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing, Airtable

I can’t speak for how a team at a company I haven’t worked for but here’s how I’ve seen land and expand work well in the past. The TL;DR is that your land strategy should be very focused on the initial purchase/use of your product and your expand strategy should focus on building on momentum from the existing product and making clear that expanding the use of your products will provide exponential value for your customers. With a “land” strategy, the big goal is to start small/manageable, especially if your customer is a small team. A land strategy is focused on getting the first foothold ...

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Mike Polner

VP Marketing, Cameo | Formerly Uber, Fivestars, Electronic Arts

I think there has been a massive shift in just the awareness and momentum around Consumer Product Marketing overall. When I joined Eats 3 years ago as the first Consumer PMM, everybody was asking what this role was and how we were different than Brand Marketing or Performance Marketing. Not only at Uber has that changed dramatically, but also, within the industry there has been a really evolution of folks who would traditionally be in "Brand Management" roles at CPG companies starting to move into PMM roles at tech companies. I think there are a lot of similiarities between those two actual...

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Jeffrey Vocell

Head of Product Marketing, Narvar | Formerly Iterable, HubSpot, IBM

There's a lot of potential variability here depending on company, exact role, industry, and more. That said, here are a few ideas of what you can show: * Cross-functional Initiative: If you've directly led a cross-functional initiatve that drovesome key business results, showcase them! For example, a sales deck that you created that drove win rates in that vertical. Talk through how you worked with Sales to create the deck and enabled the team doing so. * Launch campagin: This is similar to above, but showcase a launch campaign that you worked on and the results it had on ...

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