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Caroline Walthall

Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing, Quizlet

About

I lead product marketing at Quizlet focusing on holistic messaging, pricing & packaging, and customer engagement & monetization. Prior to Quizlet I was a PMM and lifecycle marketer at Udemy.

Content

How does your product marketing team usually work with your product team?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 31

We have a product pod structure at Quizlet. Each product pod has 1-2 very clear business goals and usually owns certain product lines or domain areas. Every pod has a PM, a PMM, a designer, a product analyst, a product support specialist, an engineering manager, and an engineering team. This ......Read More

1591 Views

What's a common mistake you see companies make with regard to product launches?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 15

Beyond the 5 “don’t”s I listed in another question, here are two others: * Not having tight enough clarity and communication about what the launch stages look like for all stakeholders. Sometimes it’s fine to have a more decoupled feature/product release and marketing launch, but oftentim......Read More

1552 Views

How often is too often when it comes to launching a new product feature/enhancement publicly?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 15

If your industry thrives on frequent technology updates, quarterly can make sense, or potentially even more frequently than that. It really comes down to how you balance out your marketing and product calendars. What events or “moments” has your company established that serve as anchors your loya......Read More

1541 Views

How do you get your product team to involve product marketing early enough in the strategy and product planning phases?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 31

If you can get it, the most important thing is executive buy-in for a team structure that honors marketing not just in the end phase, but also as a crucial thought partner to product and design. If you’ve had product launches that haven’t landed with the impact expected, those are great case stud......Read More

1541 Views

How can I gain influence with Product, especialy around input into their roadmap, when they're used to operating without a Product Marketing Manager?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 31

Other than the things already mentioned throughout my answers (relationship building, offering to facilitate planning sessions, etc.), I would also try to show them your own marketing calendar/roadmap. Share what you think your goals will be and ask to compare it to the rough product roadmap.......Read More

1268 Views

Beyond email, what other channels have you found most effective and/or impactful in terms of communicating with users?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 15

It depends on your product and business model. Since Quizlet is a freemium model that offers a ton of value to more than 50 million students each month, we focus a lot on the onsite placements that capture active user attention. Pop up modals and banners can be really useful to get your messag......Read More

1222 Views

How do you get product management to focus more on customer problems and solving them, and less on shipping features that customers don't need?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 31

Yes! I can relate! Feature-level messages are so limited on the marketing side. Part of your job as PMM is help recommend the best way to 1) connect features benefits, 2) roll benefits into value props, and 3) provide positioning statements for your target markets. PMMs can take the lead o......Read More

1219 Views

What are the top 5 "don't"s you see too many PMMs doing when launching a new product as a product marketing manager?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 15

1. No clear messaging target - it’s almost impossible to write copy for everyone, so it ends up being for no one. In this scenario, we also become more tempted to use our internal lingo in absence of anything more specific, which almost never works. Even if you want to reach a broad ......Read More

1203 Views

What steps do you take when analyzing the customer journey?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 15

Build from what you know If you’re doing this to prepare for a launch, I’d consider whether this new feature or product is for a similar audience that you already target. If are marketing to a large portion of your existing customers, you may already have some journey insights. It helps to plot ......Read More

1161 Views

As a product marketer, how do you ensure that your customer research & insights are relevant and actually actionable/useful for product teams as they develop the product roadmap?

Caroline Walthall

Quizlet Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing • January 31

Set super clear research goals whenever you talk to customers or conduct a research study. As part of those goals, explain what the physical output of the research will be and articulate next actions the team should be able to take. Examples might be something like "create a customer journey ......Read More

1152 Views

Credentials & Highlights

Director of Product and Lifecycle Marketing at Quizlet

Formerly Udemy