Chris Glanzman

At smaller companies, DG/Growth and Product Marketing are typically the same team (or person!), and the two functions should try to work just as closely together as companies grow. The hub of this collaboration is campaign ideation and design. As the teams formulate their GTM hypotheses ("campaigns"), both functions contribute their knowledge and information. Who brings what information is typically where the delineation happens:

• In a past life as a Demand Marketer, we were experts on in-channel performance and pipeline metrics. We also added qualitative insight from our execution channels like social post comments, email replies, etc. Generally we were also more familiar with what spend levels and allocations might be required.
• As a Product Marketer we contribute very different information. Generally, our Product Marketers have a higher level view of financial performance for different product and vertical segments. Product Marketers bring with them deeper knowledge of our offerings, what makes them different from competitors, and why a target audience should care.

One peculiarity that keeps this motion from being a truly linear handoff is the need for feedback loops. Again, at its core, a campaign is really a GTM hypothesis, so we constantly measure and adjust. The delineation of responsibilities here typically depends on the source of that feedback. Similar to campaign planning, DG/Growth will bring feedback from the GTM channels. Product Marketing is more likely to own Win/Loss Interviews (potentially in collaboration with Product).

After working through Positioning, I will build Messaging from the bottom-up. The bottom-up approach automatically encourages you to elevate your messaging from technical details and features. More specifically, I build in this order: Features -> Benefits -> Value -> Message.

Some definitions that might be helpful:

• Features: This is what your product or service does. Even though I talk about these as features, be sure to expand your thinking to include all capabilities related to the offering. For example, if you offer white-glove support when competitors don't, that better be on your list of features.
• Benefits: These are the typical benefits you'll see in B2B marketing. Save time. Save money. Increase Visibility. All those ROI calculator line items.
• Value: This takes the benefits a step further and articulates what your target buyers/users will get from the benefits. This should be framed in terms of what your audience cares about. Can they actually enjoy a vacation because they can truly unplug? Will this improve the likelihood of them receiving a promotion? Getting to this step requires truly knowing your audience.
• Message: This borders on being a tagline. It's a brief statement that articulates the value(s) and creates a feeling or aspiration to realize them. 

This approach has served me well to create a natural balance between technical details (Features) and emotion (Messages).

Successfully launching a product these days is an undertaking that requires careful consideration and planning. A lot of factors go into deciding which channels to use for your launch campaign, but there are some key questions you need to ask yourself first:

• What are the goals of my campaign?
• Who do I want to reach with this campaign?
• Where can I find them?
• How much time and money do I have available for my marketing efforts?

These are just a few of the many considerations you'll need to make before diving in.

I start by thinking about the goal of the campaign and who I'm talking to. Then I think about which channels to use to reach them.

You should make sure that you are using the right channels for your customers. This will help you meet them with a compelling message in a place they’ll actually see it. If you're not sure which channels are most appropriate, talk to some customers to find out what they need in different moments.

Finally, discuss your plan with other people. They can tell you if they agree or have more advice on how to do it.

This is 100% possible. I made the exact move from Digital Marketing to Product Marketing just a year ago. To make that switch, I would highlight a few areas, and you should look to build this experience if you don't have it yet.

1. Prove you're customer insights-driven. If you clearly demonstrate that you've somehow researched customers and implemented changes based on the insights gathered, you'll be off to a great start. Don't just describe an A/B test, though. Qualitative insights can be gold for this purpose. Even viewing session recordings on your site to reveal user path issues could count toward this. Perfection would be conducting interviews about the site and whether it helps visitors accomplish their desired tasks.
2. Demonstrate your ability to prioritize market opportunities. Detail an accomplishment or project that describes a time you identified an opportunity (ideally an external market), weighed it against alternatives, and put together a plan to pursue the opportunity.
3. You'll likely need to demonstrate some proficiency in the company's product or familiarity with the market they're in. You will probably be able to relate your marketing capability without too much issue, but the other two big rocks of Product Marketing knowledge need to be addressed (Market Knowledge and Product Knowledge). 

95% of launch post-mortem discussions fall into one of two categories:

1. Execution: These points are focused on how the launch process went, how the team performed against the plan, and whether the process needs any adjustments. With the complexity and scale of some launches, expect for communication to be a big talking point here. The goal of reviewing this is to determine how the organization can improve the process for the next go-around.
2. Effectiveness: This is focused on the outcomes of your particular launch. My launches typically have a lot of up-front activity and promotion, but we work even harder to make sure that the launch isn't a flash in a pan. Depending on the launch, it may fold into an ongoing campaign or become one of its own. Regardless of the type, we take this time to step back and review whether the launch's product-market hypothesis is on point. We cna do all the research in the world leading into a launch, but we still always learn something new along the way. The goal of this component is to make sure those feedback loops are functioning, document those learnings, and apply them to go-to-market efforts moving forward.

A few years ago, I stopped structuring the actual conversations this way. We found that we weren't giving enough attention to the things that were going well, and some post-mortems completely devolved into group complaint sessions. I switched to a meeting where each functional stakeholder/participant gets a time allotment and covers the three items below. It's worth noting that I believe this specific order to be an important factor in keeping the conversations productive.

1. What's going well: Share wins, achievements, and what's working correctly. If you're familiar with the Start/Stop/Keep Doing framework, this section maps directly to the Keep Doing bucket.
2. What's in the way: This is raising awareness of speedbumps. Because these reviews are cross-functional, this is a great opportunity to share friction points that you may need another function to help resolve. This is also an opportunity to share the need for additional tooling or resources if the constraint is contributing to problems.
3. Even better if: I believe this to be the most valuable of the three topics. These points are typically a stretch or highly idealistic, but it lets the group discuss ways to take incremental steps toward that ideal state.

Entering a new market organically can be incredibly difficult, so the first step is always to check that there is enough opportunity in the new market to warrant the time and resources. From that new market, you'll want to carve out your beachhead market segments.

Identifying the beachhead segment(s) is a strategic exercise, not a tactical one. That means you'll need to pick the 1 or 2 segments where you have a competitive advantage over incumbent offerings and substitutes. This is close to the "Right to Win" concept many companies use.

To solidify the segment definition, it's best to do market research to find the "edges". Start with a hypothesis about the definition then conduct market research on both sides of those segment boundaries. I've been surprised how quickly we can tell whether we hit the mark. Depending on what this research produces, you may need to adjust the variables you're using to define the market (ex. switch from Revenue to Employee Count), refine the thresholds instead (ex. changing Employee Count from +1,000 to +5,000).

The one thing to keep in mind is you're doing this segmentation and research to "de-risk" your market entry. You won't be able to take all the risk out, but vigilance here will dramatically improve your chances of a successful launch.

The most helpful advice I ever received for collaborating with Sales and Product teams is to reframe your thinking to be that of an Educator with these other teams being your learners. To be an effective Educator, you need to understand your material and equip your learners with the knowledge they need to apply the information in their own roles. Tactically, this will look very different for Sales and Product because their needs and functions are so different.

One of the biggest benefits I gained from this advice is a very tangible example of what good looks like for product marketing. Following the same Educator analogy, think about the most inspiring or memorable teacher/professor you had. The characteristics and abilities that made them stand out are very closely aligned with the same qualities that create a highly collaborative Product Marketer.

This is really two questions with very different answers:

KPI's:

Especially for KPI's, drawing a solid line between Product Marketing and Demand Gen is unnecessary; it could even cause harm to collaboration between the two functions. Both teams are working to drive new sign-ups, adoption, or revenue related to the product/feature being launched. Both teams should carry goals toward that outcome to make sure all incentives are aligned. Choosing the ones that makes the most sense will depend on your customer acquisition mechanism.

Responsibilities:

Responsibilities are a bit easier to separate between the two functions as they're traditionally defined. Product marketing will typically be accountable for buyer persona definition, identifying the ideal customer profile, competitive intelligence, and positioning. Many Product Marketers will also own messaging, but I have a lot of success co-developing messaging with Demand Generation, especially if the product or feature being launched isn't a new category for the company.

In that responsibility breakdown, Demand Generation will be accountable for promotional execution. My expectation is that Demand Marketers will know which channels to activate to reach target buyers and how to allocate budget across those channels.

There are three capabilities you'll want to be sure are covered in forming a modern PLG marketing team. This is my take on their order:

1. Measurement: Make sure you have a Revenue Operations role in the company that will set up and maintain the data pipeline you'll need. At a smaller company, this will likely be a centralized Rev Ops role. You'll need to ensure they include Marketing considerations and data elements in their process. Ultimately, you'll need to make sure someone is helping you measure your impact on bookings and revenue.
2. Content Creation: You'll need someone who can create compelling, informative content for your target buyers. In a perfect world, this person will also have expertise in your domain, but that isn't an absolute requirement. If you already bring some of this skillset to the table, hire for the missing piece(s). For example, if you're a prolific writer, add design capability so that you have full coverage in content mediums.
3. Content Distribution: Once you have content, you need to get it in front of your buyers. This will look different depending on where your buyers spend time and your company's growth strategy. If your company doesn't subscribe to ad investment as a significant growth lever, you might double-down in organic channel expertise. 

Above all else, use measurements that impact company performance, especially for success measures that will be shared more broadly. These are our top-level pipeline measurements:

• Bookings
• Depending on your business, you might supplement Bookings with a measure of revenue retention. This is especially true if these cycles are relatively short (< 1 year). In many B2B settings, contracts are annual or multi-year, so there is too much lag to be helpful as a campaign measurement.
• Pipeline Velocity and its four components:
• Sales-qualified opportunities
• Win rate
• Average sale price
• Average sales cycle
• Cost
• Combine this with Bookings to understand your customer acquisition cost.

There are a lot of other measurements you can put in place upstream from these (and should), but those are for the Marketing team to optimize channel-mix and in-channel execution. The rest of the company shouldn't care about those.