Elise Beck

There are a few ways you can validate your messaging:  I like to start by doing a customer listening tour. Spend some time getting to know your target customer and pay close attention to the way that they are describing their process and pain points. When you unveil your final messaging, it's important that you're speaking to your audience in the words that they use to ensure that your message resonates.  I also like to look at market trends and SEO insights to help inform the direction. I'll of ...Read More

The most important part of messaging is actually your positioning. I like to think of it as a sculpture where positioning is the armature -- the most foundational skeleton or bones of the thing. Without the armature, your sculpture could easily lose shape and fall apart. Without positioning, your messaging could easily lose shape and fall apart. Your positioning should be really explicit about: The name of your product or feature The category that your product or feature fits into The target aud ...Read More

When it comes to aligning the goals of your product and PMM teams, it's important to first look at your company's overarching OKRs--which should act as a guiding star for your entire organization. Once you have a clear understanding of these company-level OKRs, you can start to align your product and product marketing teams around a shared goal. This can be achieved by breaking down the company-level objectives into smaller, more specific goals that are relevant to your product and marketing str ...Read More

I do think it's important to ladder your product positioning into the broader product portfolio and/or company message. I've talked about the 6 components of your positioning (Product Name, Category Name, Target Audience, Key Benefits, Key Differentiators, and Reasons to Believe)... when reflecting on your Reason to Believe, I feel like there is often something in there that will tie back to your broader product portfolio and/or company message. Let's take HubSpot as an example. HubSpot's missio ...Read More

This is a great question! While I don't have 3 perfect insights up my sleeve, I'd love to share my take. Marketing to developers has been tricky for me, usually because the developer sits just outside of our core product offering. In my case, I've spent lots of time understanding various marketing and sales personas. Not so much developers. With whatever you're marketing, it's important to spend a good amount of time deeply embedded in the world of your customer, understanding their pain points ...Read More

I believe that every idea and request can be valuable, and at Wistia, we've worked hard to foster a culture where product ideas and feedback are openly shared. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but we strive to make feedback visible and welcome. It's important to keep in mind that sometimes what seems like a great idea could actually be a bug (this happened to me recently) or something that's already being evaluated. You never know when your feedback could be the missing piece to a ...Read More

This is a great question! At Wistia and HubSpot, we implemented a "Product Spotlight Series" as a monthly mechanism to showcase incremental product improvements to customers via email, blog posts, and videos. This approach reminds customers that your product is continuously evolving and encourages them to revisit features that they may have overlooked. Additionally, as the product evolves, it's essential to run campaigns that celebrate the new functionality. It's also beneficial to consider re-e ...Read More

In my experience, it's important for the product team to establish their own OKRs that ladder into the company-level objectives. However, creating a culture of agility that enables quick and reliable product releases can be a real challenge. I've been in scenarios where the product organization has struggled with scoping work effectively or in some cases they've had super ambitious plans for MVPs that would take forever to build. As a product marketer, I've found that building strong relationshi ...Read More

In product marketing, we often focus on brand-new features that can attract new customers and expand our market. But for existing customers who've already bought in, sometimes the little updates make the biggest impact. To ensure that the product team prioritizes these updates, it's really important to have visibility into how customers are experiencing the product. While average NPS score is a useful benchmark, support inquiries can provide more valuable feedback. By analyzing support tickets a ...Read More

Again, I think this is where it's helpful to align with your company-level OKRs. At a high level, you're all working towards the same goals. If you have an idea that you think might help you achieve those goals, it's important to share that with your product org. Any data you can bring to the conversation will certainly be helpful -- whether that's trends you're seeing in your existing funnel or macro trends like search volume for keywords you might be trying to go after (this is especially valu ...Read More