Florian Delval

The number #1 recommendation is cross functional alignment. In organizations of any size–small and large–it's not sufficient to have only your direct leadership on board with the GTM strategy. Ensuring that the product, sales, and professional services leadership are informed and explicitly supportive is crucial. The plan should be accessible to all stakeholders and leadership, maintained diligently to reflect any updates. Lastly, make sure to explicitly document any blocker, risks and remediation plans. Once again, don’t assume these issues are automatically acknowledged by others, proactively engage leadership for resolution when necessary. Conversely, I've discovered that overly frequent or detailed updates can detract from the focus on critical issues. They can obscure key points rather than clarifying them. I also advise against mixing leadership updates and regular syncs of working teams. While it demands more effort from the GTM leader, separating meetings based on their defined objectives will ensure to improve the relevance and productivity of these discussions. Finally, every company has different strengths and flows. Learn from each GTM execution, and iterate to remove uncovered challenges in future GTMs.

SMB Markets: Often, the end users and those making the purchase decisions are the same individuals, which simplifies the marketing approach. Enterprise Markets: In contrast, the enterprise presents a more intricate scenario. Purchase decisions are typically orchestrated by leadership teams, often seated at the VP or C-levels. While Directors and above may have influence—even if they don't control the budget—the focus of marketing efforts are best served for prospective buyers. In parallel, product marketers can support their solution engineering team to ensure that a compelling user journey and story is shared during product demos.

To begin with, ensure that the product team is fully briefed on the activities planned throughout the launch process, covering pre-launch, launch day, and post-launch phases. Following the launch, consider both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative: Focus on quantitative data related to external activities and insights. Disregard metrics like attendance at sales enablement sessions as they don't offer significant value. * Assess the results across various planned activities, such as the number of pickups for a press release or the registrations and attendees for a webinar. Did the launch start generating new pipelines? Whenever possible, compare these quantitative metrics to historical data, identifying any noteworthy shifts, such as an increase in webinar attendance compared to previous launches. Qualitative: Here, both internal and external data play crucial roles. * Internal: Analyze the teams' reactions during launch preparation. What questions were raised, and were there instances where the launch influenced active opportunities? Conduct interviews with a few stakeholders to collect proactive feedback. * External: Dig into the details of the quantitative metrics. For a press release, explore whether you secured an exclusive (if that was the intention). Regarding webinars, assess whether the attendees align with your target companies and roles—having only competitors show up is not beneficial. A successful launch often involves additional positive signals: spontaneous inquiries from interested parties. Analysts reaching out to the AR team, prospects to the sales team, and customers to the Professional Services team asking to learn more about what has been launched are all indicators of success. Regular touchpoints with the Product team, a few days and weeks after the launch, are recommended. During these conversations, present a structured summary of the collected data, accompanied by recommended next steps for the team.

The key to efficiently creating "new feature" content at scale lies in implementing a structured template and a streamlined process. 1. Template for Consistency & Efficiency: A template outlines the content's structure and specifies the expected information in each section. This consistency not only expedites content creation but also establishes a unified representation of the brand and style. 2. Process for Efficiency: A process designates responsibilities for each aspect, such as copywriting, approval, and design. It guides the team through the steps from content creation to publication. Feature Importance Tiers: To prioritize efforts, I like to categorize features into different tiers: * Tier 1: Unique, differentiated features with significant impact on customer acquisition or upsells. * Tier 2: Features that bridge gaps, not necessarily differentiated but crucial for customer requirements. * Tier 3: Tactical features for users which would not be visible or supportive in a sales cycle. I typically recommend to "ignore" Tier 3 features in Product Marketing. These can be covered in product documentation and release notes, with requiring marketing. For Tier 1 and 2 features, I define MVP content to be systematically built. I'm usually considering the strict minimum (high velocity, limited resources): * A 1-pager to describe the feature and benefits (leave behind PDF) * A 1-slider to share the same information during a presentation Your team size, the product velocity and additional elements will dictate what can be reasonably planned at scale.

Preparation: DON’T: Join the first call without any preparation. DO: Conduct thorough research on the company's recent results, key initiatives, strategies, and potential pain points. Be well-versed in their business landscape to drive meaningful conversation. Humility and Openness: DON’T: Assume that you are right and know everything. DO: Ask open-ended questions and seek validation. Encourage the prospect to share additional insights and perspectives. This approach builds a collaborative environment and helps uncover aspects you might not have considered. Conversational Approach: KEY: The first conversation should be as conversational as possible, emphasizing listening, showing interest in their business, and building empathy and trust. Deck Presentation: DON’T: Insert too many slides; first conversations rarely extend beyond 30 minutes. DO: Keep the deck concise and impactful, ensuring that each slide serves a specific purpose. Suggested Flow: Slide 1 - Research Results: Objective: Show that the team came prepared, confirm findings, explore further, and agree on key success measures (e.g., revenue growth, operational improvement, etc). Slide 2 - Pain Points: Objective: Identify and understand their current pain points, exploring previous attempts to address them. Slide 3 - Mission and Opportunity: Objective: Share your mission, aligning it with solving their pain points. Explain why your solution is unique. Slide 4 - Proof Point: Objective: Establish trust by sharing a relevant success story, demonstrating your capability to address their challenges effectively. Slide 5 - Call to Action: Objective: Discuss immediate next steps, proactively provide recommendations such as bringing the right resources, offering to share more about the product, educating about a complex topic critical for an evaluation process. Additional Key Points: * Be prepared with tailored decks for different campaigns, plays, or personas. * Regularly listen to sales calls, collect feedback, and adapt your approach based on continuous learning. A successful first call deck not only showcases your understanding of the prospect's needs but also fosters engagement and sets the stage for a productive collaboration.

7 tips to go back to when looking to be successful: * Learn what success means. Success for product marketing could mean different things in different companies, but also at different times within the same company! Make sure that for every initiative, you are clear on what success means. In most cases you should look for a quantifiable success metric to achieve the next point. * Measure. Knowing what success means, you can define a plan, execute and measure your result(s). This can be a continuous cycle. * Challenge the status quo. It’s not because things have always been done a certain way there a different approach wouldn’t provide a better result. When possible, experience new approaches. * Embrace change. Change is often scary, but most successful employees, including product marketers, will embrace change. * Listen. You won’t be able to support other teams such as product and sales if you don’t first listen to them. * Prioritize. Product marketing teams will always be too small, you will always have more on your plate than you can take. Prioritize often, learn to say no. * Be proactive. Best product marketers can anticipate market trends, sales needs, and growing competition to face. By being proactive, you are increasing your chances of being ready for what’s coming.

I've seen this happen at a few occasions where my material would be directly or indirectly copied. To address this challenge and stand out, consider the following insights: * Positive Perspective: The silver lining is that being copied serves as a powerful validation of the success and impact of our work. * Continuous Innovation: Consider the unique innovations your product and engineering teams have developed that set you apart in the market. While competitors may replicate successful features, consistently pushing the boundaries ensures you stay ahead. Think of how Uber's rideshare business prompted imitation, forcing them to continually enhance their offerings. Here are some practical recommendations to differentiate and minimize the impact of competitors copying your content: * Customer Stories: Competitors can mimic messaging, but they can't replicate your customer stories. Incorporate quotes, case studies, or other elements that showcase the unique experiences of your customers. This adds a distinctive touch to your material. * Partners: If you're launching a new product or feature without customer content, utilize the voices of your partners. Their perspectives and endorsements won't be reproduced (as easily). * Survey and Data: Share the results of surveys you've conducted or leverage your data such as product usage and performance metrics. Competitors are less likely to promote results that aren't their own! * Branding: Strengthen your materials through visual elements, structure, and writing style that reflect your unique brand. These aspects are harder for competitors to copy. More than just safeguards, these elements will continue to set you apart!

Locating experienced Product Marketing professionals can be challenging, especially considering the relatively recent emergence of the function. The good news is that Product Marketing is a highly cross functional role, and most promising talent often possess experience in at least one role a Product Marketer collaborates closely with: marketing, sales, professional services or product. This background brings not only a deep understanding of these other functions but also greatly facilitates trust and streamlines collaboration. In terms of the recruiting process itself, a traditional yet efficient approach is to have both conversations and an hands-on assessment of the candidates. Some candidates will excel at “self-promotion”, while others best demonstrate their capabilities through action. Employing both strategies allows for a comprehensive evaluation, providing the insights necessary to make informed hiring decisions.

Let's start with a fact: despite our wishes, a Product Marketing team cannot create tailored content for every sales opportunity or match every account executive’s style and preferred content format. Time and resources are and will remain constrained. Assess your capacity (personal and team), whether you are already using AI to asset you or not. From there, you can strategize on maximizing your impact within your capacity limits. A few tips which could apply to any organization and team size: * Prioritization. Recognize that you cannot fulfill every request coming your way. Mastering prioritization and the ability to say "no," or to defer requests to a backlog, is crucial. Other tips listed below can help in this prioritization exercise. * Historical Analysis. Evaluate the impact of previously created content. Identify which materials were successful and which did not achieve their intended impact. Investigate potential reasons behind their success or failure. If the content varied in format, note which formats were most used. * Existing Content Audit. Before addressing a new content request, review if similar content has been produced before. Could existing materials be repurposed or updated to meet current needs with less effort? * Alternatives to Content Creation. If immediate content creation isn't feasible, recommend existing materials that may satisfy 80% of the request's requirements in the meantime. * Version 1. I love to create perfect content. However, even with proper analysis, you may miss the mark and the content won’t perform as expected (no downloads, no sales engagement, whichever metric matters). By creating a v1, you can quickly gather feedback, and iterate when the content potential is confirmed!