Greg Gsell

VP, Product Marketing, Attentive

Content

What messaging and persona framework do you use and how much of competitive positioning do you cover in Messaging?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

Competitive positioning and messaging have to be one and the same. When you look at your decks and positioning, you need to do the gut check of "can my competitors say this" and if yes, change your messaging. You need to build competitive differentiation from the first impression through the enti......Read More

1589 Views

How do you create competitive intel that is really beneficial to sales (i.e. they actually read and use it)?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

I try to use the Pyramid approach to all content. Start with just absolute essential information, then expand. This way sales reps are able to capture the exact right amount of information in the most efficient way possible. For example, say we are an apple company and our competition is thos......Read More

603 Views

How do you operationalize messaging so it works for all go-to-market teams?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • April 16

The key to build messaging that scales is to spend extra time on the core messaging hierarchy at the beginning. Spend the extra time debating and socializing key concepts like: * Who is it for * What situation are they in? * Pain Points * Top level message * Supporting Messaging points......Read More

537 Views

Winning NEW customers vs. Retaining EXISTING customers - which do you prioritize, and how do you drive your team based on that?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

I have worked at two different companies and we approached it entirely differently. At the first company, we were far and away the market leader and defined the space. Here, we almost entirely focused on new logo acquisition for competition. If we won up front, we had the better product and w......Read More

512 Views

What are some great examples of bold — yet tasteful — competitive positioning you've seen in the market? How can companies straddle the line without turning it into a game of finger-pointing?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

I will answer this question the total opposite way that you asked it based on something I saw this morning. I was making my son a bagel with cream cheese. The cream cheese had a logo saying "Our cows saw NOOOOO to ABCDE hormone". I am not here to comment on anything to do with farming. What struc......Read More

499 Views

How often should a fairly mature product re-assess its messaging?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • April 16

Overall, you should at least look at it annually. Based on the progress we have made, the market shifts, etc, is this still the best way to articulate the value? Is it still working with field? Sometimes you need to adjust messaging to get sellers excited to go pitch it again. You also need to......Read More

486 Views

How do you obtain competitive intelligence on a competitor's product that has very little public-facing marketing around it?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

Call them! It is all fair game. Going deep on youtube and searching their exec team is also a great resource. Odds are even if they don't have public content, the CEO has spoken at a conference at some point. I always get a lot of info from new hires who came from competitors as well. You can wor......Read More

476 Views

What constitutes a competitor, and what is the goal you have in mind when you conduct competitor analysis?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • March 23

'I think a competitor is anyone who is in or adjacent to your space. Said another way, a competitor is a vendor that can cause confusion or slow down your sales cycle for some reason. There are a few different types of competitors: * Main competitors - the ones who you are competing with head o......Read More

472 Views

What is your strategy for messaging a product that is very early in its lifecycle but is a differentiator for the company?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • April 16

An old boss used to say "don't let the product get in the way of a good story". In order to stay head of your competitors, you will likely need to future sell. It is important to be aligned with the product team on WHY they are building the product, jobs to be done, etc and articulate that north ......Read More

466 Views

When you're messaging for a product that doesn't fit into a category, is it better to utilize messaging that alludes to products they're familiar with to make it easier to digest or to be bold and describe it as something new?

Greg Gsell

Attentive VP, Product Marketing • April 16

It is a balance. At the core, you need to be bold and describe something new. You are doing something differently than the "old way" and you need to be assertive on why your way is best. You can allude to product they are familiar with as the "old way" to anchor the story. For example: Here i......Read More