Jeff Hardison

Because product marketing is such a collaborative function -- we're like diplomats and glue between product-engineering-design, marketing, customer success, and sales (if you have it) -- I try to open up my "empathy reserves" for the various departments I'm going to work with. If it's B2C, I think about product-engineering-design, customer support (dealing with thousands of tickets), and my friends in marketing. If it's B2B, I think about all of the above plus the sales team (which is likely a newer department than the B2C ones and, therefore, they're probably struggling to get resources ...

I just say, "I really think this feature idea is really cool!"  Just kidding. One of my go-to tactics is compiling customer feedback about a problem or feature idea from several customers. Create a Notion document, outline the problem, and list several quotes from customers about said problem. Even better, get Gong/Chorus recordings of the customers talking about the problem to bring the issue to life. 

I’d have to see your assignment response to make recommendations! And I probably shouldn’t print my recommendations here publicly, as this company probably wants to keep the assignment confidential. Feel free to befriend me on LinkedIn, and I'll take a look at your assignment and give you feedback. 

I feel fortunate that I’ve led positioning/messaging workshops since I graduated college because I worked for an agency that mandated them for every project we worked on for tech clients.  Getting an exec team to agree on a document outlining positioning and messaging isn't the hard part in my opinion. The difficult part is to get the messaging to stick once you put it out in the world: on a homepage, in a blog post, an ad, a slide deck for sales, etc. When positioning and messaging is put to use, execs start to realize what they signed up for. “Wait, we’re going after that job title in ...

It's very common -- particularly in modern software companies -- for product teams to move timelines based on engineering constraints, customer feedback in the beta-testing process, and more. All product marketers wrestle with this situation. So, realize you're not alone! I recommend explaining what's in it for the product-engineering-design team. Do they want much-anticipated recognition for and usage of the product they've toiled for so many months on? Then, let's set a date. Do they want a lot of help -- not just mention in a monthly newsletter, but also a dedicated email campaign, medi...

First, I try real hard to let go of my ego and temporarily forget about the past (e.g., how I worked with demand gen in another company). Every company’s marketing department is structured differently, and it’s important to quickly adapt. Then, I try to be human and have a conversation with each demand gen person, asking how can we help them achieve their goals. Sign up for some activities to help them with some shared KPIs. Once you get some shared wins, other departments tend to start trusting you more. Then, they might allow you to weigh in on their strategy too. 

Oh, man, big question! It really depends on the product and company. But if I have to generalize... First, I’d try to get crystal clear on what we mean by adoption rate. Is that net-new free signups? Is that activation of those signups? Let’s say it’s it’s activation of those signups for discussion purposes. The second thing I recommend is sign up for free (if you're PLG) for your company’s product using a burner email and record your screen going through the first-time user experience. What screens do you see? What emails do you receive in the first five days? First 30 days? What in-app ...

Each quarter, our team is generally proposing helping with KPIs around: - acquisition of new users - activating those new users - expanding or upgrading users (using their credit card to buy something more) - retaining those users month over month, and year over year - talking to sales about our Enterprise plan How much effort we put it into each really depends on the needs of the business, but we’re generally doing something for each.