Jeff Rezabek

If you're creating a two-pager sales enablement asset, always assume it will be shared externally at some point, so make it so that if it gets in the hands of a prospect, the branding is the same, and the information isn't confidential. Without knowing much about your product or audience, I would look for themes and create multiple documents if available. For the customer quotes and case study stats, I've always used those as sidebar callouts. The themes I would look for include: * Product - This is the obvious first option. You'll want to create this asset if you have multiple products in your portfolio. Additionally, if you have competitors that aren't in your space but prospects frequently look at both your solution and that one, it's essential to create a product enablement document here, too. * Usecase - If your product serves different use cases or jobs to be done, this would be my next enablement asset. Group the case studies and quotes into similar use cases to help your sales team (and prospects) understand how you can help them achieve what they currently can't. If you have information on competitors and how you do it differently, you can add it here. * Persona - The final format and structure I'd recommend is to align the document, quotes, and case study on the different personas you serve.

The great thing about Product Marketing is that there are so many different entry points. I came from more of a content marketing background, but I've known amazing PMMs with a product background or customer success background that also crush it. Each path comes with its own strengths and value to the organization. So there isn't a wrong path. If you want to go into PMM, try getting involved with more PMM activities that will give you the experience to add to a resume. Find a mentor (when I discovered PMM, my head off marketing had a PMM background and mentored me). Take classes if you can. And get involved with different communities (like sharebird).

I've done this a few different ways in the past. One way is by partnering with Product Management to grade a release item and then assign a launch level to a release based on a grade (is it new/innovative, is it going to match the market, impact to customers, impact to the market, etc.). The product team will launch the feature if something doesn't fall into the launch level threshold. When that happens, we will collect data and look for opportunities to package the feature into a future release announcement to help tell a bigger story. The other way I've done this is to do a quarter release where we package the features with the biggest impact/value on the market (customers, prospects, partners, etc.) into a single quarterly release theme. The KPIs we capture are media pick-ups and sign-ups (beta sign-ups or request demos on the "what's new page"). The product team will usually measure feature adoption (or $ generated if it is a paid feature), which should also be tracked on the PMM side.

The biggest mistakes in managing post-launch momentum would be: * Not collecting and measuring success signals (product adoption, media pickups, sign-ups, traffic, etc.) could tell you what messaging is resonating and what isn't. * Learnings: Establish key, quantifiable launch goals when planning the product launch and monitor your progress to determine if you need to pivot. * Not staying focused on activities past the initial launch date and jumping too quickly into the next release. * Learning: Use a project management tool, like Asana, and schedule a "post-launch kick-off" with a smaller team * Not having a post-launch (maybe a month after the initial launch date) retrospective to learn what worked well, what activities to start/stop/continue, and how cross-functional communication can be improved. * Not doing enablement sessions with smaller groups. An extensive "all-field" enablement session is a great way to get the general message out. But I've learned from other PMMs that you must also do small break-out sessions with smaller groups to make people comfortable enough to ask questions in a safe space. You can also address department-specific questions more efficiently. * Learnings: Conduct the large, company-wide enablement session and keep talking points at a high altitude. Then, schedule office hours or department-specific enablement sessions.

My approach to creating sales enablement material for a global product (and global sales team) is similar to how I would build content for an in-house sales team. * Understand Your Audience and Their Needs Run regular sales enablement surveys to measure confidence levels in different regions, different use cases/challenges your product solves, competitors, etc. This will help you track the success of your enablement program over time and identify some low-hanging fruit. Additionally, you can—and should—schedule regular meetings with the regional sales team to get more information and to start building that relationship. * Ask Why This is important. If a field rep says that a prospect needs a PDF on XYZ, ask why and what they are looking for. In my experience, I try to lead with creating a web page or blog post, as they are less resource-intensive and can be updated or removed quickly without having to worry about a dated PDF floating around. * Localize Success Stories Suppose you see that there are only a few success stories in a particular region that you're trying to grow. Work with a partner in that region to help you craft and translate a case study to increase credibility. * Leverage On-demand Content Develop an enablement program allowing your field to view training on time. This can be tricky, though. You'll need support from senior leadership to hold the team accountable for actually completing the training. * Make Content Easy To Find Build a content repository that's easy to search and find the right content. You can do this on your own using SharePoint, Confluence, or Excel. Alternatively, you can spend a bit of money and use tools like Highspot or GTM Buddy.

For me, the first focus would be understanding the buyer and building the personas; everything else will cascade from there. I'd start spending time with the sales to understand the deals we've won, what problems they were experiencing, why they needed a solution, and how we provided value. Work with the CS team to understand who the happy customers are and why they are still with us (how we continue to deliver value)--a bonus if you can work in a customer interview. Finally, work with the product to understand the product and how it solves the customer's problem. From those interactions, you can start identifying trends to help you build out personas (you'll need other information sources). Once personas are created, you can take that info to influence the Messaging/Positioning and update content as needed. Finally, take the personas and messaging and use them for training your sales team.

In my experience, the relationship between PMM and DG or Growth Marketing should be as connected as PMM and the Product team. At previous organizations, I was in constant communication with the Head of Growth Marketing. We would work together to refine personas and messages, develop ABM campaigns, and identify content gaps in the buyer's journey, etc. Here's a B2B Growth Podcast Episode that my former Head of Growth Marketing did. In it, she shared our collaboration and the relationship between Product Marketing and Growth Marketing.

I've partnered with PM to assign a launch level to a release based on a grade (is it new/innovative, is it going to match the market, impact to customers, impact to the market, etc.). If something doesn't fall into the launch level threshold, it's an opportunity to release it, collect data, and see if it makes sense to package the feature announcement with future releases to help tell a bigger story.

If you don't have access to a tool like Klue and need to gather competitive intelligence manually, here's what I'd do: * Set up a Feedly feed to monitor your competitors' blogs, news, etc. * Set up google alerts to you're notified when they are mentioned (this might get overwhelming if there are a lot of competitors) * Follow competitors on social media * At least quarterly, you should do a deep dive where you go through their entire website to see how their messaging is changing, what they are hiring for, what events they are going to, and what new assets have been published. --This will give you clues into the direction the competitor is moving to * Ask your reps about what they're hearing, especially if they recently won/lost a deal to a competitor * Conduct Win/loss interviews * Talk to customers (case study interviews)

The most important sales enablement activity that PMMs should being doing is meeting with the sales team regularly. Split it up into smaller groups that way you give everyone an opportunity to speak comfortably. Understand what's working, what's not, and where you should focus future enablement sessions or update materials based on feedback. In the enablement sessions (regardless of topic), it's important to frame it around your personas and messaging to help reinforce it.