Jeffrey Vocell

I think every product marketing team should! Ultimately, at Iterable we have 3 key documents: Product GTM Launch Plan - This is a spreadsheet that includes every team involved in a launch, what set of activities are being done, where they are in the development process, and more. It's really a central resource for the entire launch. Positioning & Campaign Kick-Off - This document should be filled out first before everything else. It includes all of the foundational details that will help cre ...Read More

Yes! At HubSpot we had a template for this, and I’ve created one at Iterable as well. I think there are a few phases of a launch that include different people from your organization.Phase 1: Research - Every product launch HAS to start with research. This is a phase I find many PMMs skip, but the importance can’t be overstated - it’s where you get all the detail that will inform all your next steps. Typically this phase includes PMM, PM, Customer Marketing (if you’re surveying existing customers ...Read More

I think it’s hard to showcase messaging in an interview unless you’re specifically bringing up documented work. At HubSpot, we like to give candidates an exercise before an interview that typically ties into positioning and messaging. Oftentimes this exercise will tie back to a recently released product or feature, and we’ll ask the candidate how they would position the product and bring that positioning to life through a launch campaign. This approach has actually worked really well and taught ...Read More

There's a lot of potential variability here depending on company, exact role, industry, and more. That said, here are a few ideas of what you can show: Cross-functional Initiative: If you've directly led a cross-functional initiatve that drovesome key business results, showcase them! For example, a sales deck that you created that drove win rates in that vertical. Talk through how you worked with Sales to create the deck and enabled the team doing so. Launch campagin: This is similar to above, b ...Read More

The best way I've found is to start small, and grow over-time. To explain that further, when a brand-new product marketer starts I will typically walk through step-by-step the messaging process with them at a granular feature level just to get them some repetition practicing. After doing that a number of times, I'll let them take on some of those (very) small releases on their own and will read messaging (i.e. blog content, in-app messaging, etc) ahead of time to make sure they're on the right t ...Read More

I feel like the answer to this could be it's own book. 😊 Ultimately, a PMM should be the "quarterback" of a launch and should be driving success at each stage. From the moment you hear about a large launch coming you should focus on: Aligning the team around that product Communicating clearly and effectively Sharing information about what the product is, and why it matters Holding team members responsible for their part in the launch Organizing feedback, and day-of launch activities Doing a retr ...Read More

This is a great question. As product marketers, I think we often confuse this terminology, and due to the common use of these terms it amplifies the perception they are different. From my point of view, there are differences between positioning and messaging which I’ll cover here, but everything else you mentioned — story, pitch, etc — is either an output of positioning and messaging, or is one and the same.

 First, positioning is an internal resource that covers how your product is uniquely di ...Read More

At HubSpot we have a “master” positioning guide that exists for every core product and is shared on a central wiki that everyone can access. This positioning guide helps inform the work of marketers, sales enablement, and many other customer-facing teams. To ensure alignment we work closely with these other teams, such as sales enablement, to build assets like “Demo Like a Pro” that carry our positioning and messaging and transform it into an actual sample demo from a sales rep. This is just one ...Read More

A few key documents that you should have: Research Document - For me, this has always been internal and been a way for me to store insights, data, or any resources on a competitor -- or aggregate set of competitors. This doc is never shared broadly and is just used as a starting point to collect information. Competitive Battlecard - This should be the central resource where everything your sales and CS team need lives. Competitive Messaging Spreadsheet - I like to create a compettiive spreadshee ...Read More

Great questions. Product Marketing should be involved, or at least aware of, every launch in my opinion. I think it's important to establish launch levels, or some process around it though - a very minor feature update shouldn't get the same amount of time dedicated as an all-new product line. At Iterable we have extra small, small, medium, and large launches and the set of activities we do for each is different - and shared with the product team as well so they're aware. As far as tools, it's a ...Read More