Kelly Kipkalov

Of all the skill sets I think are important for a product marketer, brand marketing isn't on the top of the list. In fact, it's probably the opposite - particularly in smaller tech companies where brand = product - where I think a brand marketer could benefit from experience as a product marketer. The relationship between brand and product marketer is important to ensure that products being built deliver on the brand values (like Volvo and safety or Staples and easy) but you don't have to be a b ...Read More

Customer quotes are incredibly validating for prospects considering your product. One practice I've seen though is for marketers to build customer stories or quotes that a particular customer uses and loves a product, but they stop short of explaining why. To your point about story telling, these types of basic quotes don't actually help strengthen the overall story you're trying to tell. All good messaging is grounded in your customer insight and product benefit. So any customer quotes or case ...Read More

100% ground yourself in the data.  I would start with a full analysis of the funnel to diagnose where you went wrong before making any changes to GTM.  It’s possible that the GTM strategy was the right one, but execution against the strategy was flawed whether that’s with demand gen at the top of the funnel, or sales execution at the bottom.   If you do the quant analysis and the drop off is in top and mid funnel, then you need to build a working set of hypotheses to go and test with customers t ...Read More

I'm going to answer your question slightly differently. PMMs can acquire skills as they develop in their careers, that's a given. So when I hire PMMs, I'm not just looking for skills, I'm looking for a specific customer-first mindset. Do you understand the customer problem you're trying to solve? How do you know it's a problem, and how painful is it? How do you typically engage with customers? How do you validate your ideas to make sure they resonate with your customer? I will often hear things ...Read More

I always start with a research brief to lay out the objectives and key questions we want answered and then socialize that with cross functional stakeholders to make sure everyone is looking for the same outcomes. In terms of 'enough' research, it's a great question. Most user research relies on qual methods, so sample sizes are often less than 10. That's the research where you have to be careful how you frame up the takeaways because it's likely to be directional research that requires more vali ...Read More

Based on the language you used in your question, I think you already know the answer!  Balance is the right word because the leading and lagging indicators measure very different dynamics. The leading indicators - I think about engagement, clicks through rates, paid ad conversion and sales pipeline - are all measuring top and mid funnel dynamics.  Those are a really good reflection of the success of your launch messaging and your ability to gain eyeballs and attention and can give you an early i ...Read More

One thing I’ve done to ensure quality and consistency of messaging as it gets rolled out is to convert my PMM messaging framework into approved copy (with the help of copywriters if you have them).  It’s pretty easy to brief in the type of copy you need, things like (below are just a few examples). Product page headline Email subject line Email pre-header Social post Customer email notification When you roll out a messaging framework and leave it up to the channel teams to convert into copy, you ...Read More