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Madelyn Newman

Madelyn Newman

Director of Product and Customer Marketing at CallRail

Atlanta, Georgia

Content

How does your product marketing team usually work with your product team?

Madelyn Newman
Madelyn Newman

CallRail Director of Product and Customer Marketing • 8y

We work with our Product Team in three key ways: Competitive intel. PMM's own all competitive research and documentation, and we make sure the rest of the Product Team - dev's and especially PM's - are in the know whenever a competitor has changed their messaging or released a new feature. Help with planning the roadmap, ensuring alignment with the needs of our customers and the market. Just because Product thinks it's cool tech and wants to build it, doesn't always mean its best for our users. ...Read More

1,687 Views

How do you start a competitive analysis program from scratch and scaling it out or even work with a current or past competitive program that you liked?

Madelyn Newman
Madelyn Newman

CallRail Director of Product and Customer Marketing • 8y

I've built our CI program from scratch here at CallRail, and there's definitely been some things I've learned along the way over the last two years: Like Derek said, make sure the documents are hosted somewhere everyone can easily access. And as a follow-up to that, let EVERYONE know when you've made an update. I spent a lot of time updating documents only to find out that people had printed out older competitive battlecards and were not working off of the latest and greatest intel. We now docum ...Read More

970 Views

How have you historically sourced people to interview while developing personas?

Madelyn Newman
Madelyn Newman

CallRail Director of Product and Customer Marketing • 8y

Respondent.io is great tool for this - you can target specific job titles in any number of industries and weed out interviewees based on a survey. We typically ask things like company size, job function, whether or not they're already using our software, etc. We just redid all of our personas and Respondent.io was amazing.

I also sent out a survey via PeopleFish which is another great (and typically cheap-er) way to get intel outside of your customer base.

842 Views

What are the most important product marketing skills or perspectives that others inside an organization could benefit from that would improve their day to day? Running a "Think Like a Product Marketer" course next month and would love to hear others' thoughts!

Madelyn Newman
Madelyn Newman

CallRail Director of Product and Customer Marketing • 8y

Public speaking. Similar to Marcus' point above, storytelling is crucial to getting buy-in from other stakeholders. Being able to tell those stories in a meaningful way to a room full of influence is a powerful skill anyone in your organization should want to master.

You need to be able to tell what you're trying to achieve, why it matters to your customers and stakeholders, and how you plan to achieve it with measurable insights - as succintly as possible.

689 Views

What are the most common hurdles you encounter that prevent launches from achieving their goals and conversely are there challenges you prepare for that never really materialize?

Madelyn Newman
Madelyn Newman

CallRail Director of Product and Customer Marketing • 8y

Biggest hurdle I would say is having everyone aligned around the same timeline and goals. If only marketing is onboard with your predefined launch date and success metrics, with either product or sales lagging behind, your launch will not go as intended. Getting everyone in the same room early and often helps to align on goals and timing.

496 Views