Communities

Marcus Andrews

Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Pendo.io

About

I'm a Director of Product Marketing at Pendo. I live in near Boston now but also spent time in SF working at the startup Wildfire then Google, in GTM roles.

Content

What do you use or do to get people to buy into your positioning plans and consistently using them?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

Product marketing is often defined as the people who position the products, but I think it's as equally important (especially as you grow bigger) that Product Marketing is also the most cross functional role in marketing. Creating alignment, securing buy-in, and building momentum around a launch ......Read More

4058 Views

What are the most important parts of product positioning? How do you get the rest of the company aligned on positioning?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

Going to cop out on this one a little bit (all the parts are important!) and just tell you how we did it at HubSpot. There are many ways to slice it but our approach has worked really well for us. We always start with the change in the world. How people are different today, where they are headed......Read More

3798 Views

Can you please outline a "Launch Framework" and go through an example of implementing such a framework for one of the companies for which you have worked?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

This is a bit hard without writing a novel but luckily I wrote that novel not too long ago - check out this post. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/elements-flawless-product-launch-li It's pretty easy to find a good framework that you like - the trick is tailoring it for your busienss and......Read More

2318 Views

How often is too often when it comes to launching a new product feature/enhancement publicly?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

Great question! First and foremost your launches have to have substance and that should dictate the cadence more than marketing need. I've seen some companies try and do a launch every week and it starts off great but then loses momentum quickly because people stop caring. Thats a bad situtat......Read More

2294 Views

What hard skills are must haves vs nice to have, to be a Product Marketing leader?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • December 15

I think to be a great PMM leader, it's really important to have done the work. So to have owned massive product lauches, designed narratives, led sales trainings, etc. PMM can be an ambigous job so a leader that hasn't been there done that usually isn't succesful. The hard skill then left to le......Read More

1979 Views

How do you and the PMM team communicate updates and progress on your product launch to the rest of the org? What is the format? What do you report back on? Etc.

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

There are a number of ways we keep everyone up to date on the progress during a launch. Luckily at HubSpot we also have project managers to help us. I’ll say it, I’m not a good project manager. It’s another level of organization that I was just not born with. These people really help during this ......Read More

1802 Views

What’s one piece of tactical advice and one piece of strategic advice for a small company (2 person marketing team) that’s doing a product launch and company rebrand at the same time?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

Strategic advice: Is it a good idea to do them at the same time? You could separate them and stretch out the pop you’d get from each. Also, can you tie them together? For many companies their brand story is tightly aligned to their product story, this is especially true for product driven compani......Read More

1525 Views

Does anyone have good ideas on courses, trainings, trainers or ways to help a Product Marketing team improve their storytelling and copywriting skills?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • August 6

Read more, write more, get more feedback. I think there are courses you can take to help but in my experience its more a matter of just getting more reps and experience. Writing and storytelling is like going to the gym. Reading more, especially non-business news will help. Read writers you like ......Read More

1460 Views

How does product marketing integrate with the PM team? Who decides what features to focus on in each launch? What documentation is provided to PMMs to help in crafting messaging?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

At HubSpot our PMMs are aligned by product line and are aligned to a Product director and GM, although we still meet regularly with our individual PMs. I think in general we try and tell a higher level story that doesn't really focus too much on any one feature but often certain features are v......Read More

1453 Views

How do we approach the launch plan that was pre-decided and what changes in approaches would you recommend?

Marcus Andrews

Pendo.io Sr. Director of Product Marketing • June 25

I know this pain! Part of working at a product driven company is that this will happen and it's ok. The health of the product should come first and that will disrupt markeitng plans for time to time. Stick it out. Don't stop doing product launches just because the timelines didn't work out a ......Read More

1432 Views

Credentials & Highlights

Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Pendo.io