Pulkit Agrawal

Product-led means more self-service UX for activation, engagement, upgrades etc, instead of needing humans to communicate product updates and drive adoption and upsell. This means: 1. ➡️ PMMs are still key in positioning research, messaging refinement, roadmap planning etc. 2. ↙️ PMMs are less focused on sales-enablement and associated collateral 3. ↗️ PMMs are more responsible for product launches and at-scale / tech-touch communication Specifically this means the role of Product Marketing includes: * Creating a launch plan (for larger launches) that project manages the activity around the launch, especially across different functions * Identifying the parameters for the target audience/s (e.g. inactive users; at-risk users etc.) * Defining the channels for communication with these audiences (e.g. email, blog post, social, in-app etc.) * Crafting key messaging for each channel * Supporting internal GTM enablement (sales training, updating help docs etc.) as necessary Beyond this, some tips and suggestions for being successful in this role includes: 🙊 Don't announce everything to everyone! It is noisy (and so counter-productive) to announce features to users that are not interested/receptive/ready. For example, ensure any in-app announcements are targeted based on user activity / data, attributes etc. Tools like Chameleon make this easy. 🎯 Personalize the messaging per channel (not just per audience) Be very clear what the goal of the email announcement is (awarness) vs. the in-app announcement (activation/discovery) and adapt the copy to reflect these goals. 🧧 Offer value first (e.g. via a reverse trial or a content piece) Apply a product-first approach to the launch as well, by giving users access early or helping them get closer to the aha moment for a new feature/product before trying to upsell or monetize.

Copy is maybe the most important lever to drive engagement and growth 🚀 so this is really important! It’s absolutely critical that the best copywriters on your team are involved with in-app copy. Typically this can be PMMs but may also be Marketers or Content Designers or someone else. I'd recommend this flow: Designers add placeholder copy > Copywriters/PMMs fine-tune it > Product reviews and confirms. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Normally the core terminology for features / product items will be fixed early (and PMMs should certainly be involved in this, incorporating market research). However descriptions, empty-states, in-app messaging, tooltips etc. are all items that provide an excellent opportunity to engage and convert effectively, so I would also recommend setting up a system where this copy can be adjusted, iterated, experimented, without needing engineering. Ideally you can use a CMS (Content Management System) to separate copy edits from the core product development lifecycle. For us, we’ve hooked up our marketing CMS (Statamic) so that we can directly edit copy for some key features/pages there, via a UI, without needing engineering. Obviously if you’re using a product adoption tool (like Chameleon) for other in-app experiences (announcements, banners, checklists, tooltips etc.) then you can also easily edit (and test, with AI) copy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some tips and good practices for writing copy in-app: * Always have a second person review / follow a clear proofing process * Assume people will NOT read, but only scan (so max 2-3 lines per paragraph) * Get to the point really quickly (no wasted words) * For CTAs, ensure the copy accurately presents what will happen upon action * Avoid jargon and make it simple to understand

First, you should come up with a matrix for your channels, helping frame what each is good for; something like this example matrix. Then for each product launch, specify: (a) goal (b) target audience (c) priority Once you have these two building blocks it'll become a lot easier to determine both the right channels to use, but ALSO the different goal, approach, content etc. that's most suitable for each channel. Two other considerations: 1️⃣ A key mistake I see teams make is not delineating goals between awareness and adoption. Awareness can be as simple as someone seeing something, but adoption requires action. Prompting action can be hard, especially if the user is not in the correct environment. 📌 If you're trying to drive adoption then you should almost certainly be using in-product campaigns. 2️⃣ Flip the question and consider what product launches do the channels deserve. Obviously you can't overload your channels and so there is a real scarcity about how to best use your real estate. The prioritization of your launches helps here, but it can be a useful thought or visual experiment! 📌 Remember any attention taken that isn't valuable to the viewer is a negative outcome, so be sure to get as targeted and contextual as possible!

I’d break this up into thinking about the 📝 Content and the 📤 Channels: 📝 Content: * Create a central hub for you launch planning (a wiki page / Notion doc etc.) where you can collaborate with your team for any launches * This can serve as a key pillar of your internal communication * You can have a single doc per quarter / year and then have sections for individual feature launches * Go deeper based on how big the launch is; smaller updates don't need all the below * This doc should answer key questions, such as: * Which types of users/customers/prospects will care about this? * What value does this unlock / what job does this help them do? * What internal enablement needs to happen (e.g. help docs, sales training, team demos etc.) * Plan of action for communicating (see below) 📤 Channels (+ tips) for external/user comms: Each channel has unique strengths so important to customize your messaging (more important than simply having "consistent" messaging): * Email: Focus on value & benefits, not how-to. Users will mostly scan, and may be reading on-the-go, so don’t try to teach users “how” to use the feature, but aim to compel them to re-engage, or to remember your point for next time. * In-app: Hook users with a clear title and CTA. In-product messaging can be risky; avoid interrupting the user, and ensure your message displays in context. Users often just scan, so ensure your title stands out and immediately makes them interested. Ensure the CTA is simple and oriented around action. 🦎 Chameleon can help. * Webinar: Connecting via events deepens relationships. It’s ideal to engage middle-of-funnel opportunities and customers beyond email so a live webinar (that you can then repurpose) can be great to showcase product updates. You may roll in many recent updates into a monthly or quarterly webinar. * Social: The best channel for some customers (and prospects) If your users or target market are active on social channels (e.g. LinkedIn) then it’s imperative to make use of this channel, and showcasing product updates is great. Re-use existing content, but follow best practices and common formats for the relevant channel. Here's an example post from me. * Website/Blog/Release notes/Landing pages etc. You may write up the update into a blog post, but it’s also important to update prior blog posts and other web pages (landing pages, feature pages etc.) in addition to any release notes. Here's an example release notes log from us. There's a lot on this topic so happy to help with follow-up questions or to do deeper on this topic! I also wrote a more detailed post on how to announce new features here which you may find helpful; a bit more theory/framework in that.

I haven't surveyed the field, but as a consumer / customer, I find Uber and Lyft to do a good job; especially because they use the real-estate within their products to effectively notify me of product changes, upcoming promotions and company news. I never read the emails from these, but I am in the app regularly, and if you can leverage your captive audience within your platform, then they are best primed to act upon any marketing or information you present. 

In my experience, most product teams are not well incentivized to pursue adoption over moving onto the next feature or problem to solve. Dedicated product growth teams are great for this, and if your organization has one, then it's likely their job to drive product engagement. Product marketing can support this with customer marketing and the right messaging, or in targeting non-engaged users / non-customers. In cases where there isn't a product growth function / team / person, then I think there is good scope for Product Marketing to step up and drive adoption. Key things that this can include: - In-product comms / marketing (e.g. targeting users that are a good fit with more info or mini announcements) - Customer-focussed marketing (e.g. blog posts or emails for customers) - Training of AM / CS teams Of course all this requires a mandate for the Product Marketing team to drive adoption, a decent understanding of adoption metrics and some relevant systems / tooling to enable these activities, as described by others. 

Great points from Scott. One perspective I'll add: "Too many" implies the customer isn't motivated to answer the questions presented. Too many questions might be 1 question, or 15 questions. Therefore this is also a problem of UX design. Some things to consider: * Help a customer understand the value / impact of what you're asking (why it will help them) * Ask at the right time! Sending a survey via email is really hit and miss. Maybe try to ask them when they're using your product; this might be via a Typeform modal, or Intercom Messenger etc. * Use progressive disclosure / logic where possible, so that answers are contextual. You may even consider using a bot, so that the survey seems conversational

As we move into a product-first world, the best companies have cross-functional teams designed to drive user engagement and success. Product Marketing is a key component of this. Roadmap planning is a crucial part of getting to product-market (or product-channel) fit and I believe Product Marketers have a key role to play in this. In fact, this is how I would define Product Marketing: Image source: A New Definition of Product Marketing This means that Product Marketers have as much of a role in defining (shaping) the product as they do in communicating the product. Having a balance will mean that this becomes a virtuous circle and speed up the time to Fit. This may not be a standard definition (yet) and although there are many different flavours (and a lot of inconsistency) in defining Product Marketing across different organizations, it's helpful to have a holistic understanding of what the role can (and maybe should) include, especially as we collectively mature in our understanding of how best to treat this role amidst our teams. 

I would approach this in two ways: 1. Identify where the problem lies -- use quant data to understand where drop-off is occuring 2. Identify why the problem exists -- understand user motivation and where the friction is in their flow that's preventing them from succeeding. For the latter, you can ask questions along the lines of: - Why did you sign-up for this product? What was the immediate trigger and the underlying pain? - What were you hoping to accomplish during your first session? - What part of the product were you most excited about playing with? - How much time and investment were you willing to make in this first session? This will help you understand the motivations, and then you can tailor your user onboarding towards that. If you can get users to an "aha moment " then they will have enough energy to continue to invest time and energy into your product. 

Based on some research we did (admittendly small sample size), we found that 2/3 report to CMO / VP Marketing and only ~10% to Product. Source: A New Definition of Product Marketing At this stage unfortunately there isn't enough executive ownership of the Product Marketing function, but in future I hope it reports to either VP of Product Marketing or VP Product. This is because Product is now becoming about growth and needs to have a cross-functional team which includes marketing. Our folks at Reforge (that run growth courses) lay out the future of Growth teams fairly well here.