Teju Shyamsundar

This is a really hard question as it varies from company to company, and your specific situation within that company. The short answer and what's worked for me is - 1. Be willing to do the things that others won't do 2. Prioritize execution over strategy a combination of those two things will help to make yourself invaluable, and people will naturally start seeing you as a leader. Of course, there's more to it, like 1. you have to let your management team know that you want to be in a leadership role. don't be shy about it. 2. work on your executive presence 3. learn about the business all-up - what are other teams prioritizing and how can you slot yourself into those priorities (aka give yourself visibility) 4. actively consult feedback from peers and leaders I'd also think more deeply about what leadership actually means to you. Does leadership mean you want to build and lead a large team where you act as the coach? Or does leadership mean you move up in title as an IC where you still have strong impact and influence?

Keeping this short and sweet - it should align with your company's (or at least your marketing team's) goals. If the focus is to prevent churn, increase CSAT, and upsell to existing accounts >> your work should lean towards end users. You can do this via - * enabling your Customer Success teams on product updates and roadmap * creating best practices type of content * create "value of your product" type of content for execs who may need validation to continue renewing your product * enabling your sales teams to handle conversations about competitors that your existing customers may be evaluating * working with product to make the in-product experience as seamless as possible * building compelling pricing and packaging strategies to help with upsell If the focus is to bring in net new logos and create pipeline >> your work should lean towards prospective buyers. You can do this via - * launching net new products * creating TOFU messaging and content * enabling your sales teams to have business value oriented conversations * building a strong web presence * clearly articulating why you're different from your competitors

I've seen that marketing teams are generally structured in this way - Corporate Marketing - includes comms (press, analyst relations, internal comms, customer marketing), content marketing (defining a content strategy for each stage of the funnel, social media, blogs), brand (out of home ads, logos/colors, video production etc). This team is generally responsible for getting your company's name out there, make sure everyone knows who you are and what you do. Some of the relevant KPIs for this team are net promoter score, relevancy in significant analyst reports in your industry, blog performance (time on page, CTA lead gen, traffic source breakdown etc), brand awareness score etc. Demand Generation - this is all about pipeline any typically includes Campaigns, Field Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Strategic Events, SDR, Customer lifecycle marketing (nurture for product usage and upsell opps). KPIs will vary per team but is largely related to inquiries, qualified leads, sales accepted leads, net new names, sales meeting set, and tofu pipeline (stage 1 and 2). This team is responsible for, you guessed it, bringing in demand so that everyone wants to purchase your products/services. Digital - includes marketing growth teams, paid/organic ads, web, SEO. usually this team is heavy on the "test and learn" approach when introducing new messaging, web changes, targeted ads and aided vs unaided awareness strategies. KPIs for this team usually include impression, CTR (click through rate), cost per click, customer acquisition rate, customer lifetime value etc. Product Marketing - the scope of product marketing teams varies a lot from company to company, but generally includes core product, tech marketing, solutions/industry marketing, pricing/packaging, competitive intelligence. in my experience, KPIs for product marketing is always tough but a couple of good points are tofu to mid funnel conversion, win/loss ratio (including deeper analysis into deals with competitors), analyst reports, product adoption rates, customer/revenue churn and free trial performance. this is the team that is responsible for getting deals closed. Marketing Ops - all the tech - campaigns creation and performance reporting, intent data tools, tech/data management, email tools - tldr your entire martech stack. many of the KPIs mirror DG and digital teams, in addition to measuring revenue generated by channel and measuring in-house adoption of the martech stack.

The simplest and fastest way is to talk directly with your reps! Not sales managers but the reps that are actually having the daily conversations - ask them (this is from the lens of B2B/enterprise SaaS sales) - 1. what deck do you use for first calls? Second calls? (ask them to send it to you - is there messaging in that deck that didn't come directly from PMM but is still working? Or is there messaging in that deck that doesn't align with the company's strategy) other than that - 2. check your conversion numbers for first call to second call, second to third call, and later. If first to second call numbers are solid, your initial pitch is probably fine. But if you're having trouble closing deals once they get into later stages, you may need to look at things like use case messaging - do you have content that really showcases your key use cases? Do you have strong competitive content? 3. invest in tools like Gong that allow you to listen to calls directly - you probably won't have time to join every customer call, but listening to calls will help you understand whether or not your messaging aligns with the words of the customer. 

It's fairly common to launch a product before it's baked. In my experience, PMM should drive the launch but bring in different teams within marketing at different stages of the product's maturity. Here's how I've done this in the past at each stage of the product - 1. Ideation - this is largely about bringing your customer insights back to your product teams and ensuring they're building what's relevant for your audience. as the industry and subject matter expert, your guidance is critical in influencing product teams to build what's best for the majority of your audience, and something that your sales team will be excited to sell. Start coming up with a plan for pricing and packaging during this time. 2. Beta phases - when you have a working version of the new product ready, bring in friendly customers to test and provide feedback. IMO, this is also where you should start to -create top of funnel content relevant to the product launch - not necessarily about the product itself, but the problem you're trying solve with it -begin enable your technical sales team (SEs) and Customer Success Managers on what the product is and why its important, and the roadmap/timeline for release -socialize more broadly with industry analysts -webpage dedicated to the product - create whatever content you might need to support this webpage -start formulating campaign themes related to this product area 3. MVP - this is your time to make the big splash, don't wait -PR announcing the availability of the product -DG events and programs specific to this launch -kickoff your email campaigns and make sure you have variations for top vs mid/bottom of funnel. include ABM tactics here -if you have a big event around this time, make a big deal out of it at the event -announcement on your blog -enable all your field teams 4. GA to all customers -you're already launched by now, but continue with digital promo, field events and programs, continuing to enable your field teams and customers on product updates, and about 3-6 months after the MVP launch, measure everything you did in #3

It’s tough to describe how you approach messaging and positioning without showcasing past work. I’d try to show real examples, even things you may feel are smaller projects. For example, web pages you’ve put together, datasheets, customer stories, videos, sales enablement material are all great options. While interviewing it’s generally assumed that the company you’re interviewing with isn’t going to share internal only docs that you send them for references, but if you’re worried about it, you can always remove anything that could be considered confidential/anonymize things like customer names. If you’re really not able to provide any work samples, I’d suggest 1)being proactive and putting together one or two content pieces that showcase your writing that you use specifically for interviews and/or 2)gathering very strong metrics around the impact of the work you have done - like increase in product adoption, pipeline generated from a product launch, revenue impact on the product you focus on etc.

It's a combination of PMM, Product, and your Customer Success teams. Product Marketing should continue to evangelize and advocate for adoption of the product through sales enablement, content creation, web landing pages, analyst influence. A combination of PMM and Product should promote adoption and usage through in-product notifications and guidance, making it seamless for customers to learn how to use the product. And, your Customer Success teams should have the relationships with their accounts to encourage usage, which in turn encourages renewals.

In my experience, virtual vs live (in-person) varies a lot by segment and seniority. There's really not a one fits all answer. for our smaller segments (SMB, emerging), we find that virtual events work well, for both leadership and practitioner/manager audiences. This is especially true when you're able to tie the virtual event in with an "experience" (like a drink mixing class, white boarding style sessions). And, for our smaller segments, we generally see more interest when we have very practical guidance on a specific topic, rather than going really high level/thought leadership (there are exceptions to that). think topics like "5 tips to do xyz" or "your roadmap for xyz topic in 2024." and you can tailor the content based on seniority of the audience. for our larger segments, in-person events generally work well for more senior audiences, but they have to be small (like 15 people) with very intentional content, and also generally tied to an experience. for these in-person events, the draw is around exchange of ideas with folks who are in similar roles and industries, sharing challenges and solutions. we also find that bringing in an existing customer speaker works best, for either virtual or in-person events. if the event is virtual, I'd pretty much always recommend providing real world examples via a customer speaker. a few other things that work well - * bring in tech partners when you can! when you show how you work together with other best-in-class vendors to deliver an end-to-end solution, you show up as more of a thought leader partner rather than just another vendor, and that resonates well with any audience * we've had good success at the practitioner/manager level with hands-on lab type of experiences where they have an hour or two to dive into your tech (for free), and extend them an offer 2 weeks-30 days of availability in that lab environment to do further testing. these types of events especially work well if you're trying to bring in net new logos, because it gives them an intro into your product without revealing too much, and would probably be too basic for an existing customer. ultimately, progressing through the funnel really comes down to 1)personalization and 2)persistence (ie keeping them engaged across various channels, not just one)

the simplest answer - Positioning - where you sit in the market relative to competitors and adjacent tech. I.e. what does your company actually do. Messaging - why you’re different. I.e. why customers should care about what you’re doing. Of course there are nuances that fall under each of these. For example, positioning also includes category creation and how analysts view your company. Messaging includes business value metrics, key features.

There are a ton of launch-specific templates you'll stumble upon, but here's some of the more tactical guidance on launch strategy - 1. Collaboration with Product Management 1. Sizing - it's highly likely you'll have to compromise with PM on what constitutes as a Small vs Med vs Large vs XL Launch. I recommend putting together a "t-shirt" sizing based approach in identifying what a launch bill of materials actually looks like for each, get buy-in from PM, and stick to that for every future launch. this is the best way to get everyone on the same page and avoid surprises from PM. 2. Timing - Engineering launch is not always equal to marketing launch. For any launch that's medium above, again work with PM to identify when the feature is in the product vs when the public launch will actually happen. many times, you'll take a "drumbeat" approach to the more significant launches where you'll have some inbound demand gen happening before the product or feature is fully ready, then do the "official" announcement, then have post launch activities to continue generating interest and bringing in leads 3. Who's the launch for? - existing customers, net new, both? this will help to determine how you message and price/package things 2. Demand Generation 1. Pre-launch activities - the "drumbeat" mentioned above. help to test out your message and get a sense of how ready the market is. if the response you get is "we've been waiting for this!", you're on the right track 2. Launch activities - build a plan for what this looks like across your sales segments and globally - virtual events? PR/Comms efforts? regional events? messaging at tradeshows? could be a variety of things, just be sure that you're estimating the ROI (pipeline) that you plan to get from these activities 3. Post-launch activities - how are you going to continue to generate interest around the launch? it's typically not going to be by just talking about the product or feature - you need to tie it back to all-up initiatives that your customer and prospect base has, and showcase how this launch fits into those initiatives 3. Enablement 1. Does sales, pre-sales, post-sales know how to talk about the launch and what to do? This is critical because everything in #2 will really only be successful if your field knows what to do with the leads that come in. make sure what you give the team is actionable! Product launches (at least for the larger ones) aren't a point-in-time thing - once you've announced it once, you'll want to continue to incorporate messaging for the launch into upcoming activities, likely for a year, in order to maximize leads and pipeline.