Building Momentum

Outbound sales can seem like a dark art. How does it work? You throw a few different ingredients – data, emails, phone calls, demos, collateral, pricing – into a pot, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Is it some obscure alchemy, or is there a science behind the sales process? As a product marketer, you’ll likely be called into provide support for an outbound sales motion like: Air cover: Broader marketing activities to raise awareness and create high-level demand like blog posts...

Let’s face it, no two product marketing jobs are the same. Consider this random selection from current product marketing job descriptions: "In this role, you will work with others in marketing to establish compelling product positioning & messaging." "Responsible for the cross-functional success of large projects and product launches—with a strong bias toward operational and organizational excellence." "You’ll own the marketing strategy and product marketing campaigns for all business lines."...

Positioning: “the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers,” At least, that’s what Wikipedia says. And yet… I’ve always thought it’s weird when other positioning methodologies start with competitive alternatives and world changes, before agreeing who the customer actually is. Most positioning conversations are inwardly-focused on the product, the company, the mission. What we know, what we think, our assumptions about customers and their world. Everything is viewed through...

Imagine this: you’re a year or two post-launch and things are going well. You’ve got a steady stream of leads, marketing is building traction, you’re seeing high-quality sales conversations. It’s all you’ve wanted for so long. So what do you do? You capitalize on it! You decide to double down on your current strategy. You hire more sales reps who are eager to take the simple, repeatable playbook you’ve developed and roll it out. You expand your product team – surely you’ve found the winning...

We’ve just wrapped up the fourth cohort of our live product marketing bootcamp course, WTF is Go-To-Market – and it’s been one of the best yet. Over last 12 months, Alicia and I have spent 40+ hours on live deep-dives and office hours sessions – and many, many more creating the 30+ hours of written/video content. We’ve trained 52 product marketers from all around the world including the US and UK, Europe, Nigeria, and even Japan. They’ve come from scrappy, bootstrapped startups, scaling...

Before I get into it, I don’t mean this to be a negative. I think it’s just stating the facts, and we have to deal with it regardless. But product marketing is often a thankless role. I’ve seen firsthand how crucial product marketing – both fundamental strategy and execution – is to the success of a product. From initial discovery and validation, to searching for product/market fit, scaling revenue, and eventual sunsetting – product marketers bring something special. That special something...