Photos
- Person who didn’t already have team usage in mind.
- The persona picker and the customization of onboarding.
- But also: this is a moment where you can show all of the use cases you’ve got right here for someone.
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You haven’t given the reps a framework for what PMM does, how to make requests, and how to work with YOU.
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You haven’t made it clear to the reps how everything matters up to the company vision , strategy, category, and story.
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(Bonus thing) you probably haven’t made it easy for people to assemble assets based on an approved framework. And the reps likely aren’t fully onboarded on how to tell the story well enough.
- “Tell me more about THAT.”
- “Why do you think that is?”
- “Can you say that in a different way?”
I’ve been using this guide on how to make oven bacon for many years. Thank you to Dan Benjamin.
“MAKE PERFECT CRISPY BACON EVERY TIME“
Read more: Bacon Method ➚
We’ve been running some tests to optimize this checkout flow and when we switched to one of them, results tanked. It led to a late night working to switch it back so we could try another revision.
Seemingly small changes have a HUGE effect on a person’s likelihood to convert. But it’s more about their ability to quickly understand things.
So here’s my prompt for you product marketers and copywriters out there is…. One of these screens in the Law Insider checkout flow gets 3x the number of signups compared to the other. Which do you think it is and why?
In-app Product Nudges Based on Actual Usage
Most feature launches land with a thud… … even the truly valuable ones… and it’s no mystery why. 👇
They are often left to wither without ever being mentioned again. This is due to a lack of commitment from the business as a whole in seeing it through.
But YOU, as a PMM or PM can bake in a higher likelihood of success from the start by making a plan to properly surface the feature in your app to users who are a great fit for.
You can even use this strategy from Google Analytics for retention or feature winback campaigns.
If you have an update or a new feature that people are going to want, sometimes all you have to do is tell them about it.
B2B sometimes gets too wrapped up in launch methodologies and approvals and they forget to do the simple things.
tfw the feature starts to get some legs with customers.
#productmarketing
Product Marketing and Sales Enablement at their finest.
The HELP Method for creating product marketing content.
I used to struggle every time I sat down to create a product marketing asset. I needed HELP. Now I use The HELP Method for creating product marketing content.
HELP = Hook, Emotion, Logic, Proof
Hook
“Not just anybody.”
Get their attention. Speak to a specific audience here. You have just one shot to get this right, but this is where you can experiment the most.
Emotion
“Help me if you can, I’m feeling down.”
Show you understand their problems and why they should care. If you’ve been in sales or marketing for any length of time, you know that people choose emotionally and justify their decisions with logic.
Logic
“Help me get my feet back on the ground.”
Show how it can solve their problem. Show them how it works in practice with their workflow, systems, and daily habits. Is it easy to use? Automatic? How much work is it?
Proof
“I feel so insecure.”
Has this worked for anyone before? People fear a road less travelled. Their jobs are on the line after all. Show that others have seen results.
Summary
Use this lens to evaluate and enhance all your product marketing assets.
See something a colleague should read? Tag them in the comments.
#productmarketing
Onboarding Segmentation as Product Marketing and Customer Education
“Hey, look, I actually might want to use this for my team.”
Notion provides a customized onboarding experience, but also uses the moment to highlight certain features. So let’s say you’ve heard about Notion for personal productivity and are just looking for a place to get some work done. But… if you have a team, then it might be valuable to know that you can work with them in this tool.
This is a great education moment to have people understand: “Hey, I can actually use this with other people on my team and maybe get some value out of it that way.”
So I like this for a couple of reasons.
Have you seen any other best in class onboarding steps?
#productmarketing
Product Marketing Fail
Just saw a product reposition themselves as:
“The all-in-one platform for businesses, Now with AI”
It may sound good in the echo chamber of your zoom meetings but this is literally meaningless to the potential customer.
It could also dismay your current customers, who might perceive that the app they love has now lost focus.
Nostalgia is a powerful weapon.
It can stir emotions that change minds, sway opinions, even win elections…
Use it for good. Not evil.
The “break-up email” in this SDR sequence is sure to at least get some replies. But I’m not sure it works as they intended.
It would be much better as the first message to get the back and forth going.
Relationships FIRST, business second.
Product-led vs. Sales-led isn’t a mutually exclusive choice. See this example from Toggl, who understands that different buyers have different needs. They signal that if you want to engage sales, you need to be considering the teams version (with 10+ seats). This page is very well executed.
Sales-Led or Product-Led? Why not both?
Product marketing is about giving your customers a clear story and the words to use to describe your product. How are we feeling about this clarity?
70mm
Some good ideas here for replicating the impromptu real-time mentoring missing from distributed workforces.
Is Forcing Employees Back to the Office Wise?
The Least Bad Path
The hardest (well, one of them anyway) part about product marketing is choosing how to spend your time to make the most impact.
Everyone wants a little piece of your work, and you ultimately have to find a path that’s the least bad in serving them.
And sometimes, not giving them what they want is what you need to do for the business.
A practical example:
You get a slack message:
AE: “hey there how are you how’s it going can you help me make some small tweaks for a deck I need for an opportunity that’s about to close?”
PMM: “hey, I’d love to be able to point you in the right direction. When do you need it?”
AE: “2pm”
PMM: …checks watch, looks at calendar…
🧐 What do you do?
In my experience, this is symptomatic of two solvable problems.
Agree or disagree? Have you found yourself in this situation? What have you done about it? I have some ideas and experience here. But am more curious what others have done.
#productmarketing #salesenablement #narrativedesign
While others zig, there’s a way for some customer-centric companies to zag and not seek to “replace” customer service, but augment it.
Sam Altman: OpenAI plans a pro-copyright model for ChatGPT
Two ears. One mouth.
Two ears. One mouth. I led a Product Positioning workshop this morning with a startup I advise. When you are on a virtual meeting whether it’s sales call, or doing internal brainstorming, or a positioning workshop with startup founders….
… act as a conversation facilitator (not a lecturer).
That means fighting the urge to talk, and taking a beat whenever it feels like it’s your turn because most of the time, the other party has more to say. If not, it’s important ot prompt for more when necessary.
What are some facilitation question you use to uncover insights in your virtual meetings?
#productmarketing #remotegtm #sales
