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exitfive Newsletter #111

Product Marketing 101: A non-exhaustive guide (Exit Five Newsletter #111)

August 13, 2024

Hello and welcome to the Exit Five weekly newsletter - read by 20,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 3,500 other members at exitfive.com.

🏆 Quick Wins for Higher Converting Forms

What’s top of mind when you’re creating a new form to drive sign ups on your website? You know, our lifeblood as marketers – contacts and leads.

Are you prioritizing what information you want to show up in HubSpot or Salesforce? OR what will make users *actually* finish filling out the form?

I am definitely guilty of the former – and I think my conversion rates have suffered for it in the past.

Here are four “quick wins” you can steal right now from our friends at Tiller for form optimization:

  1. Be specific about what you’re asking users to do and what happens next
  2. Remove fields you don’t absolutely need (e.g. phone number)
  3. Stack fields vertically to reduce horizontal eye movement 
  4. Include help text and detailed error messages

Reading this and feeling like you need to get smarter about this topic?

Click here and read this: Tiller put together a whole guide on Web Form Optimization Best Practices for B2B SaaS with more ideas for you to use right now.

Product Marketing 101

If you type in “Product Marketing” in the job search on LinkedIn right now, over 63,653 different jobs come up.

And if you read through the job descriptions – you’ll notice that each one seems to have a very different definition of what Product Marketing does, where in the organization it sits, and what defines success.

Thankfully, Jeff Hardison (Head of Product Marketing at Calendly) sat down with Dave a while ago and shared insights from his experience leading Product Marketing at three very different companies.

I put together some of his answers into a handy 101 guide – let me know what you think!

What's the role of Product Marketing, Anyway?

Product Marketing is the link between the product you’re selling and the market that’s using it.

In short – Product Marketers are experts in the customer’s needs and work closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to develop products and features that meet them. This includes market and competitive research, defining positioning and messaging, launching new releases, and driving adoption post-launch.

Product Marketing typically partners with product management, sales, customer success – and of course, marketing. Think of it as the link between all of those departments.

What does a Product Marketer do?

As with all things in marketing, this depends – on the company’s size and structure, the go-to-market strategy, and company goals and priorities.

But broadly speaking, Product Marketing includes these four areas:

  1. Customer Research: Understanding market needs and customer pain points.

  2. Positioning & Messaging: Crafting compelling narratives that resonate with target audiences.

  3. Product Launches: Leading go-to-market strategies for new features or products.

  4. Sales Enablement: Equipping sales teams with the tools and knowledge to effectively sell the product.

It also heavily varies based on the Go-To-Market motion of the company… for example:

  • In Sales-Led Companies: Product marketers often focus on supporting sales teams with training, collateral, and direct customer engagement.

  • In Product-Led Growth (PLG) Companies: The emphasis might be on research, experimentation, and working closely with product managers to drive user adoption and engagement.

This is of course a non-exhaustive list – but highlights the different responsibilities and functions that Product Marketing might have.

How do you measure Product Marketing?

But how do you know if the Product Marketing you’re doing is successful? Jeff admits that it gets tricky here – but I loved the practical approach he uses with his team at Calendly.

The Three O’s:

  1. Outputs: These are the tangible tasks or deliverables that product marketing completes, such as creating emails, launching campaigns, or producing collateral.

  2. Outcomes: These refer to the immediate results of the outputs, such as engagement metrics (clicks, opens) or leads generated.

  3. Outtakes: These are the broader business impacts, like increased revenue, product adoption, or customer upgrades. This level focuses on how the marketing activities ultimately contribute to the company's bottom line.

He also (wisely) stresses that these are a living, breathing thing. You should revisit what metrics you’re tracking on a quarterly basis and make sure they’re in line with broader company goals.

Another important call out is that many times, Product Marketing can co-own metrics with other departments. An example is sharing user-activation or adoption rates with the Product team.

P.S. Okay *actual* Product Marketers – what did you think? What did I get right and wrong about the overall function here? I’d love to understand more 🙂

Just reply to this email – I read (and cherish) every one :)

Episode #165: How to Create Data-Driven Content to Build Trust and Stand Out with Emir Atli of HockeyStack

Dave is joined by Emir Atli, the founder and CRO of HockeyStack. Emir shares insights on his strategic content creation on LinkedIn to build a robust attribution platform that helps B2B marketers optimize revenue and understand customer journeys.

Emir and Dave cover:

  • How Emir and his team built a LinkedIn audience before launching their product and turned engagement into a strategic advantage
  • Using custom reporting and attribution to make better B2B marketing decisions
  • Creating data-driven content with HockeyStack Labs to build trust and establish thought leadership

Listen to the Episode Now on Spotify

Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.

 

Episode #166: Behind the Scenes of Monday.com’s Content Strategy with Eliana Atia and Arielle Gordis

Dave is joined by Eliana Atia and Arielle Gordis from Monday.com, who drive the content strategy that powers one of the most recognizable brands in SaaS.

They cover:

  • How the content team at Monday.com acts as a strategic partner to departments across the business
  • The unique "guild" structure they use that allows content managers to stay deeply integrated within various teams while maintaining a unified content strategy
  • How they use audience engagement and feedback to make better content 

Listen to the Episode Now on Spotify

Or find it everywhere you listen by searching "exitfive" podcast.

Upcoming Events

August 21

Marketers spend so much time, effort, and budget creating demand for our products. But when it's time to capture that demand, we often fumble.

 

Join our next Exit Five Live session with Tara Robertson, Head of Demand Gen at Chili Piper, where we'll break down common friction points in the B2B funnel. And learn how you can fix them, for good.

In this session:

  • We'll cover 5 common friction points in the B2B funnel
  • Get your burning questions answered by Exit Five Founder DG and Head of DG at Chili Piper
  • Bring your questions and in the chat with fellow B2B marketers
  • Engage in the chat and share your ideas with fellow B2B marketers. 

This session is open to anyone that works in B2B marketing, whether you’re an Exit Five member or not. We’ll record this session and share with everyone that  registers, even if you can’t make it there live.

But Exit Five Live attendees know it’s better to come join if you can make it and participate in the chat, ask questions, and share your ideas with your peers in marketing.

 

Save Your Spot

 

Open Roles

Who's Hiring Right Now?

HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Brainlabs is hiring a Global CMO / EVP of Social - this is a unique opportunity to work alongside a CEO who "gets" marketing. This is the ideal opportunity for an Exit Five member who's smart, obsessed with social, and has a track record of building audiences on LinkedIn.

Sound like you? Even if you're not sure you meet all the top criteria, check it out and apply here.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

  • Drivepoint is hiring a Demand Generation Manager.
  • CLARA is hiring a Head of Product Marketing. Remote Role.
  • OhMD is hiring a Demand Generation Marketer. $70-100k salary.
  • Backbase B.V is hiring a Senior Director Demand Generation. Remote Role.
  • HighByte is hiring a Demand Generation Manager.


See All Open Roles

 

Join us in exitfive

Because no one goes to school for B2B marketing. We have a private community + content site for marketing pros like you and me if you’re looking for a peer group and discussion forum to help you grow your career in B2B marketing.

Get feedback, campaign ideas, browse templates, videos, guides, get recommendations on agencies and vendors, find contractors and freelancers, vent about your boss, find new jobs and more.

We have a 7 day free trial so you can join 100% risk free. 

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