Sometimes, you have to sit back and smell the roses and realize how lucky we are to be part of such an engaged and helpful online community of product marketers. We’ve got some cracking answers to some of your most burning questions, so feast your eyes on the wealth of knowledge and advice below.
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Q: I am working on a GTM plan for an upcoming feature release. I was wondering if any of you have a structure that you like for feature kickoffs and their GTM?
A: If this is for a B2B SaaS product, here are some of the things Supriya, a Product Marketer at Flock, would do:
- Identify the cohort/audience you wish to communicate to.
- List down channels and communication pegs for the same.
- Channels could include social, email, push notifications, in-app messaging.
- Creative assets - how to video, explainer of the feature or GIFs, blog posts, support articles, etc.
- Budget for any paid campaigns you wish to do around it with a plan of expected ROI (brand reach, growth in traffic, hits on landing page, growth in feature usage, etc).
- If you are looking to also do a paid campaign around it, then PPC ads, creatives, maybe a PR article.
Q: What factors should be considered when it comes to deciding whether a feature should be depreciated or not?
A: Look for blowback / benefits in the following areas:
- customer value / usability
- loss-leading / brand value
- projected revenue / ROI contribution
- projected cost of maintenance / upkeep
- strategic cannibalization among other features
- strategic relevance to future roadmap
- contractual requirements
Jenkin Lee, Chief Product Officer, Baze
Q: Does anyone have any recommended PMM accredited certifications that they’ve done and really enjoyed? Curious if there were any other recs that are not on my radar (based in the US). I’m looking at the PMA course and a couple through universities. One that is engaging and preferably not self-certified.
A: PMMC is certified by the CPD & CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing). We also have the onDemand certification you can do at your own pace.
If you’d like to know more about our comprehensive, industry-leading certification program just click here.
Richard King, CEO, Product Marketing Alliance
Q: Hey all - what's everyone's perspective on giving a product a separate, distinct name from its brand/company (especially if the company only has a singular product, and not a portfolio of products)? Is it best practice for the two to just have the same name? I work for a SaaS company, and right now we technically only have one product but market to two different types of users, and we are exploring whether or not we should create product names for each user's experience.
A: Product designation is very important as this can be a branding challenge in the long run and it can cause confusion. I worked for a SaaS company where their product name also reflected the company name. If that is the direction your company wants to take, it’s important to have a thorough discussion on what the communication is going to be like so as to not confuse customers later on.
One good example is HubSpot where the software and the company names are the same. However, they also have different types of users and the product offerings are: Starter, Professional and Enterprise and have different price points. Questions to think about are:
- What is the market your company is offering its products or services to?
- Are your competitors diversifying their product portfolio or do they only have one service?
- Will the company grow into another market?
Orlando Martinez, Digital Marketing and Content Strategy
Q: I'd love to hear people's learnings from experimenting (e.g., A/B testing) with lead nurturing!
A: We follow a rule of no spam, no forms, no cold calls. We make sure we know the accounts that are in the market to buy, based on predictive models. We tailor the buying experience from display ads, to campaigns, to content hubs, to website, to chat bot all based on the buying stage and what the account (and buying team) is interested in.
Maureen West, Director of Product Marketing at 6sense
