Transcript
Brendan Ziolo: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the B2B Marketing Pint. I'm super happy to have Wendy Moore joining us today. and I go way back, as as Brian does as well with us.
Brendan Ziolo: We've worked together for a numerous number of years, different companies. Wendy's been in product marketing, technology marketing marketing for quite some time now.
Brendan Ziolo: at companies like Trend Micro and Mitel. She's currently the VP of Marketing at Martello Technologies. she just brings a great background, a ton of experience to our topic today, which is really, you know, how do you make product and solutions marketing work in technology companies?
Brendan Ziolo: What are some of the required skills? What works, what doesn't work? So I'm looking forward to this conversation and hope you are all too. Brian, what are you drinking today before we get started?
Brian O'Grady: Well, thank you for asking Brendan. And I should point out the full circle moment. I think you two are both partially responsible for me and my flirtation with product marketing decades ago.
Wendy Moore: Yes.
Brian O'Grady: I think Brendan, you recruited me to be a product marketer and Wendy, you were just always a better one than I was.
Brendan Ziolo: and And me too, and me too for the record.
Brian O'Grady: That said.
Brendan Ziolo: So yeah, oh yeah, she's she's she's got us covered there, or beat there.
Brian O'Grady: ah ah Today, we're we're drinking a and I'm going to try and pronounce this properly, Zyvik from Poland, opened with an opener from Garrison Brewing in Halifax, just to keep things a little more local.
Brian O'Grady: And I'm not positive it's that's how you pronounce it. My brother, who's a big fan, says Ziewicz, but he's not Polish either. So if there's a Polish listener who can let us know how to properly pronounce this, we'd appreciate it.
Brendan Ziolo: I am Polish, but I don't know how to pronounce it. So I'm of no use on this podcast whatsoever now.
Brian O'Grady: All right.
Brendan Ziolo: I'm, again, still not drinking, but enjoying a non-alcohol athletic. Oh, that's not the right way. Athletic Brewing Company beer. This was actually the first non-alcohol beer I tried.
Brendan Ziolo: Really good IPA. Tastes like a real one. So enjoying it quite a bit. And Wendy, what do you what do you have on your desk, I guess?
Wendy Moore: Well, I got to tell you, I was very disappointed. i went in the fridge to grab the beer I was going to which was called warrior woman, which is, I'm like, yes, that's awesome.
Brian O'Grady: hey
Wendy Moore: But all that was left there was kitsch light. So that's what we're on today. So
Brian O'Grady: Which sounds way better than none.
Brendan Ziolo: All right.
Wendy Moore: it i I hear you.
Brendan Ziolo: And we'll do a quick.
Wendy Moore: Am I the only one drinking out of a glass?
Brendan Ziolo: No, I am too.
Wendy Moore: Oh no, you are too.
Brian O'Grady: yeah
Wendy Moore: Cheers.
Brendan Ziolo: Quick. Oh, we're all here. Quick virtual cheers. And I guess we can get started.
Brian O'Grady: To a good podcast.
Brendan Ziolo: I need a drink first.
Brendan Ziolo: All right. Well, i'll I'll get the ball rolling here and then we can go from there. So I've been in technology for a number of years. We all have on this podcast. I'm sure many of our listeners have as well.
Brendan Ziolo: And there's kind of that, you know, a bunch of product marketing people at the company have been engineers, wanted to move over to marketing, wanted to try it, that type of thing. And then there's other more marketing people who have been marketers their whole life, probably have some industry background, perhaps, but maybe less technical, less engineer.
Brendan Ziolo: I guess, Wendy, do you have an opinion preference on, you know, what's better? What makes someone more successful in the field? Is there a path that's clearer or, you know, what are you looking for as you hire or as you explore product marketing experts?
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Wendy Moore: So it's interesting. i I want to preface this with I've seen it be incredibly successful both ways, coming from an engineering background and coming from a marketing background. My preference is usually somebody who has done product marketing, because I figure you can pick up the technology and the industry easier than you can those those product marketing skills.
Wendy Moore: So that's always been my preference. But like I said, I've seen some wonderful SEs in particular come over and join the the dark side of marketing and joining us in in product marketing. So it can work well both ways.
Wendy Moore: I think the thing is you have to love technology, have that technical aptitude that you can pick it up easily. And you have to be good about getting in the mind of the customer and understanding your market.
Wendy Moore: Those are non-negotiables for a product marketing role.
Brian O'Grady: Thank
Brian O'Grady: That's pretty good insight and not a bad segue to where I wanted to go next, actually, because for, I'll admit, when I think product marketing, I don't always automatically think what comes next.
Brian O'Grady: I don't know for sure what comes next. I feel like I have a vague notion. I allegedly did it decades ago, but for the sake of the folks from other disciplines who are listening now, what are, what are the top things?
Wendy Moore: yeah
Brian O'Grady: I think you flirted with them there already, but what are the top responsibilities for a product marketer that you must have at a technology company?
Wendy Moore: So I think the number one thing is product messaging. So figuring out that really compelling story that connects very well with your target customers pain point, because once you develop that, it permeates everything that you do, of the copy, and assets that you develop, your website, even the sales tools and the presentations that your your sellers give. that is the number one foundational piece.
Wendy Moore: Pricing and packaging. oftentimes goes in product marketing, but sometimes it goes in product management. I got to confess, I prefer companies where it goes in product management because it's my least favorite thing to do.
Wendy Moore: other thing is enablement. So figuring out how you're going to enable your sellers, whether that is your direct sellers in your organization or your channel partners. you know What are the tools that they're going to need? How are you going to train them to be effective? are the vehicles that are going to go along with that? With partners, we've built a partner portal at Martello this year was all about bringing on our new partners and getting them up speed very quickly and their time to revenue, speeding that up as well.
Wendy Moore: then the other thing that comes into it is the promotional side of things. Product marketers are not great at figuring out you know what the promotional elements should be, i.e., should it be social?
Brian O'Grady: Thank
Wendy Moore: Should it be advertising in this online website? We're more about defining who is the target, the really, really well-defined ideal customer profile, the persona, and basically what the strategy is, what we're trying to make happen with them. You know, do we want to get them into a demo?
Wendy Moore: Do we want to get them into a product like growth journey? Whatever you want that to be, that's what you need to equip then your demand gen and communications teams with so they can go and do what they do so great and find the best places to to fish for for the the the ones that you're trying to find. so
Brendan Ziolo: yeah
Brian O'Grady: That's helpful.
Brendan Ziolo: Have you seen, where do you think competition and competitive analysis fits, Wendy? Like, is that in your product marketing? Is that one of those, like your pri and pricing packaging examples?
Brendan Ziolo: That's kind of bit of both or where have you seen that fit?
Wendy Moore: I see that as very much being a shared responsibility between product management and product marketing because product management can't develop a product if they don't understand who they need to beat out there and how they're going to differentiate themselves.
Wendy Moore: That then gets fed into the product marketing team who takes the the technical review adds to that kind of the differentiation and how to position against these competitors and oftentimes develop the competitive tools for the field as well.
Wendy Moore: So the cheat sheets and that kind of thing.
Brian O'Grady: Hmm.
Wendy Moore: Mm-hmm.
Brian O'Grady: You've brought back a memory. Maybe it's a traumatic memory. I'm not sure a memory for me as a, as a product marketer, I actually had to present, I guess was a form of sales enablement to the sales folks about competitive intelligence, which I felt at the time grossly unqualified for, but that didn't stop anybody.
Wendy Moore: who
Brian O'Grady: And I can remember, I thought, how am I going to communicate this to a group of salespeople who probably want to be somewhere else doing something else rather than listening to me. And my saving grace was remembering that typically Salespeople are very competitive.
Brian O'Grady: So I went to the bank machine before the presentation. I got as many $5 bills out as my bank account would allow. And I made the whole presentation a competition to see who could regurgitate the competitive facts back to me best.
Brian O'Grady: And that that worked.
Wendy Moore: Nice.
Brian O'Grady: That worked. So there's there's my only product marketing tip I can ever give you.
Wendy Moore: Nice. The evaluation is really critical. And I've i've learned this. The problem is in a lot of organizations, you're spread very thin and you're trying to do a lot of different things.
Wendy Moore: And things like competitive can fall by the wayside. Things like doing evaluations after you do enablement. Those are things that easily fall by the wayside. But every time I let it fall by the wayside, it bites me in the in the in the new, new ah ah excuse me, you know what, but it's really, it's critical. You can't do your positioning properly unless you understand the market.
Wendy Moore: And the thing that is also important if you're enabling the field is it's not a one-time thing. You need to be continually, listening to the market and what's happening so that, you know, if competitor A came out with a big announcement yesterday, you need to equip your field with a statement and how they can position against that. So it just never ends.
Wendy Moore: And unfortunately, most organizations don't resource it as well as it should be. think good competitive is a full time job, usually it's just something that happens on the side of the desk of the product marketing and the product management team. So.
Brendan Ziolo: At least in my experience, product marketing sits at an interesting like intersection point in a lot of organizations. you know, having a bit of fun here, if a product marketer went missing for a week, who would notice first? Is it a product team? Is it the sales team?
Brendan Ziolo: Is it the rest of the marketing team? Is it support? No one notices. No one knows the product marketer is gone. Like what's kind of your take in those relationships, I guess, more seriously?
Wendy Moore: So I've got two answers because I find it varies from organization to organization. The last company I was at, I would say it was your sellers because they were always on the phone to us wanting help with the you know this customer deal or this challenge they were dealing with or wanting to understand when this is coming in the product roadmap and and all kinds of things like that. And then I've been in other organizations where, the product team is a lot more aligned with the field and does a lot of that communication themselves.
Wendy Moore: And in those organizations, I find it's really the communications team, the marketing communications team, are trying to create content and they require your expertise and your ability to,
Wendy Moore: to kind of review a bunch of content, but also to outline, you know, how should we be positioning this story? What do our customers care about? So I know that's not one answer, but I find it that's the thing about product marketing. It's defined, I find very differently from one organization to the next.
Wendy Moore: So.
Brian O'Grady: I've actually felt that as as a copywriter, as a content person, when I'm asking questions like, well, who are we writing this for? and And what problem does it solve? And turns out everybody's looking for those answers from a product marketer.
Brian O'Grady: We need a product marketer to help us with those things.
Wendy Moore: exactly
Brian O'Grady: So that's very useful. I've got another one for you, which is, i think I think we're understanding through your help what a product marketer does and what those responsibilities are.
Brian O'Grady: But on the opposite end of it, there any examples in the marketplace you can think of that would help crystallize it in the minds of our listeners when there's been a product marketing fail, something that hits the market that clearly was wanting a product marketer and did not get one?
Wendy Moore: Okay, that's interesting. I was actually thinking about talking about my one of my own product marketing fails. It's not going to be a public one that everyone knows about, but...
Brian O'Grady: Well, like that better. Yeah, let's do that.
Brendan Ziolo: Well, it will be now.
Wendy Moore: that
Brendan Ziolo: It will be now, Publix.
Wendy Moore: perfect Exactly.
Wendy Moore: And this, I think, demonstrates, and it taught me a big lesson, that you need to consider the entire a journey of your customers to understand...
Wendy Moore: how things are going to work out. So I'll give you an example. I was working at a company where we started putting our products into aws marketplace. So we know there's a few um scalar marketplaces out there today, and and this is the one we were working in.
Wendy Moore: And one of the things that we did that we thought was going to be just so impactful on the market and that we were having customers ask for, and it was going to be fantastic, was the ability to do consumption pricing.
Wendy Moore: So only pay for what you use as you use it, right? And so we got this all ready to go. We had everything listed and posted. We rolled it out in our organization and we thought it was just going to go great because we had so many customers asking for it.
Brian O'Grady: Sounds great.
Wendy Moore: You know, we're moving. Yeah, it didn't play out that way. Eventually it did when we fixed things. But the big blind spot that we had was how our sellers were compensated. essentially we put it out there and our sellers were used to selling annual subscriptions.
Wendy Moore: So they'd sell it and then they'd get their compensation on the full year's value. You know, they'd get a nice big check when they wait when they did the deal and it was done with. As soon as you move to consumption, you get paid monthly.
Wendy Moore: So they were at the beginning starting to get like, you know, checks for $1.35 or maybe not that bad, but it wasn't that big bang. So they're like, none of them wanted to sell it. Right. And after digging in a little bit, we figured out like that was our number one problem. And as soon as we Came up with some creative ways to fix that.
Wendy Moore: Then things really took off. So it's it just goes to show problems can stem from anywhere. And I think that's the biggest challenge is whenever a customer is interacting with your organization and there's just so, so many ways, all of it needs to work favorably.
Wendy Moore: And all parties need to be in send properly in order for it to go smoothly. So I know that's not a big new Coke example. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those, but it's just an example of the types of things that can go wrong.
Brian O'Grady: Well, I still think that's a great example.
Brendan Ziolo: Thank you.
Brian O'Grady: Good one, because honestly, when I have business meetings, think people think maybe I'm more mercenary than I actually am, but I always actually want to know what side everybody's bread is buttered on.
Brian O'Grady: So I know what everybody needs to get out of this conversation in order to be motivated to make it a success. Until I know that I'm not not so comfortable.
Wendy Moore: yeah
Wendy Moore: ah ah Absolutely. And that's smart on your part, because there's often I find within one organization conflicting objectives. Right. And it's it's the tough to deal with those, but it's better to know about it than to kind of walk into a trap. So.
Brian O'Grady: Absolutely.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brendan Ziolo: So i'm I'm going back a ah few years, Wendy, but, you know, in our earlier startup days, let's put it that way, there were opportunities that or there was times, I should say, when, you know, the product was half built, the pitch deck was, let's say, more fiction than fact, for instance.
Wendy Moore: yeah
Brendan Ziolo: has product marketing changed? Has it gotten easier? Is it a company size thing or like, are we going to, are we going to shatter a bunch of illusions here and tell everyone it's all fiction still?
Wendy Moore: it's not all fiction i i won't say that but i it has not changed that part of it
Brendan Ziolo: don't How are things made? Yeah.
Brian O'Grady: Yeah.
Wendy Moore: as Especially in the days of SaaS, you know, first to market is just such a huge advantage that everybody goes just absolutely as quickly as they can. And so that means you're going with a V1 product that probably isn't very complete or addressing all of the needs with the plans to fill it in as we go.
Wendy Moore: don't think that's changed at all. And I've worked in, you know, companies that were making less than a million in a year and companies that were making over two billion in a year.
Wendy Moore: And it was the same at both. So I don't think it's a function of size. It's just the nature of the way software is delivered these days, like being quick and fast is is really critical.
Wendy Moore: And the other thing that has changed, though, so, so much is the strategies that you have available to you for your go to market. So, you know, I remember the days when, oh, we're going to do some direct mail that we weren't even doing email marketing yet. Oh, my goodness. I'm I'm old for sure.
Wendy Moore: But now your options, you know, you can you can come up with product led growth strategies where you get a premium offering out there and just gradually sell more and more to them. There's, you know, your digital strategies. There's a whole bunch of really interesting partnership strategies that you can take advantage of.
Wendy Moore: and And, you know, 20, 25 years ago, there wasn't as many options to to consider. So I'm actually happy for that because it helps us to better tailor a solution to the problem that you're dealing with. So.
Brian O'Grady: I don't know whether to feel happy or sad that it hasn't changed that much.
Brendan Ziolo: Thank you.
Brian O'Grady: but that's good good insight.
Wendy Moore: but
Brian O'Grady: I can tell you that what's old is new again. our, our direct mail is so such an old tactic that it's now cool again. yeah.
Wendy Moore: I hear that.
Brian O'Grady: And, uh, we actually got bizarrely good results when we did all these wonderful digital things and just threw in some direct mail and guess what? Everybody commented on the direct.
Wendy Moore: exactly.
Brian O'Grady: Um, back to product marketing though.
Wendy Moore: me
Brian O'Grady: Let's talk myth busting. there's There's probably most disciplines have some assumptions out there in the marketplace that are made by people who don't do the job. As soon as they hear it, they think they know, but maybe they don't know.
Brian O'Grady: What's the biggest myth about product marketing that you bump into that drives you nuts and you would like to slay today?
Wendy Moore: This is by far my most annoying myth that there is. In fact, I had a big discussion about it with somebody who had the myth in their head earlier in the week. Essentially that marketing makes things pretty,
Wendy Moore: old
Wendy Moore: I don't do any of that, right? Like we focus on the strategy of how to position and how to message that's going to produce the best results, right?
Wendy Moore: And how to hit on those pain points and solve them for your customers in in a way, that's going to matter to them most, and then figuring out how are you going to demonstrate that you solve those problems? Is it, developing um cost savings model or is it targeting, a bunch of different customers in different industries and building a strategy of how to leverage them as spokespeople,
Wendy Moore: case studies and videos and speaking at conferences on your behalf and that kind of thing. So it's whenever anybody says, you guys fix up this deck for me, this PowerPoint deck?
Wendy Moore: I'm like, seriously?
Brian O'Grady: Often Polish.
Wendy Moore: And it's, yeah, that's one of the things because we do so, so much more than that. And it's hard really to define the product market marketing role. I mean, I gave you the big buckets of what we do, that's There's like every day is something different. Every month is something different. Every quarter, like it just continuously, you have to look at things with new eyes and and figure out what's going to be the most impactful and help you to get your results.
Wendy Moore: So.
Brian O'Grady: Okay, I feel a metaphor coming on based on your description and I shouldn't try these live, but here we go. Would product marketing be the skeleton of the marketing plan though, before it gets to the content writers and the designers and the web people?
Wendy Moore: Oh, good Lord. Yeah.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brian O'Grady: but Maybe, and we, because that's where I spend most of my time, we'd be the the flesh on the bones or maybe even the clothing, but product marketers might provide the skeleton.
Wendy Moore: no
Wendy Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. To take this a little further, I probably shouldn't, but we provide the bones.
Brendan Ziolo: Oh, boy.
Wendy Moore: You guys get us to the right funeral home.
Brendan Ziolo: Oh.
Brian O'Grady: Oh, you have been involved in a number of my launches. I can tell.
Brendan Ziolo: All
Wendy Moore: dear.
Brendan Ziolo: right. Well, I'm not going to continue the metaphor here, but...
Wendy Moore: Good, I'm glad.
Brendan Ziolo: I was about to, but yeah, going let it go. But in, you know, for someone new or someone looking to go into product marketing, you know, we've talked about, you know, again, what it does, some of the myths, some of the fail, like what's kind of your advice to them, you know,
Brendan Ziolo: run away or do this or, you know, how can they enter the field? I guess that's two questions. Sorry. So yeah, what's your advice for someone wanting to get in?
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brendan Ziolo: And then any tips for anyone looking to either transition or get into the field out of, you know, another industry, out of school, whatever the case may be?
Wendy Moore: Yeah. So you have to love technology if you want to do product marketing in the technology space. So if spending time figuring out and really trying to understand technology and how it fits with your customer isn't something that you absolutely love, probably consider something else.
Wendy Moore: if it is something that you really want to do the key thing is to get your foot in the door into either a marketing organization or even like I said a sales engineering role those are both great great paths to get yourself into product marketing I know i have stolen away many sales engineers from my colleagues over the years to bring them into product marketing roles
Wendy Moore: As I said earlier, i think anybody who's got the product marketing skills can figure out the technology and the space that they're in. Now, if I was fresh out of school, I would be looking for some sort of an internship program.
Wendy Moore: company I was at a couple of years ago, Trend Micro, they had this amazing program where we brought in graduates of a couple of schools, a marketing program, and every six months they rotated to a different marketing role.
Wendy Moore: So they might start out in marketing communications, go to events, end up, and I would usually try to pick the ones that I i had seen kind of some potential there with, pick them to come into product marketing in their third or fourth.
Wendy Moore: part of that. Getting your foot in the door is everything, right? Because you need to get somebody's interest that goes, hey, that could be somebody who has the right skills to develop into a product marketer.
Wendy Moore: Because every time you want to hire somebody in product marketing, it it's tends to be a very challenging task, at least locally where we are in Ottawa,
Wendy Moore: There's some product marketing skill, but not a ton. you're always looking, okay, if I don't have, you know, an actual ready to go product marketer here, are there any kind of people that I can pull in and develop, right? And like I said, I look for curiosity, technical aptitude, also being very driven and not requiring a lot of handholding, just going, I think we could do this running with it, you know, so...
Wendy Moore: Did i answer your whole question or was there another part to it?
Brian O'Grady: Cool.
Brendan Ziolo: No, no, that's no, that was, that was good.
Wendy Moore: Okay.
Brendan Ziolo: That was great insights. And I still, I, i don't think I've ever thought of the SE side of things, but it's makes a ton of sense. Yeah. I just, I'm trying to think now if I've ever worked with any product marketers who are SEs, but I can definitely see the fit now that you, now that you've planted the seed.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brendan Ziolo: Cause yeah, they'd have great, obviously some good technology and understanding and and like that, but the customer experience and the sales experience would be invaluable.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brendan Ziolo: I can imagine as I think it through. So that's great tips just there alone.
Wendy Moore: And if you're ever looking for an SE, I've had it work out really well and I've had it not work out at all. The thing you and really, really need to screen for is like strong communication ability.
Wendy Moore: Just if they don't have that in addition to the technical aptitude, they're really going to struggle. So. Yeah.
Brian O'Grady: That's a good tip. Another idea you've reminded me of is one of our other guests. We we talked about recruiting and team building. And one of the ideas we got to was what they call the T-shaped marketer, where you you go broad, a lot of different disciplines, but you go deep in one.
Wendy Moore: Yeah.
Brian O'Grady: And it's that sounded not unlike what you were just describing there for that ah internship program.
Wendy Moore: Exactly.
Brian O'Grady: Let's try them all. one One you like most, go deep on it.
Wendy Moore: Exactly.
Wendy Moore: Because the reality is, i mean, you're going to be working with all of the functions in marketing, right? And to actually have done the job, it gives you that kind of empathy that when Marcom says, sorry, we're be able to get that to you for two weeks, you you understand that they've got a line of 50 people trying to get something out the door, right?
Wendy Moore: So it's good from an empathy empathy perspective, but it's also good in terms of as you're developing your your product marketing plans, you can be thinking that about that a little bit and go, oh, I have this great offer idea for you the marketing communications team. Like maybe it's some sort of assessment or something like that. So the more experience you've got, the broader experience, i I think it makes you a better product marketer for sure. Yeah.
Brendan Ziolo: any Any final questions, Brian? Anything we forgot to ask Wendy?
Brian O'Grady: i I think I learned a lot more.
Brendan Ziolo: Anything we can put her on the spot for? Yeah.
Brian O'Grady: Well, I learned more in the last 25, 26 minutes about product marketing than I think I knew before, which is alarming that I i did the job for a little while.
Wendy Moore: but
Brendan Ziolo: well, we we really appreciate your time today, Wendy, and and joining us. And thank you so much for that.
Wendy Moore: I like
Brendan Ziolo: And I, as Brian said, he learned a lot. I know I always learn something from you both today and in our ongoing engagements and interactions.
Wendy Moore: that.
Brendan Ziolo: So appreciate that. And to our listeners, i hope you enjoyed the episode. Subscribe, like, share, comment, all those fun things.
Brian O'Grady: Do all the things.
Brendan Ziolo: And stay tuned for our next episode.
Wendy Moore: Excellent.
Brian O'Grady: Thank you, Wendy.
Wendy Moore: Cheers.
