Free Assessment: How does your sales & marketing measure up?

Get Started
Close

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.
Get Started
Carly Stec

By Carly Stec

Oct 29, 2014

Topics:

Marketing Strategy
Marketing Strategy

Product Marketers: 6 Pieces of Advice That’ll Get You Fired Up

Carly Stec

By Carly Stec

Oct 29, 2014

Product Marketers: 6 Pieces of Advice That’ll Get You Fired Up

product marketers 6 pieces of advice thatll get you fired upWhen it comes to product marketing, people are quick to boast their expert, ninja, guru status (just to name a few...)

While it's one thing to claim this type of false mastery, it's another thing to get up on a soapbox and start dishing out advice. 

They're putting businesses at risk. 

If you're listening to them, they're putting you at risk. 

What does a business gotta do to get some good advice around here?

In an effort to counteract all of the questionable instruction out there, we sat down with some seriously credible software professionals to talk marketing. 

Below you'll find a smorgasbord of valuable advice on everything from powerful storytelling to establishing trust.

Dig in.

David Cancel on shipping it

dharmesh-shah

@dcancel
CEO at Driftt, Former CPO at HubSpot

 

I’ve become known for saying that and "ship it" all the time.

For me the reason is simple – most people become paralyzed with fear. That fear manifests itself in different ways, most commonly in over-thinking the options and getting stuck.

Truth is always found outside of your office. Because of that we need to just f*cking ship it and begin the test/feedback/evolve loop immediately and continuously throughout the life of the product.

Perfection doesn't exist, so let's get on with it!

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

 

Meghan Keaney Anderson on the power of storytelling

meghan-keaney-anderson

@meghkeaney
Product Marketing, HubSpot 

 

 

Marketers have a soft spot for well-told stories. I’m very much influenced by the way a product presents itself. I’m a sucker for a good story, and I feel like most things I buy is because I’ve had some affinity not just for the product but for the story behind the product.

Even with products I have no business buying.

I always talk about GE. I was watching a commercial once about connecting concert survivors with the engineers who made the machines, and I’m sitting on my couch very close to tears. I want to call my dad and parents to talk about how amazing science is because of our ability to build things that extend lives. That’s marketing. I talk about it all the time.

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

Chris Savage on highlighting personality 

neil-patel

@csavage
Co-founder and CEO, Wistia

 

 

When we first started, we were not transparent about how many people were on the team or what we cared about. We thought that the key to being successful was to be professional and to act like a big company. It turns out that it's really obvious when a small company pretends to be big. It doesn't inspire confidence.

We started to notice that when we were genuine about how small we were, what our problems were, and even when we were excited about small things – like a new ping pong table – that our personal stories resonated much more than the overly professional ones.

 

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

Dharmesh Shah on attention spans

dharmesh-shah

@dharmesh
Founder and CTO, HubSpot

 

 

Attention spans are dwindling, and consumers have more options than ever for how, when, and where they consume content.

The natural reaction of many companies is to sell harder or attempt to rent more attention, but that's not a viable long-term strategy. The best way to win consumer attention is by creating a truly inbound experience that is less interruptive, more relevant, and more helpful than anything they've experienced before.

So instead of adding more friction to your buying process, remove it. Instead of adding more clutter to your customers inbox, send only when you have something meaningful to say. Instead of telling people for hours how you are going to change their lives, show them. Take the time you think you have to explain your value proposition and cut it in half.

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

 

Justine Jordan on trust

justine-jordan

@meladorri
Marketing Director, Litmus

 

 

Interestingly enough, we don’t talk a lot about our sales funnel. Our universe just doesn’t revolve around it. Most of our new users come from word of mouth or from organic search that usually winds up on our blog.

If you provide this great resource, people find it naturally and trust you. Trust is huge. When I speak at events, I don’t even mention Litmus except to mention it’s where I work. The rest of the time I spend teaching you how to send great emails. This builds trust and is more genuine to me. 

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

Magdalena Georgieva on product updates

magdalena Georgieva

@mgieva
Product Manager, HubSpot

 

 

Customers are so creative and often come up on their own with solutions to specific problems that they are experiencing. They can easily establish a routine based on a workaround. So we on the Product team have to be very careful in removing all the layers behind a specific flow of work in order to see the true reason why something is done.

For instance, marketers create lists of contacts in HubSpot for various reasons – to see the size of the segment, to perform some marketing actions (like email) with that segment, to share it with a sales team, to draw some more high-level insights about these contacts, etc.

We study which of these use cases are most frequently performed and most useful to our primary customer, and that informs how we prioritize updates or design the hierarchy of information on the screen.

pasted_image_at_2014_06_18_04_15_pm-4

Need more guidance? Fill out the form below to access our guide with even more insight from some of the most well-known software entrepreneurs in the industry...

Free Assessment:

How does your sales & marketing measure up?
Take this free, 5-minute assessment and learn what you can start doing today to boost traffic, leads, and sales.

Related Articles

What Should a 2024 Content Marketing Strategy Include?

September 21, 2023
Mandy York Mandy York

HubSpot Pricing: Your Guide to Everything HubSpot Costs

August 24, 2023
Will Smith Will Smith

Why Trust Is the True Currency for All Business

August 9, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

10 Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking

August 3, 2023
Carolyn Edgecomb Carolyn Edgecomb

How To Become a Better Business Coach

July 31, 2023
Allison Riggs Allison Riggs

Do You Need a New Website? Maybe Not

July 19, 2023
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

How to Create a Content Map To Solve Your Marketing Guesswork

July 6, 2023
Brian Casey Brian Casey

Inbound Marketing vs. Content Marketing: What's the Difference? 

July 3, 2023
Brian Casey Brian Casey

How To Do a Competitive Analysis In 5-and-a-half Easy Steps

June 29, 2023
John Becker John Becker

Why Hiring a Coach is the Surest Way to Spur Business Growth

June 28, 2023
Bob Ruffolo Bob Ruffolo

Marketing Coach vs Agency: Why You Need a Coach for Real Success

June 26, 2023
John Becker John Becker

LinkedIn Could Become Your Most Powerful Distribution Channel

June 22, 2023
John Becker John Becker

Content Copycat: What To Do When Your Website Gets Copied

June 15, 2023
Christine Austin Christine Austin

My Best Sales Reps Haven’t Hit Their Quotas All Year: What Do I Do?

June 7, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

7 Must-have Word-of-Mouth Marketing Strategies [Infographic]

May 8, 2023
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

What Small Business Leaders Need To Know to Thrive During a Recession

April 19, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

5 Keys to Marketing Your Business During a Recession

April 17, 2023
Ramona Sukhraj Ramona Sukhraj

Should Your Demand Gen Strategy Change in a Slumping Economy?

April 12, 2023
Nick Bennett Nick Bennett

Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation: What’s the Difference?

April 10, 2023
Kristen Harold Kristen Harold

How a Lack of Sales and Leadership Buy-in Is Killing Marketing Morale Worldwide

March 6, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

Website Conversions in 2023 — STOP, START, KEEP

January 25, 2023
Vin Gaeta Vin Gaeta

Sales vs Marketing in 2023: What’s The Difference?

January 5, 2023
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

How To Set Content Marketing Goals for Growth

December 29, 2022
Brian Casey Brian Casey

Should You Hire An Agency to Create Your Content?

December 12, 2022
Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridan

24 Essential Questions for Understanding Your Ideal Customer (+ Infographic)

December 1, 2022
Dia Vavruska Dia Vavruska