Acquisition

Product marketing

Daniel J. Murphy is known for elevating SaaS startups to new levels of success. He helped Privy become one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., established HubSpot’s customer review program, and grew Drift’s marketing team eightfold in two years.

He helped grow these companies as a product marketing manager.

The product marketing manager (PMM) is responsible for creating and executing the product marketing strategy. It’s a vital hire for companies competing in saturated markets—which means most companies today.

In this article, you will learn the core responsibilities of the product marketing manager, plus the skills and attributes that make a truly great PMM.

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In 2015, chiefmartec.com reported a “staggering” 1,876 SaaS vendors. In 2020, there were over 8,000. That’s some serious growth.

Drift’s CEO, Dave Cancel, says there are three phases to every industry:

  1. The Edison phase, where companies are innovating and everything is new;
  2. The Model-T phase, where companies are improving early versions, and it’s easy to stand out because you’re one of the first, and;
  3. The P&G phase, where you have to find a way to be the top 1% in a saturated market either by becoming a massive global brand or a leader in your niche.

SaaS is in the final phase. It’s now winner-take-all.

Product marketing gives you the edge to compete in this hyper-crowded market—and win. It helps you pinpoint the unique positioning and messaging that builds an emotional moat around your brand.

In this article, you’ll learn how to design an effective product marketing strategy that propels your brand to that top 1%.

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Rob Sobers said about the marketing growth strategy, “It’s not about tactics—it’s about people and process.”

And when it comes to people, you need buy-in from all over the organization. Growth is everyone’s business.

When it comes to process, growth marketers must learn to fail. And fail fast. 

A marketing growth strategy is about small and incremental wins that build up over time. 

In this article, you’ll learn how to build a marketing growth strategy to increase your market penetration, market share, and revenue.

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When WordStream began receiving complaints that the seven-day free trial of their PPC management software wasn’t long enough, the brand decided to A/B test 14-day and 30-day trials.

The results? Prospect trial to conversion rates fell with the longer trials.

WordStream confirmed that seven days was plenty of trial time, and they didn’t need to waste resources chasing customers down a longer funnel. 

No changes were made to the customer journey, and it had nothing to do with revenue lift. Yet, this was a successful growth marketing campaign. 

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Groove’s customer service platform almost died in the introductory stage because they forgot to listen to their customers. They drew people in with a product they assumed would be a hit and pushed forward without taking in customer feedback. 

The result? People had a terrible experience using their product.

After turning their attention toward feedback and testing, letting the voice of their customers fuel their content strategy and product development, they took off. Three years later, they were a $5 million business.

Not revisiting your marketing objectives in the growth phase of your product lifecycle is the death knell of many startups.

In this article, you’ll learn how to develop a marketing strategy for the growth stage. We’ll also share how to achieve marketing goals at this stage, using your existing customers and experimentation to increase sales and loyalty.   

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Growth hacking is how Slack went from 15,000 to half a million daily users in its first year. It’s why Canva can call itself a multibillion-dollar platform and how Kit (previously ConvertKit) pulled itself up to compete with goliaths like MailChimp and Campaign Monitor.Although shrouded in controversy, growth hacking isn’t about deploying sleazy tricks. It’s about making calculated, data-driven moves for fast growth.

In this article, you’ll learn what growth hacking in marketing is and what it’s not. We’ll look at strategies to reach and engage potential users and break down examples of brands that have used growth hacking to achieve success.

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Brand Marketing vs Product Marketing Article Header

In 2018, after two short years and $3 million raised in startup funds, recruitment AI company Ansaro shut down due to bad market fit. As it turned out, their AI interview notetaker didn’t address a huge pain point.

Muun found a market need but failed to compete with bigger names that provided customers with authoritative content and resources. Muun’s more well-known competitors had more features and better pricing.

Both companies suffered from a fatal lack of marketing. One neglected its positioning by failing to target the biggest pain point, and the other failed to build a brand that its customers could trust above the other major players. 

To succeed in today’s crowded market, you need to harmonize product marketing and brand marketing.

In this article, you’ll learn the difference between brand marketing and product marketing, and how to balance both to stand out above the crowd.

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79% of consumers trust an online review as much as they would a recommendation from a friend.

And 94% of shoppers state that just one bad review has convinced them not to buy from a company.

Reputation management is the practice of actively influencing what people think of your brand and what they see others saying about your company when they look online.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to implement a brand reputation management strategy, use personal branding to develop a good reputation, and protect your company from developing a negative one.

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Total digital ad spending worldwide exceeds $450 billion. By 2024, that figure will rise to $645 billion.

This kind of spending means crowded ad platforms, which makes it more difficult to stand out. 

If your business has a five- or six-figure digital advertising budget, you can put more money behind campaigns. But this is exactly what has caused online ad prices to increase by an average of 45% on Google and Facebook (and up to 1000% in some sectors). 

If you don’t have those kinds of resources or would rather not continually increase spending, you need to think outside the box.

In this article, we’ll talk about some less saturated digital advertising strategies you can use to get ahead. We’ll also show you what it takes to create advertising that gets people to act.   

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Top Product Marketers Header

Product marketing is today’s most critical marketing function. And yet, it’s unfamiliar and confusing to many. The best way to think about it: product marketing is strategy.

Product marketers work to understand the market and what motivates customers. They choose the market segments to target. They determine what attributes the product needs to win against the competition. They design an effective go-to-market plan along with the required positioning and messaging.

In this article, we brought together 17 of the best product marketers from companies like Gong, Privy, HighSpot and Vanguard (most of them are your instructors in CXL’s Product Marketing Minidegree) and asked them for their best advice for those who want to rise through the ranks of the most in-demand marketing role today.

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