Effective product marketing can make running successful paid media campaigns a breeze. Unfortunately, in many organizations, these two teams don’t collaborate as they should.
Demand gen teams often take messaging and positioning into their own hands. They test and iterate messaging based on performance, resulting in the original messaging and positioning looking nothing like the initial version.
Furthermore, nobody informs product marketing, so they start from scratch with every new feature release or product launch.
Despite this, demand gen teams seem to lack fundamentals in product marketing. Content creation is often driven by fun or entertainment value, leading to great engagement but poor conversion rates.
Join us this week with our guest Drew Spencer Leahy as we delve into the product marketing fundamentals necessary for successful demand gen programs.
Podcast Transcript
What’s up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of digital banter spent about three weeks now. I’ve been busy parenting. I think I, well, I got two more weeks of leave until Andy, uh, Andy gets me back. Hadn’t sure. He’s super excited about that. You never really left. You just kept texting and chatting.
Yeah, well, the mission going, uh, super bummed today about my LinkedIn promo post. I thought I was going to get at least like 1000 likes bringing the baby in as click bait. Um, but yeah, so awesome episode today. Today we have our friend drew Leahy. We’re going to be talking about product marketing. Paid media, uh, what makes good content kind of what role product marketing has in demand gen, what role product marketing has in paid media.
And it’s going to be a good conversation. Welcome to the show, Drew. Hey guys, what’s going on? Happy to be here. All right, so my first, I guess we got a level set on one thing. I mean, we were talking about this right before and product marketing is like one of those roles has been, I’ll say pretty broad. I feel like you have your hands in a lot of different things.
The thing that I always think of is like messaging. Positioning, but it can get a lot bigger than that. I mean, I always like, who are we always working with when we’re creating content, product marketers, who are we always, I mean, I feel like we’re reporting to product marketers a lot of times. So I guess in your experience, like what is, what does that role really look like?
Yeah. Good question. Uh, it looks different. At every stage and every company that’s been the one consistency, but I think there are definitely some core tenants and product marketing that are the same, no matter what stage you’re at or what business you’re working for. Uh, and so I would describe, I guess for me in this, you know, again, like it’s like everything in marketing, demand gen.
Performance marketing and brand building. Like everybody’s kind of got their own definition and there’s a lot of overlap between these things. So let’s start by saying that this is the way I think about product marketing. I think product marketing, all the, all the things that I think everybody else would agree with, with product marketing is that you got to, you know, You got to know the customer.
You got to know the market. You got to be close to the product so that you can now position so you can frame your offer and then message around it and then enable the team inside to also go message and communicate, uh, around that position as well. Though, I think those are pretty basic product marketing, um, responsibilities, but, but messaging is also kind of this really broad word to like messaging can mean a lot of things.
So for me, The product marketer really is responsible for owning two things. One is the association layer. So how are you framing your business and your offer so that you’re creating the right network of associations with the right people that’s first and foremost. And then the second part I would say is a good product marketer needs to help the company stage growth over time.
So if you’re, if you take a startup company, for example, who’s usually enters the market as a niche. Point solution and then realizes, Oh my God, my Tam’s too small. I’m not going to be able to raise money. There’s not enough customers. It’s too competitive. How am I to keep my doors open? They ultimately need to expand their buying pool over time.
I think product marketing really needs to have a, a. A big role in staging, how you take a really small box and broaden that box over time to a bigger box and then to a bigger box, to a bigger box. So eventually over time, you’re, you’re selling to more of your total addressable marketing market. I think product marketing really needs to own that staging process.
So. Who are we going to target in this small box as a point solution? Uh, what are we going to build for them? And what are we going to say? And then now when we stack another segment, right. Or add another product for a new customer. Now, what does that look like? What are we going to say? Who are we? And then you broaden that.
Broaden that, um, serviceable addressable market even more. And then now it’s again, okay, we need, so, so marketing’s kind of this, I guess your messaging, your positioning is, is this constant evolution over time as you, as you broaden and get bigger and sell to more people and product marketing really needs to own that.
That transition, which could be really difficult, right? It’s really difficult to, to figure out who you are, what you need to say. As you move from one, like, it’s like, it’s kind of like growing up as a person, right? Like you’re, you’re an infant and then you’re a toddler and then you’re a kid and then you’re an adolescence, you’re adult.
And all these transitions are like, who am I like now? Like you’ve got these identity crisis and it’s the same in business. Like product marketing is to help the business solve the identity crisis as they, as they grow up. So Drew, what I’m curious to get your opinion on is what, what inputs and information and data help you create that messaging and positioning?
Cause I think that’s a key thing to lead this conversation off with because of how that ultimately influences the downstream activities coming out of product. Yeah, a hundred percent. So, I mean, obviously, obviously. Here, here’s the thing I’ll say about messaging and positioning of that technically comes for it before it is that first and foremost, like positioning, I think we talk about B2B a lot about positioning.
About positioning. How do I say this? I guess, I think, I think in B2B, when we talk about positioning, we’re really talking about messaging because the inputs you need to create a strong position that ultimately influence what you say into who start with the customer and the product, like, what are we building and for who that’s, that’s the main, the main put, Main input is the customer, right?
Customer we’re trying to serve. And then it’s like, okay, what are we building for them? That’s, that’s the, the nucleus of, um, of positioning, right? What if you’re trying to position once it gets to, you know, the copy. website, like I’ll admit you, you can reframe things with words and messaging, um, and make the same thing look a couple of different ways, very different ways, maybe for example, and position differently, even though the product’s the same, but really, Really the inputs you need are from the customer and then the product.
So I think product marketing, there’s a reason why it’s called product marketing, you know, at com room is a perfect example. It’s got tons of fabulous product marketers. Everybody’s really a really good product marketer, but like I roll up to marketing and products. I work with our VP of marketing. Of product all the time.
I work with our head of marketing all the time. Right? So I have to be close with the VP of product and the product team and the customer and what we’re building. Cause that’s where positioning starts, right? That’s the main input. And then when we get to the messaging side over on the marketing side of the house, that’s like, okay, how are we going to frame what we’ve built?
Like we’ve already, we’re already building this position. We’ve decided how we want to position. We’re going to build products to be that position, even though. Like look at positionings, largely an exercise that marketing and businesses do, even though company or buyers are going to position you however the hell they want, but we’re trying to influence that position.
Right. And then when it gets to the messaging side of it, it’s like, okay, now we need to start thinking about like, um, framing this in a, in a way that’s relevant to the world that our buyers live in today. Um, So yeah, I think those are the main inputs. And then obviously there’s, there’s so many more inputs along the way when you get into messaging and like, what, what do you, what are you trying to say into who and when, and, and, you know, like if you’re running messaging for a demand gen paid media campaigns, for example, you’ve, you’ve got to look at all those different, uh, performance markers and data inputs and everything like that too.
So, but yeah, I think, I think the nucleus of all of this is the customer and the product. So one of the things that I think about when we think about product marketing is like highly detailed, like product content, right? The ins and outs of how to with the product and like all of the details. And honestly, I feel like in my experience working with product marketers, a lot of times I feel like we get just like so far in the weeds.
And then there’s the other side of it where. You know, you see demand gen teams just like doing things for fun for the sake of things that might be fun, right? Like, uh, so how do you essentially when like building out like a content portfolio, like how do you balance that super technical content with the fun stuff that, you know, seemingly only there to create that brand association?
Yeah. Yeah. So really good question there. Um, I have like, we can, we can jive on this in a little bit. I have this demand ladder. That’s, that’s a messaging framework that helps me stay focused on like the things we need to do. Um, and it’s, it’s a, it’s a framework that I reference all the time. Cause I often, there’s so much stuff you can do and say, it’s like, where do we start?
What should we say? The demand, the demand ladder helps me with that. But on the topic of like rational versus like. B2B community on LinkedIn. Listen to this. Might think of this as like edgy education versus entertainment. I guess that’s the, the, the hot thing going on right now. I think the rational information is, is important just as much as the, the brand and education or entertainment stuff is too.
But the way I try to frame it is like the, the rational information, who is that mostly relevant for? If you’re, if you’re going to be drilling the, uh, Like the super rational argument about what your product can do. That’s most relevant for people who are investigating your product right now. And who are in market looking to buy, right.
Which we know is, is a very small group of people. That’s not to say that like, you can’t build some really good brand hype and momentum by announcing your product releases and, and keeping people abreast of like, you know, the capabilities that you’re building into your product. You still need to do that.
Like, I always say that. That rational product information is mostly relevant for a small group of buyers, but they’re looking to buy. So you need to have it. Um, I always say that like the goal is like to try to get people who are not in market to still go on that, um, journey before the journey, as I would call it and look like they’re buying.
Like I want, I want people who are not in market to visit the website. To book a demo to maybe look at a live demo. Like I want them to do that. I want them to engage with our rational content. And that’s a good sign. It’s hard to measure that, but I think that’s a good sign that, um, the products got some kind of fit with that market, but as far as the brand stuff goes, like, here’s what I would posit is like, what, what’s the difference between brand and product marketing?
I actually don’t think there’s a difference at all. I just think it’s a division of labor. Like I, I think I think product marketing, like I started in the beginning really needs to own the association layer. So what are these associations that we need to build? And then everything else becomes like, well, how are we going to do this?
Like, how are we going to make these associations crystal clear? How are we going to make them memorable? Right. I think the brand and the entertainment side should come in and say, Hey, these are the associations we want to build around the problems we solve. And then the buying situations that trigger people to move in market that we want.
Like product marketing needs to do the job of creating those associations, but like the brand team needs to do the job of making those, like searing those associations into future buyers mind so that when they move in market, they, they think of you. Right. And so both brand and product into any, anybody that’s doing comms on the messaging side, Should all have accountability to building the association.
They’re just going to do it differently. Right. Where product marketing, I think historically and B2B has been more of the owner of like the rational, like in market product content. Whereas brand has been more the, the fun, lively, more like let’s put some, let’s, let’s create some strong memories around these associations.
So they work together in different ways. I would say that if that answers the question, I can’t remember the question. So he called me out for not doing a hype video today for not doing what? For not doing a hype video, but whatever. Anyway, the thing I wasn’t actually starting to write before I got sidetracked by other things was how.
Us and B2B, we always, since the dawn of time, essentially, have always blamed a misalignment between marketing and sales as the impediment to driving success. And like a controversial hot take that I have is. While that’s true, isn’t there another issue here? And that’s the misalignment between product marketing and brand demand gen, whatever you want to call it, because I think you just called it out to drew where it’s like, yes, there are a creation of associations, but if the brand team is getting either a watered down version of things, or the information that product is grabbing from customers, doesn’t give them what they need to be.
Successful in creating that, that hype, that value created assets, whatever you want to call it. Like there’s a true misalignment that’s happening upstream before it even gets to sales. I think there’s a lot of things that get lost in the sauce there that many people forget about or don’t see. And I know for us, we see it a lot with.
Our larger enterprise clients for sure, but even the mid market clients that we work. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I see it too. Yeah, I think, um, wow, there’s a lot to peel back there. Um, I think here’s what I think is I, I think that well, number one is, you know, in, in mark in B2B specifically, um in the marketing department, there’s it’s just There’s just a lot of siloing going on.
We’re all familiar with that. And I actually think it’s because of how B2B marketing really came to Providence over the last like 15 years with the emergence of digital. Marketing quote unquote, which is a term I absolutely hate, but around mid two thousands, you know, Google’s already humming along. You’ve got social media, YouTube coming on the scene.
Then you’ve got blogging and all this. It’s now you’ve got all these digital channels. Now you’ve got content marketing emerging. You got SEO emerging. You got social media emerging when these things came on the scene. They were naturally siloed because nobody knew what the hell you could do with them, right?
So it was like, Hey, here’s all this new bevy of channels and they’re brand new and we don’t know what we’re supposed to do. So let’s just hire, you know, a social media person or let’s, let’s have this person or department just go own this social media thing and figure out how it works. So you have this like bifurcation of the entire department that happened because you had all these new channels, right?
And I think we’re finally getting to a point where that’s, um, starting to change, but like you still in, in the, the modern like B2B marketing department, you still feel like the ripple effects from how this all started around digital years ago, where there’s this natural siloing. So I think that makes it hard for people to.
Communicate across departments. Cause we have all these, these title, all the, like, there’s so many, so many different like specialists within the marketing department that have their division of labor, and it’s like, at some point, I think we’ve lost the script and that you’ve got so many tactical specialists that understand the channels.
More than they understand the marketing. Right. And somehow we’ve lost in B2B this, this fundamental underpinning of how marketing actually works and the principles of growth and things like that, that all of these tactical people and their specialists need to know. And if they did, then you wouldn’t be seeing so much miscommunication, misalignment and siloing.
It just, it wouldn’t happen. Cause people would be more on the same page. Um, that’s like a huge gap in the market in general. Right now. We see that hiring all the, cause like we. We’re a paid media agency. We are looking for specialists to an extent. And like, when you put a job listing out for like a paid search specialist, like.
I’m going to go out and say 90 percent of them, like seemingly don’t have marketing. I’m going to call it marketing experience. They know how to press the levers and what not to do and what not to do as they are brainwashed by Google. I feel like, I mean, SEO is the same way where, you know, there’s a lot of like technical components to it.
And like, when it comes down to it. Marketing fundamentals, positioning, messaging, testing. Like, I feel like that piece, understanding the business, right. And I feel like that’s like the core, the core thing that every marketer needs. Okay. You really want to go on a tangent here? Cause I’ll, I’ll, I’m taking the bait here.
Um, yeah, I mean, look like you can make a strong argument B2B hasn’t really been marketing at all the last 15 years. Um, it’s been tactification, it’s been communification. It’s been, um, It’s been completely divorced from like what marketing needs to do. And, and here’s why is like with those new channels, like, think about this.
It’s 2024 now. And now you’ve got, I’m one of these people. Now you’ve got like, and I’m sure you guys probably are too. You’ve got like a mature group of like seasoned professionals in B2B marketing who are self taught digital natives. And when we got into this around, you know, late two thousands or so somewhere in that area, when this was all blowing up, we thought naively and ignorantly that, that traditional marketing was dead.
That TV was dead. Advertising was dead. That content marketing, this newfangled thing is going to change the world. That was a complete, I won’t even go down that tangent, but that was a complete mess. Um, and so we were, we were arrogant and proud that we were self taught like. Right. Like, like there’s this whole thing that goes around B2B marketing.
Like, oh, they didn’t teach you that in business school. It’s like, actually they didn’t teach you marketing on the social media blog or in the LinkedIn feed. They’re not teaching you marketing there. So I think that’s, that’s like the, the, the core issue here is you have a lot of B2B marketers who are seasoned digital natives who have gotten most of their education from online tactical courses.
No fundamental academic. Training and, and B2B marketers, let’s be honest, most of them shit on academic training, but the truth is like, what’s happening in academia right now around marketing. I’d love to hear you guys take on this too, by the way, you may disagree, but what’s happening in academia around, um, marketing is brilliant right now.
And some of the best marketers are coming out of schools, not tactical box. I’ll just say that. I don’t know. I, I, I don’t have anything to base this off of besides just hearsay. And what do you mean, Andy? I have a marketing degree. Do you? Yeah, both of us do. Both of, both of us have this, this gets to the like marketing is, and I’m just realizing here, like what is how stupid of me to not make sure my computer battery was charged.
And I’ve got like all these things plugged in. I may have to unplug from I’ll stay on, but I may have to unplug from this camera anyways. Um, the marketing, this gets to the point where marketing is kind of generally an undisciplined discipline. Like you don’t go to become a plastic surgeon, go to medical school to become a plastic surgeon.
There’s no like, ah, I’m going to do it on my own. Don’t I’ll figure this out. No worries. Like I don’t need to go to medical medical school to do this. I’ll just go start operating on people that doesn’t happen. Like there there’s discipline there, but here in marketing, we just piss over like. Who’s right.
And who’s wrong. And we’re all saying the same things in different ways. And it slows down the evolution of marketing and mostly in B2B partially it’s B2C too, because, because we’re fighting over what demand creation and demand generation means for 10 years when it really like B2C marketing called it brand marketing in 2008.
We could have just stuck there and kept that, like, you know what I mean? So. I think we do ourselves a disservice here in B2B because we lack the discipline, like, like not discipline to work hard discipline of like, like a, like a, um, a discipline of a career. Like, what, what is the discipline actually include?
I think that’s missing and we don’t have like a formal body that has really like. Institutionalize that in a way that’s like replicable. And, and, you know, we’re marketers, we like to live on the fringe because that’s how we get attention. We’ve learned how to be good messengers and stuff. So we’re always fighting and renaming things and it just hurts us all.
So I think, so just to kind of touch on what you just were talking about, Drew, I think now that I think back of like, so I graduated way in college in oh eight, so I was pre digital in most regards there, like whatever. Um, but if I think about like the fundamental marketing courses. I can like four Ps, you know, all those kinds of things.
Like I see those now as translating into what a product marketer needs to be successful. Don’t get me wrong. Like it’s crucial fundamentals for every piece of that. But like, if you look at today’s educational curriculum as relates to advertising, I mean, what is, what is the primary thing that people think of?
Oh, social, like how can I be on social? How can I do TikTok? You know, the misinterpretation of. Social media as marketing and being the only thing as relates to marketing or graphic design. Right. Yeah. And the people that are teaching those courses in many regards are still the stalwarts of like traditional education and traditional marketing, which is what I was kind of alluded to before, like one of the people that he was a longtime team member, but he used to, and he was an intern for a long time.
Like he gave us horror stories of the professors that were teaching them because. He was learning more with us doing an internship than he was ever learning in the class because they had no idea what they were talking about. Well, there’s, there’s always going to be the divide between academia and the real world and that a lot of academia isn’t, isn’t doing the work.
Um, they’re doing the science maybe for example. And I should say this too. There’s a lot of really bad like marketing education too, but you’re, you’re starting to see like Aaron Berg Bass Institute of Marketing Science, Byron Sharp, and that whole group. Bring some really, really good marketing science to, to underpin like how this all works.
And you’re starting to see that branch off in a lot of the business schools too. But, but, um, I forgot what I was going to say. I can bring this back. I can, I can, I can bring this back to where we were going guys. I can bring this. It’s great. Ran. I’d love to talk about this for hours to bring this one home though.
So we’re talking about fundamentals, right? And like, what are the fundamentals that you need to learn? Yeah. The fundamentals that you get from school, the fundamentals you get from blog posts and the fundamentals you get from LinkedIn influencers or whatever. Uh, so to kind of like, one of the things that we really wanted to dive into today is like, okay, so we come from more of the demand gen side.
Like, I mean, we’re, we’re paid media. We are like, Demand gen plus money. Right. Um, like kind of go to that, to fix this disconnect. Like what are like some of the fundamentals that paid media people need to know and that you need that basically that you need in order to run a successful paid media campaign.
Yeah, this could be, I mean, we could talk for a lot of fundamentals. Um, and I have a couple of things in mind I want to talk about here, but I think maybe this is a good time to talk about the demand ladder because the demand ladder for me, I created this out of like, it’s a messaging framework. And I created it for, I created it for everything, but when I first created it, I was doing paid media.
So I was like, okay, what does our paid media need to do on a fundamental standpoint, like, and how do we, how do we make sure we’re doing good marketing, not just good content? Um, so maybe it’s a good time to talk about the demand ladder and there’s kind of, so I won’t go through the demand ladder, like the whole thing.
Uh, let me just check my battery too. Okay. We got 8%, we might be good guys. Um, well, how long are we here for? Until 11? So we’re done. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, I just don’t, I don’t want my battery to cut out. I’ll switch in like 10 minutes. Uh, okay. So, so the demand ladder, let me give you a high level overview here.
Is that okay by the way? Can I go into the demand ladder? Yeah. Okay, cool. And we can, I’ll draw some links in, in, you know, where this live feeds at and, and linked to an article that kind of goes over it. Um, but essentially, you know, what I realized is starting off as a, as a self taught digital native, and I got a background in writing, I went to school to be a writer and graduated and I was like, what the hell do I do?
Oh, content market. I want to be a content marker. This was like back in 2012 so it got really good at creating really good content. Could write a long form post, could write a lead magnet back when those were cool, was doing that whole thing and doing tactically things really well. But. At some point around like 2014, 15, I realized like, I didn’t know anything about marketing.
Like back then, this is how far B2B has come though, which is good is back then, like nobody talked about positioning and B2B, like when it came to tactical content marketing, it just didn’t happen. It didn’t happen at all. Now it’s like, at least we’re bringing in some fundamentals around positioning and then trying to influence our media with that.
But, but anyways, I realized, yeah, I didn’t know any of this stuff and, and I can create really good content, but it’s really bad marketing. And you see that all the time. Like. You can get a lot of likes. You can get a lot of reach. You can get a lot of engagement. You can get a lot of clicks. You can get all this stuff, but good content does not necessarily mean good marketing, right?
You could be in front of the wrong people. You could be, you could be saying the wrong things. You could be not creating the right associations with your product and the, the buying, the, the buying situations that move people in market. Um, you could be not doing any of this in a memorable way that people will, when they move in market, they actually think about you.
So there’s a lot of things that like. Content can do that looks like, wow, this is beautiful, spectacular, highly engaging, but long term isn’t doing much for you. So that’s where I was like, okay, I need to figure something out here. And research the marketing science and, and big bake that into how I think about content.
So for me, I think you should always think about, uh, what media you’re creating, whether that’s for paid media or any of your content, by the way, I hate the word content too, cause it’s so vague and broad, like it can mean so many things. Um, but if you’re creating media or content, like instead of thinking about like what channels or what formats or what like, Pillars or categories we should talk about.
You should really be thinking about like, what does marketing need to do for it to work? Right. And that’s kind of where the demand letter starts is like, if there’s eight things I’ve come up with, like, it’s not exhaustive, but like, if you can do these eight things. And think about these eight things and then build media around these eight things, then you’re going to be okay.
Like I’ve generally, I’ve generally learned that like, if we can do this, and I’ve been running this for quite a bit, like it generally works, um, 7 percent battery. So, um, let me jump into them real quick. And I gave an hour presentation on this like a month ago, so I’m not going to, it’s, I could go forever on this, but I won’t, but I’ll talk high level about the eight different categories and what they’re trying to do without trying to Drive, dive too deep into like examples and spend too much time.
But essentially. Essentially there’s eight parts of this eight rungs on this ladder. The first one I call catalysts. The second one I call demand bridges. The third one I call points of worldview. The fourth one I call influential allies. Fifth one’s category entry points. Six is emotional vessels. Seventh is direct capabilities.
And the last one’s evidence. And I know that means Jack. Nothing to anybody right now. So let me kind of explain what each one is. So a catalyst essentially, and I’m actually, I’m going to be totally frank right now. I’m in my Canva looking at the presentation I just gave because I forget these things too.
Like there’s so much stuff going on in marketing that you can do that. It’s really easy to forget what you need to do. So I use this framework all the time to be like, damn, am I like. Am I going crazy? Or I’m like, am I overthinking what we need to be doing? Let me go ground myself in the demand ladder and be like, okay, yeah, let me focus here.
So I’m actually looking at this right now because like off the top of my head, like I don’t have all this always memorized all the time either, but essentially the first one catalyst. So in every market you have, you have to build a capacity for buyers to want what you sell essentially. Right. And a catalyst is a way to help people.
Diagnosed that the problems we’re solving to begin with. So if you had to go to like a fundamental, like what, what is fundamentally marketing need to do on a paid media side or any side? Well, number one is you’ve got to build this capacity to buy by helping people understand that they have a problem we’re solving and you can do that.
By helping them diagnose their problem. Right. And you see this a lot with like maturity calendar or maturity assessments. That’s just one example, like a marketing maturity or measurement maturity. Like those are two things I’ve done in the past. Or revenue maturity. Gong has a revenue maturity one where it’s like, Hey, take this quiz.
And it’s kind of, it’s a little bait and switchy with the gong one where it’s like, Oh, surprise, like you suck at these things that we can help with. So that’s not the point here, but it’s to help give people the tools to help them better understand. The problems that you help them solve so that they can realize, wow, there’s, there’s actually a problem we’re solving here.
That’s the first one. I call those catalysts because you’re really catalyzing this investigation, right? Like you’re, you’re catalyzing a buying, um, journey, if you will. Uh, the next one to the demand bridges I talked about, like, if you think about, Any market there, by the way, interject. If you have any questions here, I know I’m going to be rambling here for a minute, but so like, if you, if you think about any market, there’s always a group of people solving the problems that you solve, even if they’re doing it in a status quo, old world way, and you’ve got this new fangled, better approach, they’re still trying to solve the problems you solve.
So. We just need to find those people, right? We need to find those people and build a bridge, a demand bridge, I call it, from where they’re solving it now to where you want them to solve it with you, because those are highly motivated buyers, right? A good way to get in front of highly motivated buyers who are already solving the problems is to teach them how to solve the problems you solve, but in all the different ways.
So, this is where I think It’s content marketing, right? If you, if you define like what is content marketing, it’s like this educational content that’s, I mean, content marketing gets really broad and, and really far removed from associations that it shouldn’t, but generally, if you’re able to help people who are already trying to solve the problem you solve, but in all the different ways, like an example would be like, Um, like say you’re selling a project management software, for example, and you’ve got your, you know, ClickUp or something, you’ve got templates on how to project manage, um, I don’t know, like a product, new product sprint or something.
Like a lot of people are trying to build those things in, in, um, Google Sheets, for example, they’re looking for Google Sheet templates. They’re Googling Google Sheet templates for product. Like you need to be there. Like that, that’s a really good place for you to be so that you can bridge the demand. From where they are, where people are buying what you solve today to, to you, right, to this better, better place of solving.
Um, and that’s the second one. So the first one is catalyst. Second one is demand bridges. I won’t go too deep on that. We, you can ask questions at the end. Maybe we’ll go a little deeper, but again, I’m worried my fricking battery is going to die. Um, uh, the next one, the next one is points of worldview. So.
This is the, you know, point of views of a hot topic in B2B marketing, I think for a really good reason, because number one, like if you don’t have a strong point of view on the problems you’re solving or the conversations that are important to your buyers, as it relates to you or your product in, in, in your category, then how are you going to even stand out?
Like that’s just number one, right? If you’re not saying something provocative and original, then you’re just adding to the noise and marketing communications gets really hard. Uh, but essentially like. You need to be able to frame what you sell, not the way, like you just want to, it’s really hard to come in and say, Hey, what you’ve been doing sucks.
It’s broken. It doesn’t work. You’re wrong. Here’s how to do it. That doesn’t work. That doesn’t work. Like it just doesn’t work. Cause you’re number one, you’re going to offend people, but you’re not meeting people where they are today. So you’ve got to be able to meet people around their worldview. What do they believe about what you’re selling today?
You have to start there, right? You can’t just start with like, Hey. Your current way, status quo sucks. We’re the new way. You have to be like, Hey, let’s talk about the status quo here. Like, let, let, let’s, like, let me, let me provide some original thought around the status quo in a way that’s like very, very good example of this is, um, Chris Walker with a fine labs, like he, he does a marvelous job of getting close to customers and how they’re solving the problems he solves, but.
Talking about it in the way he talks about it, uh, talking about it in the way the customers talk about it today. So that question, I’m going to, yeah, I got a question on this one. You mentioned Chris Walker. Do you think that it’s a, there’s a difference in how you approach this for like a service based business for like, versus like a, a tech based business?
Cause I feel like, I feel like the point of view is like really, really important for a service based business. Like we’re an agency, like, I feel like it. People buy based on that, almost like they buy based on that point of view versus in the tech side, it’s more about like, you know, you can get that association because of the point of view, but ultimately it’s not, let’s going to sell the product at the end.
A hundred percent. Like I think, I think in, in it’s a great point, I think in tech products, like you have to remember that like the story is not the product, like. Ultimately, number one is the product. Like just tell them what the product does and how it can help them. That always needs to come first. Point of view is how you’re going to stand out. It’s hard to have a presence on these organic channels. If you don’t have a point of view, right? Like, how are you going to show up on LinkedIn? If you’re not saying something strong about the world, your buyers live in today, you’re not going to have a presence.
So point of view is still very important there, but with a service business, I mean, your thoughts are your product, right? So your, your, your point of view is essentially you. Marketing your product, right? So there’s a one to one relationship there. This is where I can go on a tangent here too, but like, this is where content marketing was really built for service businesses, not so much for tech businesses.
I don’t want to say that, like what you do in content marketing is important for tech businesses. But, but really this works really well for services because there’s a one, one to one relationship between what you’re. Marketing and what you’re selling. Right. So yeah, that’s, that’s a great point. Um, but ultimately I think to top that off, it’s about like, you have to, you have to move people from the facts they understand today to like the facts they need to know to, to believe you.
Right. I would put it that way. Right. And point of view is a good way to walk people across that line. Um, the next one too is influential allies. This one’s really simple. Like, You’ve got to get people to evangelize like your product and the problems you solve and the way you solve them for you. Like, like people talk in B2B marketing about creating a movement.
That’s like the popular thing. Let’s create a movement. Let’s create a movement. It’s like, you can’t create a movement without other people carrying the torch for you. So I’m always looking like from a fundamental standpoint, Like you should be thinking about partnering with like influential allies in your space to give number one, you distribution, right?
Pour the gasoline on the distribution fire to help them distribute. But it’s the second layer that is like, you want to get these people to buy into like, like this problem you’re solving and the way you’re solving it. So they can go out and evangelize it on their own. And when they’re evangelizing it on their own, they’re like, Oh.
Common room does this common room helps me does this for example, right? So I think anytime from a fundamental standpoint, you can work with allies, whether that’s influencers or creators or just popular voices or other brands always, always punch up in this case, right? It’s a really good way to establish credibility and make it feel like what you’re doing is a lot bigger than it actually is.
Um, the next one is category entry points. So this is kind of a newer topic in B to B, but essentially a category entry point is, uh, is, uh, the needs and occasions that trigger category buyers to move the market. So if someone’s like a B to B buyers, like. You know, it’s coming towards the end of the year.
Marketing agency is a perfect example. Like they’re, they’re getting ready to look at their tooling budget. They’re getting ready to look at like, is this agency working for us when they’re doing their, their fourth quarter planning for next year? That’s a great place for a marketing agency to associate itself with.
Right. So that when people are in that stage of like, Hey, we’ve got to review our fourth quarter planning, like for what we’re going to do in the next year. Yeah. Wouldn’t you want, wouldn’t a marketing agency want to be like thought of in that time, that would be like an example of a category entry point.
I think positioning is trying to build associations around category entry points, but in B2B, we’re typically just talking about like, we’re typically associate, associating ourselves like broadly with the problem and the category. Like you gotta go deeper, you gotta go deeper. Like, what are these, what are these buying triggers like that were like that trigger a need, like we’re.
B2B buyers just go about their day. Something happens in their business environment and they go, damn, I need to solve that. Now you want them to think, Oh, I need to solve that with them. Right? So you want to associate yourself with those though, from a fundamental standpoint, you want to associate yourself with those, um, those category entry points, not just broad categories, even though that’s important too.
Okay. Let me check my battery 3%. Um, At any point, is that saving time and money? What? Is, at any point, is a catalyst or a category entry point saving time and money? Um, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, we’ll think about this. Like, that’s a very Like, um, so sales pitch for every software, everybody says that, but yeah, absolutely is a category entry point, but this goes to category entry points is like, you’ve got to pick the ones that are defensible and ownable.
Right. That’s not, that’s not, that’s what I would say to that. Right. Like we, like, you know, talking about like, you know, we help you grow pipeline and revenue, like, yeah. So does every other MarTech company tells you that. Right. Um, which actually brings me to my next point. Let me do something here real fast.
I’m going to unplug, cause I can’t plug it in. We can’t plug in my charger without unplugging the camera. Sorry guys. So we’ll, we’ll go to, hopefully this is going to go to my. We’ll be right back. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, no, I think he brings up a valid point while he gets his other camera. Defensiveness, they’re making it defensible when it comes to time and money. At your point, like that’s what every tech tool out there says they’re going to do. But it’s like, I don’t wake up in the morning, eat my bowl of churros and say, I’m going to go save time and money today.
Nor do I have a boss that comes to me that says, go save time and money. It’s not a true pain point or a catalyst for moving into market. Well, the other, like the other layer in all of this, right. It’s like the audience segmentation and how you kind of take this and adapt it to the different personas that you’re targeting.
Right. So we were just talking to you about, we were going off on a little mini tangent about like time and money as like a catalyst or reason to enter the market and. You don’t wake up in the morning and say, I’m going to go save time and money. Nor do you have a boss that comes to you and say, okay, your job today is to go save time and money.
Now there’s a, a tangible reason that that might be an outcome, but that’s not the thing that is actually becoming the catalyst for reason. For coming into market to James’s point, like that comes back to audience segmentation too, where it’s like, it’s a valid outcome, but it’s not, it means different things to different people within the buyer market.
Well, you can take basically everything that he’s gone through so far and like, split it between like, it was a champion in the deal, the decision makers and like, the storyline is going to be different. Yeah, let me, so I know I’m noticing I’m a little late in here. Can you, are you hearing me? Okay. You’re good.
So this actually, the next segway is perfect into that next rung on the demand ladder. I call it direct capability. So what we’re talking about here is like, what I would call is like, there’s. Direct benefits and indirect benefits. And so often in B2B, we love to talk about the indirect benefits. Like these aren’t things that the product actually does, like creating you more productive, creating more revenue, creating more pipeline. The product doesn’t actually directly do that, right? Indirectly by doing something else, it can help you create that. Right. But buyers. Cannot and will not make sense of that indirect benefit if you do not tell them what the direct benefit is They just won’t they’re going to go revenue.
What the hell does that mean? How are you going to help me do that? Right. So this is where I call them direct capabilities and you just have to get to You have to stop thinking about the indirect benefits. There may be a place for that at a certain point, but largely like, I feel like use cases and direct capabilities, um, like what the product actually does and, and what like use cases it enables, those are like, you need to, you need to help people understand what it does and what’s possible with it, right.
To help them bridge the gap, to be like, Oh, I can do this with that. Yeah. Ah, I see. That’s going to help me create more revenue. The other thing too, is like, we need to just trust, like, like I started earlier on, I went to school to be a writer. And one of the things they teach you in writing is like, you, you got to trust the reader a little bit, right? Like if you, if you show them the direct capability, like what the product actually does and what’s possible with it, like from a, like a actual, like capability standpoint, there, it’s not hard for me to figure out, like I’m trying to solve this, I’m not, I’m not in the department going and say, I need a I need to find a tool to create more revenue.
I’m going, damn, you know, there’s a blocker to revenue right now. And it’s, you know, I don’t have enough signals to do inform my outbound. Like I know, I know that if I get more signals to inform my outbound. More intelligently, I’m going to create more revenue. You don’t need to tell me that I get that. You need to tell me that you’re a company that collects and generates signals, right?
That’s more important. Right. So I think that’s, does that make sense? Is that because it’s interesting, like from our side, I feel like there’s two things that you’ve covered already that I always feel like do the best in ads, period, like in advertising and demand one, just like showing how the product solves the problem.
Like, I think that that’s like. Super important. I mean, even like silly things like screenshots of like dashboards and reporting and like what the product is capable of do really well in ads. And then the other thing, the kind of, I think this was a couple of points ago, just like the proof points, right.
Showing that you showing that there are people like you who’ve seen success with the product. Like those are the two things. I mean, it’s like. Honestly, just say like different stages of the journey. But like, those are the two things that stand out to me that you said so far that I feel like are what I’ve seen to be like the most successful when like specifically running ad campaigns.
So the other thing that just triggered in my mind is when we think about like direct capabilities versus indirect benefits, right? Direct capabilities are 99 percent of the time being defined and created by product marketing. Indirect benefits are coming from demand gen, the agency, whomever, because I mean, gut feel is like, they don’t necessarily understand what the capabilities mean or how to summarize it in a way that’s going to, in theory, resonate with the market.
And I feel like when we talk about like product education, we always talk about through the lens of product education to the market that’s buying. But what about product education to the internal stakeholders that are trying to go to market? And there’s so many times that I’ve experienced over the years where the we’re interfacing with point of points of contact on the brand side that can’t articulate what a product does.
Or what the actual capabilities and true benefits are outside of the indirect ones they have crafted or been told pretty much. Yeah. I got, I got some stuff that I was just writing down notes. I didn’t forget, but, um, yeah, you know, what’s interesting about the capabilities and a lot of these orgs at being in the product marketing capabilities and use cases usually come from the product team, right.
Which, which is, could be the first breakdown, right. Where. Common room at common room right now, selfish plug here. I’ve never seen a better product team in my life. It’s incredible. And these people are so plugged into the customer and in our positioning, it’s ridiculous. Like I, it’s like, why do they even hire me?
It’s a little different here, but in my experience, like it’s usually like the product is jamming down, uh, use cases and capabilities to product marketing. And then they’re translating those. There’s this like game of telephone and things just get watered down from there. That that’s a problem, right? So product marketing needs to be involved earlier.
I also think a big problem here with, you know, so many demand jam marketers or paid media copywriters, whatever, whoever’s doing tactical messaging, like deploying it, um, with them leaning on these indirect benefits is that there is a misunderstanding of what is capable with words. Like, I’m not saying I I’m, I’m.
Positioning messaging. I’m I’m a words guy, but, but guess what? Like, no matter what you say, you’re not going to move people in market. You have, you have to get used to that. Right. I I’m willing to admit that like in certain categories, certain products, like if something, like if a, a company I’ve never heard of comes across my Instagram feed with an ad saying like, you know, buy these three, like, uh, golf tees and they look cool.
And it costs me 49 for all three. I, I may click on that and go buy it. Cause there’s no, there’s no thought effortfulness. It’s 50. If they get to me, they don’t fit. I’ll give them to somebody else. There’s not like if that ad didn’t come in for me, I probably wouldn’t have bought them. So maybe they did move me in market there.
Right. But I guess you could get fundamental with it and say like, clearly I wanted a t shirt. So maybe they didn’t. But anyways, I’m willing to admit that in certain categories like that, that sure, an ad has more of a power of like, like getting someone to buy now. But in B2B, when you’re selling complex B2B products, it doesn’t work like that.
Um, like you, you can’t, you can’t just send an ad and someone’s gonna be like, Oh, yes, like I’m ready. No impulse purchasing and buying now. Yeah, exactly. So I think what happens is. We get so caught up and put so much pressure on ourself. I, I used to do this when I was younger, like, this is something I overthought all the time was like, I need to say the right thing here.
I need to see if I don’t say the perfect thing right here, they’re not going to buy. Well, guess what? They’re not going to buy. If they’re not in market anyways, you need to just, and they’re not going to buy. If they don’t know what the hell you do, just tell them what you do. Take the flower out of it.
Take the indirect benefits out of it. Start there. That’s a much better place to go. And I think if you understand that, like your job is not to get an ad in front of somebody and move them in market. Cause that doesn’t work like that. It’s more to communicate what you can do and how you, how you fit within their world today so that when they move in market, they hopefully remember you once you realize that, like, I think it’s becomes a lot easier to be like, okay.
Okay. I can write ad copy super fast. I’m not overthinking it. I’m not sticking on flowery benefits or outcomes because I know that like, like dressing this up, isn’t going to create a buyer. I just, what’s going to create a buyer is if they’re in market, they need to know what I, what I do. And if they’re out market, they need to know what I do.
Right. And that’s, that’s kind of it. Pretty much. Let me finish the demand letter. Sorry. I know I’m rambling here. But you mentioned proof. So one of the rungs is evidence. I should say this. It’s like the demand ladder is not like the demand ladder is a collection of just fundamentals. It’s not like I created this brilliant framework to be like, this is how you message.
Wasn’t like that at all. It was really like, let me just collect all the things that we should be doing that work. So if you see things on here that like, we’ve already had a couple where you guys brought up, like, Oh, you need to do this. I’m like, yeah, that’s a rung on the ladder. It’s because these are fundamental things, right?
But evidence, the one thing I want to add with evidence and proof is that. There’s, there’s, there’s social proof, like buyers that have the same problems are me or have the same types of, uh, you know, organizational structures, me, same size, same, same stage are using your product with success. There’s that, but also I think what’s often missed is there needs to be proof in, in the approach, like you need to bring evidence that what you’re saying.
Say we’re talking about point of view, right? You, you need to bring evidence to that argument too. Not just social proof that people like your product, but like evidence should be an under, under, like underpinning anything you say, like if you can just bring evidence to any argument. And make it less subjective and more objective about what you’re saying, whether that’s point of view, whether that’s, you know, product related, what, what, no matter what you’re saying, that’s generally a good fundamental place to be right.
Because people are, are suspicious of everything. Um, You know, we just talked about how people always talking about how they’re going to crank up our revenue, 10 X like, yeah, right. Everybody’s suspicious of that. So you’ve got to have a heavy dose of evidence, not just social proof, but you have to have evidence to support any claim you make.
I think that’s a generally good place to be. The last thing I’ll say too, and this is my favorite here about the [00:51:00] demand ladder. I swear. I’ll get off of this after this, but the last fundamental that everybody needs to be thinking about is. We’ve talked about associations, but how do you create how do you make those associations memorable?
That’s Missing that’s where like the brand marketing the entertainment stuff comes in now. Yeah, like I’ve talked with you James with you Previously about like this entertaining content kind of gets off the wheels too because it leans too far in their entertainment It’s it’s farce. It’s borderline farce.
It’s funny, but it’s, there’s zero building or refreshing of an association that’s memorable. Right? A good example of who does this really well is, is a TV ads. Like think about Geico, like Geico ads are funny and entertaining, for example, but they’re also very principled. They’re just hitting you with a core association with a set of distinct features so that every time [00:52:00] you see that ad, you remember it’s them.
And they’re building memory structures in your mind, right? So that when you need insurance next Geico fits that consideration set, because you remember the guy, you remember the, you know, say 15. Say 15 percent off car insurance in 15 minutes, wherever that tagline is. You remember the Geico Gecko, which was a brilliant way to be like, God, people are under, that’s how they came up with that.
It was like, people are pronouncing our name, right? They’re saying Gecko. Well, let’s just create a mascot called Gecko. So every time they think about Geico. They’re going to know it’s called Geico because it’s juxtaposed with the gecko and they know it’s not the gecko, right? Like just a brilliant, a brilliant way to, for a, to build like a fluent device to help you create a more memorable ad.
So the way I go about this is, is creating, I call them like emotional vessels. And this is where I’d say, like, I say, like, you can make a really good argument that like comms is just comms, whether it’s brand performance, demand, wherever you want to call it. It’s [00:53:00] all doing different things to create memorable associations and brand really kind of, if you had to divide the labor brand is really should be most responsible for the memorability part.
So if the product marketer is doing like credit, trying to create an association that may materialize and copy on a product page or in a demand ad. Then the, the brand person needs to say, I need to take that same message. Put it inside of this very like memorable and emotional vessel so that it’s got universal relevance so that it spreads out to my market in a way that’s that that gets remembered.
Um, and you don’t really see this happening in B2B. There’s very few examples. Uh, there was like, um, Upwork does a good job of this with some of their brand ads. Uh, but even then they don’t do it very often. A good example here would be, Like one of the things we did at hockey stack when I was there was we had this, um, we had this video called the stalker.
I think it was called, [00:54:00] or was this like, I don’t know if you guys saw that. It was like a theatrical video about like how, like the current state of like how marketers are just kind of trying to use attribution to just follow people along. And there’s like, you can watch it on YouTube. There’s like, um, I think it starts with, I’m trying to refresh.
Remember, I think it starts with a, Oh, it’s like a story. It’s like a real, like two minute, like movie almost like where the woman opens, she’s like scared of box. I’ve seen it. It gets retargeted. She’s getting direct mail. Right. So we wanted to communicate a certain message about how marketing was broken and, and how we could help improve that.
Um, we could just go out and say that we could write a LinkedIn post and say, marketing’s broken. This is how we help that. That’s a very rational and unmemorable way, right? That that’s going to D D K in the mind very quickly in three days, someone who read that’s going to forget you even said it, right?
But if you can take that same message, put it in story form, like we did with the stalker, right? [00:55:00] And not only does it get more reach because humor is universally relevant across any industry, um, but you’re Trojan horsing your association in it in a very memorable way because you’re you’re playing on people’s emotions like with a stalker you’re really hitting to like Something that people relate to, like on an emotional level, like they’re like, they cringe when they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’ve been there before.
Right. So that’s the last one of the demand ladder, which I think is the biggest one that’s missing in B2B B2C does this really well, but B2B is missing that. I think, I think we’re starting to see the tide turn a little more towards that, but going to finish this off, like talking about that entertaining content, that’s completely useless.
There’s a lot of it. I think the better way to approach entertaining content is to make sure your Trojan horsing, a strong association. Within this like vessel that’s striking a chord with someone emotionally. Um, and do that in a consistent way, not just frequently, but in a consistent way so that it looks and feels and sounds the same, the association you’re [00:56:00] trying to communicate may change from one video or skit or something to the next, but the consistency in the way it looks and feels doesn’t change, right?
That’s really important too, because you’re trying to build memories again. So when you engage someone emotionally. They remember more like this is just science. Like the, the amygdala works with the, um, I always botched this. What’s going on with the fricking science? I know, I know, I know. Well, there’s a lot of like science fluff and I’m not a scientist.
I I’m completely, you’re a writer, but you’re a writer. I think I’m a writer, but the way, the way our brain works, think about, I always say this, like how many, how many like super happy moments did you have growing up that like, you remember you may have some, of course, right. Cause there’s high emotion there.
But like, How many times you remember like taking a test in school or like, uh, maybe if it was a traumatic test or, or maybe if you broke your arm or maybe if you had like a car accident, like you remember those things, those are things are not going away. Right. Because there’s there strong [00:57:00] emotional moments, or maybe your first kiss or your first heartbreak, like you remember those things for the rest of your life, because the way the brain works, when the emotions engage, our memory actually works better.
That’s that’s the science part of it. I’ll leave it at that. But when you don’t engage the emotional brain, then things just, your mind is like a sift, right? And things just fall through it really fast. When it’s rational, it falls through it fast when it’s emotional. That’s why you got to keep refreshing this and stay consistent, but rational stuff just goes in one ear and out the other and in minutes, right?
So I think B2B is so heavily rational that we’ve, we’ve, we’re starting to come along, but as, as our comms get more emotional. They get more memorable and long term they work better. That’s why I can’t remember what any of these brands do. Cause once they get to that emotional stage, they absolutely lose it.
Yeah. I mean, it’s social. No, you’re a hundred percent right. Like I get some, somehow this B2B. It’s baby steps. It’s like, it’s like crawl, walk, run. Right. I feel like we’re in the crawl stage of like figuring out brand marketing and B2B where like B2C has really figured this out decades ago. The first like crawl stage for B2B has been like, well, shit, let’s just do something that’s not rational.
Okay. I’ll take it. I’ll take it. That’s a good first step. We’ll get there. Uh, are you good at playing with, uh, some quick hitters? Of course, I’m good. I don’t have anything to bounce to right now anyway, so we can stick a little longer, right? So a couple of things that have bugged me with product marketing over the years.
Number one, what, what defines success for you? How are you measured as a product marketer? I’m not, that’s why I have this job. Are you kidding me? I found the perfect way to, to be broad and work with everything. Do a little bit of everything and not be held accountable to a commit. That’s why this is the best job in the world.
No kidding. Um, I mean, there, [00:59:00] there’s some truth to that and some organizations at some stages, for sure. I think the product marketing is more of like the quarterback that’s like enabling everybody. So you kind of have a joint commit with anything you’re working on. So, so with product marketing, typically the way I do it and work with, you know, the marketing leader or the product leader is it depends on what we’re working on because, because product marketing, it’s not like you’re just going to, it’s not like I’m just doing website copy every day.
There’s usually it’s a lot of sprint work. So it’s like, Hey, we’ve just brought in this box. We’re selling to more people. We’ve added new features. We’re repositioning ourselves or broadening our positioning. Like let’s, we, we’ve got to do like a six week sprint to do product pages, to do messaging, um, to do, uh, usually product launches.
Like product launches is a big thing that product marketing owns. Um, So, so within that, it’s like, okay, what are, what are we trying to do with the product launch? Do we have like a big new feature that we expect to grow revenue? Like what are, what are some [01:00:00] expansion numbers I can own? What are some net new logo numbers I can own?
I usually own those with. Or, or just the marketing department broadly. Um, or if we’re doing some things like, Hey, we want to, we want to test out some, some messaging on our website copy, right? We can do some message testing and look at page conversions. Like there’s a, it’s very variable depending on what you’re doing.
I would say like, yeah, sales enablement, it’s been a catch all, uh, that’s, you know, maybe like another one of those terms where it means everything. So it doesn’t mean nothing doesn’t mean everything. So it’s got no meaning anymore, but I, I think about sales enablement [01:07:00] is like, I like the way you put that about marketing, able and sales enablement, because, and I think we touched on this a little bit in the beginning, but like.
You’re, you’re talking, usually talking, depending what you’re selling, you’re usually talking to different people in that situation, right? Where you may be marketing needs to be enabled on like, like who’s like, if you’re selling a B2B common room, for example, right? We have a, a, uh, a platform that works for a lot of different people.
I think we’re hitting the, the sales. Persona and the AEs and SDRs within that right now a lot, but you know, it’s, it’s a good tool for marketing as well. So marketing is, is going to try to build buy in for your pro or yeah, marketing is to go build buy in for your product with the operators and the users.
Whereas when it gets to the sales call, you may have a champion who’s like a demand gen person who’s going to be a user, but like if it’s going to be cross departmental, Uh, there’s going to be, need to be rev ops needs to be involved. There needs to be like [01:08:00] sourcing from, uh, like budget sourcing. There needs to be like, if it’s enterprise, then you’re going to have to get CRO or CMO by like, so you’re not, now you’re talking to like a different part of the committee sales is.
And they need to be enabled to teach those people how your approach is better than other people’s, and then teach them how to buy internally. Cause the champion, who’s going to be using the product, maybe not always using the product, but usually the champion might be using the product. They’re not going to have a clue on how to sell your product internally.
If it can be used by everybody, sales needs to be enabled to teach them how to take the message that brought them to you and distribute that to everybody else that they need to get buy in from. So that you can close that deal and kind of at that point, sales is working in partnership with the champion to now go sell everybody else.
It’s the hard part. All right. Well, I think we’ve been going on for an hour here, Drew. Awesome. This was one of our better ones. Best ones. Thank you for joining. I’ll take that. [01:09:00] Despite the camera change. Yeah. It’s been awesome to be here. Um, he’s got a new camera. We got a new camera. It’s all good. Yeah. Uh, drew any, so we always like to ask near the end of our episodes, like three actual takeaways for our guests.
Biggest three from today. Biggest three from today. Like, oh man, I can’t remember what we talked about. To be honest, he was, I blacked out one, just do one, one. No, one is the most important takeaway that I would tell anybody always in marketing is that, and we talked a lot about this today, is that. We have to do a better job of coming out of our specialized tactical wheelhouse and learning the fundamental principles of, you know, marketing, how, how growth works, how, how growth differs from one stage to the next, and how you stage that growth, like we need more business acumen.
We need more. Uh, marketing fundamentals and then our tactics get that much better. [01:10:00] I think that’s gotta be the most pressing, pressing, um, task, objective homework for anybody listening to this or whatever the hell you want to call it, right? Like, like you, I think that’s the takeaway is spend your time rolling your sleeves up, learning, positioning, learning, like growth, like, like not just like, um, like, Oh, we need to, we need to go spend more money to get some more users or buyers, but like.
Zoom out, look at like the evolution of a successful company. What does that look like? What does that process from point solution to broad, undifferentiated generalists look like, you know, that over that 10 year period, what did those growth stages look like? How are they different? Like that’s, if you want to be good at marketing, you’ve got to be able to have like this prescient under prescient, like understanding of what’s coming next.
And if you don’t know how a company grows, then how in the hell are you going to forecast what’s coming down the pipe? [01:11:00] Like, you’re not, you’re going to get stuck at a sales plateau because you weren’t prepared for it. So I think, yeah, marketers need to understand how companies grow over time and they need to know the fundamentals of marketing.
All right, Drew, thanks so much for joining us today. Right. Subscribe, check out drang360. com. Check out common room for. io common room. io there we go. That’s my dodging platform. So we do, let me plug this. Let me plug us. Uh, we do three, three things really well. We’re collecting. And generating all signals out of the box, first, second, third party signals.
And then we’re going to merge those signals with real people, real accounts and real contact information. Um, so that, you know, they’re, those signals are actionable because signals by themselves are just signals until you tie those in with real people, then that becomes intelligence. And then last, we’re going to help you action those signals, um, through automation and a lot of artificial intelligence, guys.
Yeah. There’s a word. Okay. All right, man. Till next time. We’ll catch you guys later. All right. Appreciate you guys. Yep. Thanks Drew. Yeah. Thank [01:12:00] you.