The Secret Weapon of Product Marketing: Building Your Intelligence Network

As product marketers, we're constantly hunting for that elusive edge – the insights that will help us position our products better, understand our market deeper, and connect with customers more effectively. But here's a truth that took me years to discover: the most valuable market insights aren't hiding in analyst reports or competitor websites. They're flowing through your organization every single day, in countless conversations you might not be part of.

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The Real Competitive Advantage

Your real competitive advantage isn't just in the data you can access – it's in the relationships you build with the teams that talk to customers every day. These teams aren't just executing their roles; they're collecting invaluable market intelligence that often goes untapped.

Let's dive into why these relationships are so crucial and how to leverage them effectively:

Support Teams: The Front Line of Customer Reality

Support teams don't just handle tickets – they're cataloging the daily gap between customer expectations and reality. They're witnessing:

- The friction points that marketing messages don't anticipate
- The features customers assume should exist (but don't)
- The actual language customers use to describe their problems
- The workarounds customers create for missing functionality

One conversation with a support team member can reveal more about product-market fit than a dozen market research reports. They don't just see the problems; they understand the context and emotion behind each issue.

Sales Teams: Masters of Market Understanding

Your sales team isn't just closing deals – they're collecting real-time feedback on positioning, pricing, and competitive dynamics. The stories behind lost deals are often more valuable than the wins because they reveal:

- Which competitor messages are resonating most strongly
- Where your pricing model creates friction
- What features prospects assume you should have
- How decision-makers justify (or struggle to justify) the investment

When a sales team member tells you "we keep losing deals because..." they're not just sharing a frustration – they're giving you invaluable positioning insights.

Success Teams: The Journey Witnesses

Success teams have a unique vantage point: they see the full customer journey from expectation to reality. They witness:

- The difference between what customers think they need and what actually drives their success
- How customers evolve in their product usage over time
- Which features actually deliver on their promised value
- Where customers find unexpected value you haven't marketed yet

This insight is gold for future positioning and product strategy. Success teams don't just see how customers use your product – they understand why certain features become crucial over time.

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Building Your Intelligence Network

1. Change Your Mindset

Stop thinking of these teams as "stakeholders to enable." Start seeing them as your intelligence network. This shift in mindset changes everything:

- Instead of "checking in" occasionally, build regular touchpoints
- Rather than just sharing updates, ask probing questions
- Move from formal meetings to informal conversations
- Focus on building trust and mutual value

2. Create Value First

The best way to get insights is to give value first:

- Share market research that helps them do their jobs better
- Create messaging frameworks that make their lives easier
- Offer to help with customer-facing content
- Be responsive when they need marketing support

3. Ask the Right Questions

Don't just ask for general feedback. Ask specific questions that unlock deeper insights:

- "What surprised you most about recent customer conversations?"
- "What competitor claims are you hearing that we aren't addressing?"
- "Which customer success stories don't fit our current messaging?"
- "What do customers assume about our product that isn't true?"

4. Systematize the Intelligence

Create simple ways to capture and share insights:

- Set up regular, informal coffee chats with key team members
- Create a Slack channel for sharing customer insights
- Document key stories and examples for future reference
- Share back what you learn to create a virtuous cycle

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The Long-Term Impact

Building this intelligence network takes time, but the payoff is enormous:

- Your messaging becomes more authentic because it's grounded in real customer language
- Your positioning evolves based on actual market response, not just competitor analysis
- Your product marketing strategies align better with customer reality
- Your entire organization becomes more customer-centric

Remember: The best product marketing insights don't just come from formal research – they come from building the right relationships and asking the right questions. Your intelligence network is already there, waiting to be activated. Start building those relationships today.

Behind the Scenes: Mailchimp's "Mailchimp Your Marketing" Campaign

In the world of B2B marketing, it's rare to find a campaign that truly pushes the boundaries of creativity while effectively showcasing product capabilities. Intuit Mailchimp's latest campaign, "Mailchimp Your Marketing," does just that. As a product marketing strategist involved in this project, I'm excited to share an insider's perspective on how we brought this innovative campaign to life.

The Challenge: Shifting Perceptions

Mailchimp has long been known as an email marketing tool, but the platform has evolved into a comprehensive marketing solution. Our challenge was to showcase Mailchimp's advanced features - including AI-powered tools, intelligent segmentation, and multichannel capabilities - to skeptical marketers who might not be aware of how far we've come.

The Strategy: Blending Product Power with Creative Flair

Our approach was two-fold:

1. Highlight Advanced Capabilities: We needed to emphasize Mailchimp's cutting-edge features that set it apart in the crowded MarTech landscape.

2. Showcase SMS: Demonstrate how Mailchimp SMS seamlessly integrates with our email marketing, creating a powerful multichannel approach.

3. Stay True to Mailchimp's Brand: While showcasing sophistication, we wanted to maintain Mailchimp's quirky, approachable brand personality.

Working closely with Wink, Mailchimp's in-house creative agency, we developed a strategy that would demonstrate our platform's power while engaging audiences with Mailchimp's signature style.

The Execution: Innovation at Every Turn

The "Mailchimp Your Marketing" campaign broke new ground in several ways:

• Generative AI in Design: Wink used AI to prototype the campaign's look and feel, showcasing Mailchimp's commitment to innovation even in our marketing process.

• B2B Marketing with a Twist: We proved that B2B doesn't have to mean boring. The campaign's "expertly absurd" approach turned heads while delivering a serious message about Mailchimp's capabilities.

• Product Features as Creative Inspiration: We used Mailchimp's advanced features as a springboard for creative concepts, demonstrating the platform's power through the campaign itself.

The Outcome: Redefining Mailchimp in the Market

The "Mailchimp Your Marketing" campaign successfully shifted perceptions, positioning Mailchimp as a leader in marketing automation and AI-powered solutions. By balancing product sophistication with brand authenticity, we created a campaign that not only informed but also inspired marketers to push their own creative boundaries.

Lessons Learned

This campaign reinforced some key principles of effective B2B marketing:

1. Don't shy away from creativity: Even in the B2B space, bold, innovative campaigns can capture attention and drive results.

2. Let your product lead: By centering our strategy on Mailchimp's advanced features, we created a campaign that was both informative and engaging.

3. Collaborate across teams: The synergy between product marketing and creative teams was crucial to the campaign's success.

As marketers, we're always looking for ways to stand out in a crowded field. With "Mailchimp Your Marketing," we proved that it's possible to showcase complex B2B products in a way that's both informative and irresistibly engaging. It's not just about Mailchimp-ing your marketing – it's about pushing the boundaries of what B2B marketing can be.

Halo Makes an Unreal Shift: A Game-Changing Decision

If you’ll allow me, I need to write about something that is near and dear to my heart.

I'm a big gamer. I always have been, and I suspect I always will be. More recently, I've found myself incredibly interested in the gaming industry, looking at it from a business and marketing perspective. It fascinates me. One of my all-time favorites is Halo, and there was some interesting news from them this week.

In a surprising move, Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) has announced a major shift in their development strategy: all future Halo games will be developed using Unreal Engine 5. This decision marks a departure from their proprietary Slipspace Engine and signals a new era for one of gaming's most iconic franchises.

The announcement

Halo Studios revealed that this move will allow them to focus on creating multiple new Halo experiences simultaneously. Their goal? To accelerate content delivery and improve responsiveness to player feedback. But, in my opinion, the implications of this decision extend far beyond just faster Halo games.

Why this matters

1. Validation at the Highest Level : By choosing Unreal Engine 5, Halo Studios is sending a clear message: UE5 is capable of handling the most demanding, high-profile projects in the industry. This may feel like a “duh” moment, but I personally feel it’s a major win for UE5.

2. Ecosystem Benefits : There are already a ton of developers working with UE5 means a larger talent pool, more resources, and potentially faster engine improvements. Fortnite is built on UE5 and the amazing work creators already do in Fortnite Creative shows what’s capable. Imagine what this will do for Halo Forge.

3. Tech Showcase : Halo: Combat Evolved was at the forefront of gaming technology. This move has the potential to bring Halo back as a shining example of what can be done and demonstrate the engine’s capabilities in great detail.

Benefits of Moving Away from Slipspace

While Slipspace Engine was capable of producing stunning visuals (yes, even Craig), the switch to UE5 offers several key advantages:

1. Faster Development : By using a well-established engine, Halo Studios can speed up their development process and focus on game creation rather than engine maintenance.

2. Larger Talent Pool : I mentioned this above but it bears repeating: The move to UE5 opens up more jobs to more Unreal devs that are looking for work right now.

3. Focus on Core Strengths : This shift allows the team to concentrate on what makes Halo great – its gameplay, storytelling, and iconic universe.

4. Improved Cross-Platform Development : We’ve already seen Microsoft dip their toes in cross-platform IP (Sea of Thieves anyone?). UE5's robust cross-platform capabilities could lead to more consistent experiences across different systems.

Looking Ahead

For Epic Games, landing Halo is like securing a major enterprise client in the SaaS world. It's not just about one customer – it's about the message it sends to the entire market. This move represents a potential turning point in AAA game development. As we watch this story unfold, key questions emerge:

• Will we see more AAA franchises make the switch to Unreal?

• How will this affect the development and release cadence of future Halo games?

• What impact will this have on the broader gaming market and development practices?

One thing's for certain: the game development landscape is shifting. Whether you're a gamer, a developer, or just someone interested in the tech industry, this is a story worth following closely.

What are your thoughts on this move? Do you think it will lead to better Halo games? How might it impact the broader gaming market? Let me know!

Gumroad: A Case Study in Targeted Product and GTM Strategy

In the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce platforms, Gumroad has carved out a unique niche for itself. As a product marketer who recently ventured into selling digital products, I found myself drawn to Gumroad's platform. This experience not only introduced me to a new sales channel but also provided valuable insights into Gumroad's product strategy and market positioning.

Brand Recognition: The Power of Targeted Positioning

Gumroad's success in brand positioning is evident in its status as a go-to platform for digital product sales. This level of brand equity is not achieved overnight; it's the result of a carefully cultivated image and consistent delivery of value to a specific market segment. For creators looking to monetize digital content, Gumroad has become synonymous with simplicity and efficiency.

Frictionless Onboarding, but at what cost?

Upon signing up, I was struck by the ease of the onboarding process. The experience was remarkably straightforward, almost to the point of being disconcerting for a product marketer accustomed to more guided onboarding experiences. This simplicity, however, is a double-edged sword that reveals much about Gumroad's strategy.

The lack of extensive onboarding materials – no email sequences, limited in-app guidance, outdated video resources, and minimal support for product setup or sales strategies – initially struck me as a significant oversight. However, deeper analysis reveals this to be a deliberate choice aligned with Gumroad's product-market fit.

Understanding Gumroad's Target Audience

Gumroad's approach is tailored for a specific user: creators with established audiences who are ready to monetize their work. These users don't require extensive hand-holding; they need a platform that gets out of their way and allows them to sell their products efficiently.

This strategy offers several advantages:

1. Reduced operational overhead for Gumroad

2. Attraction of self-sufficient creators

3. Assurance that users bring their own customer bases

The Self-Serve Paradigm: Lessons from Square

This approach reminds me of Square's early days circa 2013, when the goal was to create an intuitive, self-serve product. However, as Square moved upmarket, they quickly learned that businesses often prefer support during onboarding. This evolution highlights a crucial point: while creating a universally self-serve product is an admirable goal, it's often incompatible with broad market growth.

Gumroad's strategy demonstrates the power of identifying and serving a specific niche. By tailoring their experience to self-sufficient creators, they've created a platform that resonates strongly with their target audience. This focus allows them to maintain a lean operation while still providing significant value to their users.

Implications on Product & Go-to-market strategy

The Gumroad case study offers several key takeaways for product strategists:

1. Know Your Audience: Understanding your target user's needs and capabilities is crucial for designing an effective product experience.

2. Embrace Constraints: Sometimes, what seems like a limitation can be turned into a strategic advantage.

3. Value of Focus: In a world of feature-rich platforms, there's still room for focused, streamlined solutions that do one thing exceptionally well.

4. Challenge Assumptions: Not every product needs an extensive onboarding process. The key is aligning your approach with your users' expectations and capabilities.

Gumroad's approach may not be universally applicable, but it serves as a compelling example of how a deep understanding of one's target market can inform every aspect of product design and user experience. As product marketers and strategists, we can learn from Gumroad's focused approach, using it to inform our own strategies for creating products that resonate deeply with our intended users.

In an era where feature bloat and complex onboarding processes are common, Gumroad's minimalist, user-trusting approach stands out. It's a reminder that sometimes, the most powerful feature you can offer is simplicity itself.

What I Wish I Knew Before Entering Product Marketing: Insight after 15+ Years

As I reflect on my career and journey over the past 15 years, from my early days at Square to my current role at Mailchimp, one question consistently emerges from aspiring product marketers:

"What do you wish you knew before entering the product marketing world?"

This question always takes me back to the beginning of my career. I vividly remember fumbling through launch plans, struggling to keep pace with the rapid-fire developments, and questioning whether I was truly cut out for this demanding field.

Now, 15 years into my career, I believe I've gained some valuable insights. Here are three key lessons I wish I had known when I first stepped into the world of product marketing:

1. Cross-functional Collaboration is Your Superpower

Whenever I start a new position, I always struggle internally with making the choice to actively engage with my counterparts. Do I want to take my time and ease in? Do I feel like I don't have a reason to get involved? It takes time to get in there and start building those relationships. After a few times at bat I quickly realized that the true essence of product marketing lies in its role as the connective tissue between various teams within an organization.

Product marketing isn't just about promotion – it's about being the glue that binds product, sales, customer success, engineering, and numerous other teams together. Your ability to translate complex technical concepts into customer benefits, to convey market needs to the product team, and to arm the sales team with the right tools and messaging is invaluable.

Key Takeaway: Cultivate relationships across teams early and often. Learn to speak the language of each department. Your effectiveness as a product marketer will be directly proportional to your ability to facilitate communication and collaboration across these diverse groups.

2. Data Fluency is Non-Negotiable

I still, to this day, lean heavily on my creative instincts and communication skills. While these are crucial aspects of product marketing, I’ve since learned that the most impactful product marketers are those who can dive deep into data and emerge with actionable insights.

The ability to analyze product usage metrics, conduct and interpret market research, and leverage A/B testing to optimize your strategies is what separates good product marketers from great ones. At Mailchimp, this skill became so critical as we scaled our products and user base.

Key Takeaway: Embrace data analysis as a core part of your role. Learn to love product analytics, market research methods, and testing frameworks. While your creative instincts and industry knowledge are important, backing your decisions with solid data will make your strategies more compelling and your results more impactful.

3. The Product Launch is Just the Beginning

One of the biggest misconceptions I had early in my career was that the bulk of a product marketer's work culminated in the product launch. I would pour my heart and soul into crafting the perfect launch plan, only to feel like I had forgotten something or wasn’t doing enough post launch.

In reality, a successful product launch is just the beginning of your work. The post-launch phase is where the real challenges – and opportunities – lie. This is when you need to be prepared to iterate quickly, gather and analyze user feedback, and continuously refine your strategy to drive adoption and retention.

At Mailchimp, I learned the importance of having a robust post-launch plan. Our most successful products were those where we remained agile, responding quickly to user feedback and market changes.

Key Takeaway: While launch day is exciting and something to work towards, remember that your work accelerates post-launch. Develop strategies for gathering user feedback, monitoring adoption metrics, and iterating on your product positioning and marketing tactics. The ability to adapt and evolve your approach based on real-world performance is what will drive long-term success.

Just remember...

Product marketing is a challenging, dynamic, and incredibly rewarding field. As you embark on or continue your journey in this exciting domain, remember that your success will be built on your ability to collaborate across teams, your skill in leveraging data to drive decisions, and your commitment to continuous improvement and iteration.

To all the aspiring product marketers out there: embrace these lessons, but don't be afraid to forge your own path. Every product, company, and market is unique, and part of the thrill of product marketing is discovering new ways to connect innovative solutions with the people who need them most.

Achieving Product-Market Fit: An Enduring Quest at Any Stage

As a product marketing leader with over 15 years of experience, I've witnessed firsthand that achieving product-market fit (PMF) is a perpetual pursuit. It's not just an initial quest for early-stage startups, but an ongoing adventure that even the most tenured product teams have to deal with.

The need to properly align each new product offering with an accurate understanding of the customer problem and perception is crucial. Getting PMF right can mean the difference between a successful launch and a costly dud.

That's why the Arc Product-Market Fit Framework from Sequoia Capital resonated so strongly with me. This mental model provides crucial orientation by outlining three distinct archetypes that products can fall into based on how customers relate to the problem being solved:

• Hair on Fire: You're tackling an urgent, in-your-face pain point that customers are actively trying to solve themselves. Think cybersecurity, sales tools, etc. Competition is fierce.

• Hard Fact: Customers have resigned themselves to just accepting the "hard fact" status quo pain point that your product solves. You must disrupt their mindset.

• Future Vision: You're introducing an entirely new paradigm - something customers cannot yet comprehend or believe is possible with existing solutions.

For product teams, identifying which archetype your offering falls into is mission-critical. The strategic priorities and execution requirements for navigating each path to PMF are starkly different:

• Hair on Fire? You must pair furious product velocity with aggressive go-to-market muscle to outpace competitors.

• Hard Fact? Educational marketing to upend the current mindset and create demand is step one before any adoption can occur.

• Future Vision? You're in it for the long haul - elite talent, perseverance, and making smart pivots to find interim milestones are paramount.

The paths are fluid too - companies evolve between archetypes as products mature or new ones are introduced. But authentic, fundamental insights into the customer's core problem perception is the pivotal first step.

At Square and Mailchimp, I saw firsthand how mental models spotlighting these fundamental truths were powerful strategic anchors - even for established product lines. As product marketers, orienting ourselves with frameworks like this is immensely clarifying. We should endlessly seek those root customer insights to properly steer positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy.

For any new product still searching for fit, I cannot recommend enough studying the Arc framework. It provides a usable model for precisely framing where you stand, so you can sharpen priorities and determine the right strategic roadmap as you navigate that all-important PMF journey.

Achieving PMF is never a final destination. It's an ongoing quest that transcends company stage or size. Having the right guiding frameworks for calibrating your unique path is game-changing for steering product strategy and increasing your chances of nailing fit.

The Long Road to Product-Market Fit: Lessons from Artifact's Journey

The recent news that Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger may revive their AI-powered news app Artifact, months after announcing its shutdown, is a compelling case study for product marketers. It underscores how finding product-market fit is often a lengthy, iterative process – even for founders with past breakthrough success.

When Artifact launched in January 2023, it made a big splash by leveraging advanced AI to reimagine news discovery and consumption. The app's novel features like automated summarization, jargon translation, and clickbait defanging resonated with many early adopters (I was one of them). However, attracting and retaining a critical mass of users proved challenging.

Initially planning to shut down in February 2024, Systrom and Krieger have surprisingly kept Artifact on life support. Why? As Systrom revealed, running the streamlined app takes "a lot less" resources than anticipated. This seems to have bought them time to potentially course-correct.

From a product marketing lens, this development exemplifies several key lessons:

1. Product-market fit is make-or-break, but finding it is rarely instant

   Even founders behind massive hits like Instagram can struggle to immediately recreate that magic with a new offering. Achieving product-market fit often takes pivots informed by real user feedback and market realities.

2. Perseverance and iteration pay off

   By keeping Artifact alive instead of pulling the plug entirely, Systrom and Krieger have options to continue iterating based on user insights. This agile, relentless refining is how product-market fit emerges.

3. Market windows can re-open

   The AI news summarization space is suddenly heating up with new startups attracting investor interest. Artifact's conditional survival allows flexibility.

The path to product-market fit is rarely linear. Artifact's journey truly underscores the grit and adaptability required to build successful, enduring products that solve real user needs. As product marketers, we must help our organizations embrace this iterative mindset.

Amplify Your Impact: A Starter AI Toolkit for Product Marketers

The rise of artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era for marketing and, most importantly, product marketers. 

You’ve seen the news. You’ve seen the hype. While we haven’t necessarily made it to what we’ve seen in science fiction (shutters thinking about SkyNet), we have AI capabilities available to us that can streamline workflows, enhance creativity, supercharge research, and ultimately amplify our impact. We’re pretty lucky when you think about it. . 

I truly believe that in this AI-driven age, those who adopt and leverage these cutting-edge technologies will gain a significant competitive advantage.

Thinking about it from a product marketing perspective, we have an obligation to stay ahead of the curve and harness AI's potential to its fullest. We can use it to craft more compelling messaging to accelerate content creation to unearthing richer customer insights, AI offers an array of tools to enhance our performance and the quality of our output. Embracing AI is no longer an option, but an imperative for modern product marketing leaders.

To help get you started, I’ve put together this (hopefully) useful checklist on how to utilize AI in your day-to-day. This is just the beginning, but it’s a good place to start.

Crafting Messaging and Positioning:

• Use AI writing assistants like Copy.ai, Jasper, CopySmith to generate initial drafts of positioning statements, value propositions, elevator pitches based on inputs about your product/market.

• Utilize AI tools like copy.ai's "Product Description" tool to quickly create benefit-oriented product descriptions and differentiated messaging by providing product details.

• Experiment with more creative messaging variants using AI brainstorming tool.

• Tools: Copy.ai, Jasper, CopySmith, Copy.Shark

Creating and Optimizing Content:

• Use AI writing assistants like Jasper to draft blog posts, ebooks, video scripts and other content based on outlined topics/briefs.

• Leverage GPT-3 tools like Copy.ai's "Gmail Wizard" to generate personalized email templates and sequences.

• Utilize AI text optimization tools like Rytr to analyze and improve content quality, clarity, and message match.

• Tools: Jasper, Copy.ai, Rytr, ChatGPT

Synthesizing Research and Data:

• Feed customer review data, survey responses, and other voice-of-customer inputs into AI summarization tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT to surface key insights.

• Use AI research assistants like Anthropic's Claude to quickly gather data, synthesize reports, and analyze competitive landscapes based on queries.

• Leverage AI question-answering tools like ChatGPT to get concise responses synthesizing information across multiple data sources.

• Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Quillbot

Streamlining Workflows:

• Utilize AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude to draft outlines, plans, templates and frameworks to streamline go-to-market planning processes.

• Integrate AI writing tools into existing content workflow tools to auto-generate first drafts, reducing manual creation time.

• Use AI task automation tools like Taskmate.io to streamline administrative busywork across workflows.

• Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Copy.ai, Jasper, Taskmate.io

In today's rapidly evolving landscape, AI is a force-multiplier that can catapult product marketing performance. Don't get left behind - start experimenting with these AI capabilities today to gain a competitive edge. Continuously assess how AI can optimize every facet of your workflow, from research to messaging to execution. Those who fully capitalize on AI's potential will be the Product Marketing leaders propelling their organizations forward.

Interested in exploring how to strategically integrate and scale AI capabilities into your workflows - accelerating research, elevating messaging, optimizing execution and amplifying impact - along with learning many other key strategies to take your product marketing team to the next level?

Let’s get in touch