The Marchitect (The Compete Network by Klue)

In today’s competitive landscape, how do you make your solution the clear choice for your best-fit customers?

Join us as we uncover the secrets to a compelling sales pitch with April Dunford, author of Obviously Awesome and her latest, Sales Pitch.

April reveals how to transform your pitch into a story that helps customers navigate their options, understand the trade-offs, and confidently choose your solution. She also explains why many companies struggle to carry their positioning into sales conversations and how to bridge that gap.

Hosts: Rowan Noronha & Morgan J Ingram

Guests: April Dunford

Producer: Grayson Ottenbreit

Editor: Stephen Despins

Timestamps:

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:04:15) What is positioning?

(00:06:15) What are the 5 components of positioning?

(00:07:38) Why start with competitive alternatives?

(00:10:35) How do you tackle positioning when dealing with multiple personas/buyers?

(00:18:58) Has your engineering background impacted how you approach positioning?

(00:21:55) Difference between positioning and messaging?

(00:26:05) Who owns positioning? Is it sales? Product marketing?

(00:34:40) How do you combat sales teams who just want to pitch product features?

(00:42:31) Walk us through your sales pitch framework.

(00:49:13) Can you break down the main components of your pitch?

(00:56:20) While building your ICP, how do you handle research?

(01:00:51) What is one thing folks get wrong when rolling out a sales pitch?

Did you know that PMMs and Content Marketers across organizations miss out on one integral element in their revenue pipelines? A sit down with their sales team!

Often perceived as “no strings attached,” the ideal relationship between pmm-content-sales should look like a marriage to accelerate your revenue goals.

How do sales, especially those on the front lines like SDRs/ BDRs, view, and leverage product marketing & content? Can product marketing & content marketing help sales exchange our value for our customer’s money efficiently?

Listen to Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community, and guest host Ashley Faus, Director of Integrated PMM, Atlassian, who are joined by Morgan Ingram, Founder & Chief Edutainment Officer, Ascension Media Productions, and Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership, Clari exploring how content and community solutions and strategies emerge from a deeper understanding of sales and revenue.

Listen to Ashley, Morgan, Devin and Rowan as they discuss what content marketing and sales need from product marketing in order for their companies to Exchange Value for Money… efficiently.

It’s the role of product marketers to act as architects of growth (or “Marchitects”, as we like to call them around here) and help their companies position to W.I.N. (Who.Impact.Narrative)

Product marketing leaders need to pin down:

• WHO you are going to win with (from “anyone who fogs glass” to a drilled-down ICP) and WHO you are going to win against 
• IMPACT your product provides to your customer (and how you’re going to prove it to them) 
• NARRATIVE you need to craft to convey your value (in a way your customers are actually going to understand) 

In this episode of the Marchitect, Trenton Romph, Head of Marketing at Clozd and I chatted with two legendary marketing leaders who gave us the lowdown on how they position their companies to W.I.N.

In this episode, you’ll learn from Ruth Zive, CMO at Ada and Tyler Lessard, VP Marketing at Vidyard. 

Does your product marketing lead with value? And how is that hurting your brand?

Imagine if you led with capability. Enter Robert Kaminski and Anthony Pierri, Partners at Fletch PMM, who specialize in positioning and website messaging for early-stage startups.

They sit down with our host, Rowan Noronha, to delve into the importance of building a bridge between your product and potential customers. They share their experiences building trust and credibility through genuine interest and expertise by walking through their proprietary messaging and positioning strategy. (This is free stuff, folks!)

Positioning and messaging are key elements of product marketing, and Robert and Anthony provide valuable tips on approaching them effectively. Whether you're a seed or Series A company with multiple target segments or a mature market with fierce competition, they've got messaging and positioning tips to apply today.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Positioning isn’t just one document—it matures and expands as your company does.
• Why shared language is critical to building, growing, and assessing your product marketing strategy and execution.
• Leading with capability instead of value is more impactful when marketing your early-stage startup products.

Jump into the conversation:

(4:35-5:01) The importance of positioning during company growth

(8:45-11:00) Shared language in product marketing

(15:57-16:30) Messaging strategy for early-stage startups

Join us as we explore the eight elements of messaging and positioning strategy, and learn how to use different types of anchors to attract customers. From problem-solving to showcasing unique features and promising significant benefits, Robert and Anthony will guide you in creating compelling content.

Resources:

Check out their slides here: https://listen.casted.us/public/74/The-Marchitect-95ffab0b/164d988d/share/ba8485d3

Fletch PMM: https://www.fletchpmm.com/

Connect with Robert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyrobk/

Connect with Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonypierri/

Connect with Rowan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-noronha/

Product Marketing Community: https://www.productmarketingcommunity.co/

Presented by Pavillion https://www.joinpavilion.com/

Powered by Casted https://www.casted.us/

Produced by Share Your Genius https://www.shareyourgenius.com/

Category is important because it’s how our minds make buying decisions. First, you think “I need a new car,” then “I’ll get a sedan.” And only then would you think about which brand to buy. 

If the modern, self-guided B2B buying team experience begins with category, then brands need to make sure they’re playing in the right category. And if the right category doesn’t exist, well—brave brands are designing their own. 

In this episode of The Marchitect, Udi and Sydney discuss how they approach category creation and rebranding. 

In this episode of The Marchitect, my guest co-host Jason Smith, CEO of KLUE, and I chat with Gong’s infamous CMO, Udi Ledergor, about how the world of buyers and sellers has changed. And not just during the pandemic, probably forever.

Sales teams today more than ever need an intelligent path to revenue. That’s at the root of a recent conversation with two great product marketing minds as they navigate how the world has changed in the past 15 months and how product marketing and sales continue to evolve.

In this session, we discussed:

• Gong's approach to accelerating customer growth
• Who are your key stakeholders when it comes to (product) marketing
• The importance of interlocking sales and (product) marketing
• How to enable sales success through collaboration

What product marketer doesn’t love a good acronym? Especially one that gives you a leg up in your role and guides your organization to success.

In this episode of the Marchitect, you’ll learn the W.W.W. of product marketing, the M.A.P. approach to customer segmentation and the Position to W.I.N. framework to, well, winning. And you’ll learn about them from two product marketing leaders who are truly at the top of their game: Rekha Srivatsan, VP of Product Marketing at Salesforce and Tamara Grominsky, VP of Product Marketing & Lifecycle at Kajabi. 

Join me and my guest co-host Trenton Romph, Head of Marketing at Clozd, as we chat all things product marketing with these two experts in the field. Rekha and Tamara share how they build, manage, and measure their product marketing teams (dropping some grade-A acronyms in the process) and walk us through how they position their organizations to W.I.N.

In this episode of The Marchitect, Julien Sauvage (VP, Product Marketing @ Gong), one of the best Marchitects in the game, “stopped by'' the podcast recently and shared how he collaborates with his key “interlock” stakeholders to both create a unified story for the market and accelerate growth in the Revenue Intelligence category.

In this session, we discussed:

• How Product Marketing is Driving Gong's Go-to-Market efforts
• How you as a Product Marketing Leader can align everyone to tell the same stories
• The importance of Storytelling and how you can differentiate your product in the market
• Opportunities where Product Marketing Leaders can enable the Revenue Engine

The tide has turned!

B2B buyers and sellers interactions have changed.

Marketing is at the center of transformational change in nearly every B2B company. Customer expectations, spending, and behaviors are constantly shifting. And product marketing has emerged as a critical element behind the successful change.

Each episode features in-depth advice from executives who will tell you how they built impactful teams, optimized go-to-market efforts, and enabled customer-facing teams to thrive.

We highlight Marchitects who are shaping the discipline of (product) marketing and driving growth for their b2b companies. We invite you to come along for the ride.

With an executive perspective and an unflinching eye on what the future holds, our guests share their personal insights and experience regarding:

1. People: How to build, manage and measure the (product) marketing function
2. Strategy: How to unite the business around an optimized go-to-market strategy
3. Revenue Enablement: How to enable the revenue team to engage today's b2b customer

Join us as Lindsay from Casted interviews Rowan, the founder of the Product Marketing Community who's on a mission to give b2b product marketing executives the support and frameworks they need to build winning teams, unite the business, and be an architect of growth, or "Marchitect."

Did you know that 40-60% of B2B software purchases end in no decision?

Oftentimes, buyers let the deal go because they can't figure out how to confidently make a decision—they’re more worried about messing up than they are about missing out. And we can do better.

Enter April Dunford, best-selling author, founder at Ambient Strategies, and Queen of Positioning sits down with our host, Rowan Noronha to to recap her core tenets of successful positioning and share tangible insights from her latest book, Sales Pitch.

April shares how well-defined positioning can be a powerful efficiency tool for B2B companies because positioning means focus, and focus avoids waste. But positioning alone is not going to ensure your success in 2023 and beyond. You need a second tool to drive growth efficiency—a sales pitch. If positioning is your tool for efficient acquisition and go-to-market, a sales pitch is your tool to drive velocity. April masterfully shares how to transform your positioning into a sales pitch guaranteed to put your best foot forward.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The 5 key components of positioning and how they correlate to your sales pitch.
• How to craft a successful sales pitch (based on your positioning) in 8 steps.
• Why you should always start your sales pitch with your insight into the market.

Jump into the conversation:

(01:00) Why Do We Need Better Positioning?

(06:30) 5 Key Components of Positioning

(13:00) Creating a Sales Pitch Based on Insight & Value

(20:00) 8 Components of A Successful Sales Pitch

(45:000 How to Test Your New Sales Pitch

So join us as April Dunford shares her insights on developing a well-structured sales pitch that aligns with the company's positioning, testing and iterating the pitch, and achieving alignment between marketing and sales. A must-listen for product marketers and B2B CMOs looking to improve their positioning and sales strategies.

Connect with April: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/

Order her book, Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Pitch-Craft-Story-Stand/dp/1999023021/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BBS4444TKYE9&keywords=april+dunford&qid=1695046839&sprefix=april+dunford%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1

Connect with Rowan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-noronha/

Product Marketing Community: https://www.productmarketingcommunity.co/

Presented by Pavillion https://www.joinpavilion.com/

Powered by Casted https://www.casted.us/

Produced by Share Your Genius https://www.shareyourgenius.com/

There’s so much confusion around what a modern go-to-market is, and what marketing’s role is in developing and executing against a successful GTM strategy.

In the first episode of The Marchitect, Sangram Vajre, Founder at GTM Partners, Trinity Nguyen, VP Marketing at UserGems, and Yi Lin Pei, Founder at Courageous Careers share:

the modern go-to-market, and the role of the CMO and their PMM leader

the difference between marketing the business, and the business of marketing

the key characteristics of a modern CMO & PMM leader

what GTM motions should be top of mind for modern marketers

Credits:

The Compete Network by Klue is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps to product marketing at a Fortune 500, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement and competitive intelligence community.

Guests: Sangram Vajre, Trinity Nguyen and Yi Lin Pei

Producer: Grayson Ottenbreit

Editor: Stephen Despins

What does it take to W.I.N.?

In the latest episode of The Marchitect, Atlassian's Global Head of PMM shares how he builds manages, and measures his product marketing team of close to 100 people.

In B2B, there’s lots of evidence that shows post-COVID buyers expect to do a lot on their own. This means marketing leaders need to build and structure their teams for self-serve. But what does that look like in practice?

While many marketing leaders look at the world through a marketing lens, Jessica—who cut her teeth on strategy and operations—looks at it through a biz lens: “I’m always the person when starting to talk about marketing, ‘OK, market share, by market. Customer segmentation. Growth rates. Competitive advantage. What do we know about our products and services and consumer proclivities that will allow us to invest to win?’”

And win is exactly what Jessica and her team at Indeed are doing—even in the middle of this new hybrid buying world and The Great Resignation. Learn HOW she’s driving success.

What can CMOs do in 2023 to drive efficiency, increase velocity, and prove value to customers?

This episode breaks down two of the most important levers CMOs can pull — well-defined positioning and revenue plays. 

Join host Rowan Noronha live from #PavilionCMOSummit2023 as he talks product marketing strategies with Kyle Coleman, SVP Marketing, Clari, Meagan Eisenberg, CMO, Lacework, and Sydney Sloan, Executive in Residence, Scale Venture Partners.

We’ve all been there. 

2022 is a clean slate, product marketers. There’s no better time to step back and assess what you learned throughout the pandemic. 

There’s no better time to ensure you’re using your finite resources on the right priorities.

Speaking of priorities … 

Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community, kicked off season two of The Marchitect by chatting with Megan Heuer, VP of Strategic Initiatives at Winning By Design, and Amy Hayes, VP, Research Director, Portfolio Marketing at Forrester. 

Together, they identified five key priorities for product marketers in 2022.

Generating revenue is a team sport. But what is it about modern revenue leaders that make them great team captains?

How do you capture and create demand in SaaS organizations with the help of Product Marketing and ABM? What processes do you build to bridge these two? 

Join host Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community, and guest host Sam Jacobs, Founder, Pavilion as they explore the interlocks and intricacies of value and revenue generation with modern revenue leaders Latane Conant, CMO 6Sense, and Dustin Deno, CRO Affinity.

Product marketers have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to positioning. Do you lean in on creating a sense of urgency for the buyer? (“Your business will fail without our product’s help!”) Or tell them they’re doing great so far, but can scale faster and easier with your product in place? 

And those types of decisions are just the tip of the iceberg.

To position products to W.i.N., product marketers need to nail down:

• WHO you are going to win with and who you are going to win against 
• IMPACT your product provides the buyer and end-user (who are not always the same person)
• NARRATIVE you need to craft to convey your value

In this episode of The Marchitect, Leslie Talbot, SVP of Marketing at Corporate Visions and I chatted with three brilliant marketing executives who gave us the lowdown on how they position their companies to W.i.N. 

In this episode, you’ll learn from: 

Keri Brooke, CMO at Enverus, Heidi Bullock, CMO at Tealium, and Sydney Sloan, former CMO at Salesloft and current market strategy advisor.

In this episode of The Marchitect, we dive into the art and science of tech messaging with two industry powerhouses: Emma Stratton and Devin Reed.

Emma, on the brink of launching her new book on crafting simple yet impactful tech messaging, shares her insights on how to win hearts, minds, and markets with clear communication. Devin, a maestro in creating memorable content that drives growth, discusses his journey in building brand loyalty and pipeline at Gong and Clari.

A good product marketer positions your product to win. A great product marketer positions your product to W.i.N.

It’s the role of product marketing leaders to understand and communicate:

• WHO you are going to win with and who you are going to win against 
• IMPACT you provide through the value you offer
• NARRATIVE you need to craft internally and externally to convey your value

In this episode of The Marchitect, Jason Oakley, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue and I chatted with three tip-top product marketing leaders:

Jam Khan, SVP Product Marketing at 6Sense, Julien Sauvage, VP Product Marketing at Gong, and Jarod Greene, VP Product Marketing at Highspot.

Jam, Julien, and Jarod gave us a crash course in product marketing and shared how each of them uses the W.i.N. framework to position their products to, well, win. 

When was the last time your marketing team talked to an actual customer? It’s time to change that. And Kevin ‘KD’ Dorsey is here to tell you why.

With over a decade of experience in sales and marketing, current SVP of Sales & Marketing at Bench Consulting, KD is well-versed in how to elevate your sales and marketing alignment. From driving urgency to strengthening your sales and marketing alignment, KD has tips, practical advice, and real-life stories to share. You won’t want to miss this one.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why you can never know too much about your customers
• How to multithread your sales process and speak to each person on the buying committee
• And understand the connection between urgency and conversion.

Jump into the conversation:

[02:40] Why you MUST understand your customer

[05:40] KD’s 6 must-ask questions

[09:40] Optimizing conversion with ‘want’

[12:09] What is multithreading?

[24:30] The friend zone of sales

Connect with KD: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kddorsey3/

Connect with Rowan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-noronha/

Product Marketing Community: https://www.productmarketingcommunity.co/

Presented by Pavillion https://www.joinpavilion.com/

Powered by Casted https://www.casted.us/

Produced by Share Your Genius https://www.shareyourgenius.com/

What used to work had to be shifted, adjusted, and changed to fit the new landscape. What could possibly be next? Throw out your pre-covid blueprint. The Product Marketing Community brought together an all-star cast of inspiring thought leaders to take us in the right direction for 2021 and beyond. During this podcast, our Editor-in-Chief, Megan Heuer, talked to the CMOs of Gong, Drift, and Lessonly, and the Wanderlust Group about what it means to throw out what we once knew and adapt to b2b decision maker's new expectations, spending, and buying behaviors

If there’s one thing April Dunford wants you to know about positioning, it’s that positioning is not the same thing as messaging. And while we’re on the topic, please stop calling it brand positioning.

“My personal pet peeve is when people talk about brand positioning, which really bugs me because I think there’s positioning and there’s branding, but those things are actually really distinct.”

In this episode of The Marchitect, legendary positioning expert April Dunford explains why Mad Libs “fill in the blanks” positioning statements don’t work. And she gives us a better way to position products to win. 

Employees want their work to have meaning. So how can you create opportunities for people to do meaningful work? How can you build a purpose-driven company to attract and retain top talent? Robert talks about what he and the Atlassian leadership team are doing to create opportunities for work to be meaningful—and the impact so far. 

In this session, we discussed:

• The importance of having a purpose-driven company
• How can you build a purpose-driven company to attract and retain top talent?
• How can you create opportunities for people to do meaningful work?

When product marketing and content marketing are aligned, it makes a difference. Yet so many product marketing leaders make the mistake of overlooking this essential interlock. 

Content marketing is a key player for any revenue-generating team. As Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari, says: It’s the role of content marketing “to change the way that people think”. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from 3 interlocking marketing leaders at Revenue Platform provider Clari to understand how they’re working together to create a leading and lasting category: Kyle Coleman, SVP of Marketing, Julien Sauvage, VP of Corporate & Product Marketing, and Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership.

You’ll learn how and why they maintain a strong collaboration between content and product marketing, what metrics they use to define success, and how they’re working together to position Clari to W.I.N.

In this episode, we sit with two Go-To-Market experts: Sangram Vajre, GTM Partners & Karen Steele, CMO of Sendoso to better understand what separates winning companies from less successful ones.

If your team is struggling with your GTM strategy and motions, we'll give you the things you need to conquer your Go-to-Market! More precisely, how to design a high-performing go-to-market team and how to take a disciplined approach to define the GTM process to set you up for success. 

Welcome to The Marchitect - the podcast for and about the world's best (product) marketing executives.

Hosted by Rowan Noronha, who is so passionate about product marketing that he founded the Product Marketing Community in 2016, this podcast is all about educating and inspiring at the intersection of leadership and (product) marketing strategy. Just enough practical "how-to" advice, and absolutely no commercial agenda.

On this episode, we'll be discussing positioning and messaging, often misunderstood concepts. If you can master them, they can be the most powerful strategic tools at your disposal. So, if you're a CMO or product marketing leader wondering where to start, we've got the experts for you: April Dunford, Emma Stratton, and Peep Laja.

We cover everything from defining what exactly is positioning and messaging, to sharing examples of great b2b positioning and messaging, and even diving into the process of developing your own. We'll talk about who owns positioning and messaging, and the "rules of engagement" between leadership, product, marketing, sales, customer success, revenue operations, and more.

Pricing is the top profit lever at companies. Pricing can boost profits way more than increasing sales or cutting costs can. But most companies leave money on the table because they don’t charge the right price. 

Why is pricing underdeveloped in most companies? And how can companies do better?

In this episode of The Marchitect, pricing gurus Mark and Kyle explain which function should own pricing (cough, product marketing) and how to choose the right pricing strategy. 

Product marketing and sales enablement go together like peanut butter and jelly. Why? Because they both know a LOT about their customers. And can use this knowledge to help sellers adopt a modern, consultative approach that’s all about helping their customers buy. 

But like any relationship, both parties need to put in the work to make it work. 

In this episode of the Marchitect, we chat all things product marketing and sales enablement with 3 execs who play a crucial role in orchestrating winning GTM strategies: Mark Kilens, CMO at Airmeet, Ronell Hugh, SVP, Product Marketing & Strategy | Digital XM at Qualtrics, and Sheevaun Thatcher, VP Global Sales and Success Enablement at Slack.

You’ll learn their tips for building and maintaining a strong partnership between product marketing and enablement, what metrics they use to define success, and how they’re positioning their organizations to W.I.N.

“Product marketing needs to captain your product launch.”

A bold statement. And one that our host, Rowan Noronha, and our guests, Jason Oakley and Yi Lin Pei stand behind wholeheartedly.

There are so many misunderstandings when it comes to the product marketing team’s execution—from their role in early development to planning and executing a release versus a launch. And without a successful product marketing launch, your business’ growth can’t create its maximum impact.

Jason Oakley, founder of Productive PMM, and Yi Lin Pei, Career Coach and founder of TechGrowthCoach, are both seasoned product marketers who share their own personal experiences and journeys in the field of product marketing, as well as their passion for driving diversity and growth within the industry. Jason and Yi Lin share their frameworks and step-by-step instructions to help product marketers get the most impact from a product launch.

Most companies struggle with how to unite the business around a unified GTM strategy. In this episode, we welcome Jeff Otto, VP of Marketing at Marqeta. He's responsible for laying the foundations for their GTM approach. What sage advice did Jeff dole out? Let’s just say he’s taken a seemingly complex mythical beast (GTM) and tamed it with gold dust and gold bars. Listen for Jeff’s take on:

• How competitive strategies can help build the foundation of your positioning
• Why you should engage PMMs when new products are developed
• How to execute a successful GTM on a global scale
• How to find your marketing moment trifecta.

Building a product is one thing. But building a robust go-to-market strategy for that product is a whole new ball game. 

There’s so much confusion around what go-to-market is, who owns it, and where to start when it comes to developing a successful GTM strategy. 

In this episode of The Marchitect, Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community and Jake Brereton, Co-Founder & COO at LaunchNotes, chatted with renowned go-to-market experts:

Meagen Eisenberg, CMO at TripActions, and Sangram Vajre, best-selling author of MOVE and Co-Founder of Terminus and Peak Community.

Meagen and Sangram shared their thoughts on what the function of go-to-market is and how teams need to align to do it right. They also shared their frameworks for building a winning GTM strategy and metrics you can use to measure success.

43% of B2B buyers would prefer a rep-free buying experience. 

Today’s self-serve buyers prefer to get their info from trusted influencers in their communities—like their peers, research analysts, and industry thought leaders. 

So, what’s a sales rep or marketer to do? 

Earn the advocacy of your customers and the trust of your buyers. 

How do you do that? By developing a GTM strategy that is customer-centric to its core.

In this episode of The Marchitect, legendary B2B SaaS GTM guru Jill Rowley shares her best practices for building a customer-centric GTM strategy with 4 key pillars you can use to chart the course.

If there’s one thing B2B content teams get a lot of that’s requests:

“We need a one-sheeter on our new product feature!”

“Our widget is live … let’s draft a press release!”

“Can you help me write a blog about [my obscure hobby that I think is interesting but that our audience couldn’t care less about]?”

Ah, the familiar scent of fielding content requests—while trying to make an impact on the metrics that matter (velocity, win rate, average deal size, etc.). 

The content conundrum is real: 

• How do we differentiate our messaging?
• How do we change up content format for a better buyer experience?
• How do we use content throughout the buyer’s journey to enable the revenue team and create engaged buyers?

On the latest episode of The Marchitect, Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community, and Adam McQueen Content Marketing Manager at Klue, chatted with three content pros: 

Eddie Shleyner, Founder of VeryGoodCopy, Erin Balsa, Chief Picky Editor at Erin Balsa Content Marketing, and Camille Trent, Head Content Droid at Dooly. 

Each shared their top tips for creating compelling B2B content in 2022. 

We’ve all heard the term “go-to-market”. But do we really know what it means? And, more importantly, do we know what it takes to do it right? 

Go-to-market strategy will make or break your business. Apologies for the dramatics, but it’s gotta be said. You can have the best product in the world, but you won’t see a dollar of revenue until you build a solid go-to-market strategy for it. Then, it’s time for product marketing to step in for the W.I.N. 

In this special episode of the Marchitect recorded at Clozd’s WIN LOSS WEEK, we talk all things winning—how to win and how to win MORE. You’ll hear from go-to-market experts Sangram Vajre, best-selling author of MOVE and co-founder of Terminus and Peak Community, Amanda Malko, CMO at G2, and Kyle Lacy, Former SVP Marketing at Seismic.

Sangram, Amanda, and Kyle give us their take on GTM strategy (with key tips for success) and walk us through how they work with product marketing to position to W.I.N. 

Most companies just don’t get it. The most successful companies are built on strong go-to-market teams. It’s time to stop assuming it’s a marketing problem and get to the root: Your CEO owning go-to-market. And our guest today is courageous enough to walk us through it with insight from his new book. Rowan Noronha, VP Product Marketing and Founder at Product Marketing Community, Megan Heuer, VP Strategic Initiatives at Winning by Design, Sangram Vajre, Chief Evangelist at Terminus, discuss the questions and stages every company should be aware of in regards to their go-to-market strategy. What we discussed: Understanding why great companies fail MOVE framework and its 4 questions knowing who owns go-to-market

Sales enablement plays a crucial role as both the connector and translator of your entire go-to-market organization. They know how to take marketing content and provide the important context that sellers need to (A) consume it and (B) adopt it. 

And as a wise product marketer once said: Content without context = chaos. Content with context = confidence.

In this episode, Scott Knudson, Head of Sales Enablement at Clozd, and I chatted with future sales enablement hall of famer Sheevaun Thatcher, VP Global Sales, and Success Enablement at Slack, and product marketing superstar Jarod Greene, VP of Product and Customer Marketing at Highspot.

You’ll learn who the key interlocks are for product marketing and enablement, what each function’s expectations are for the other, what metrics to use to measure success and how both teams can help organizations Position to W.I.N.

The tide has turned, b2b buyers and sellers interactions have changed. Carol, CMO, VMware, and Michael, CMO, Seismic share how their marketing teams are adapting to this new normal.

In this session, we discussed:

• How to drive change management in your organization
• Navigating the challenges of the CMO role during these constantly evolving times
• What makes a product marketer a particularly good candidate for becoming a CMO
• How product marketers can be architects of growth for their company

The No. 1 reason sales reps miss quota is they can’t articulate value when speaking to buyers. In this episode, we discuss how product marketing can fuel more productive conversations. Sudeep explains the difference between sales enablement and revenue enablement. He also shares how LinkedIn obtains competitive intelligence—and how he analyzes the data to make sure the GTM team has the right insights.

If there’s one thing your content team wants you to know it’s that they do a heck of a lot more than just writing blog posts.

Content marketers are strategists to their core. They architect a playground of content for today’s self-serve buying teams to navigate—carefully balancing the need to drive prospects through the funnel while creating brand content that engages and delights.

In this episode of The Marchitect, Rowan Noronha, Founder of the Product Marketing Community chatted with three content marketing leaders at the top of their game:

Heike Young, Senior Director, Content Strategy at Salesforce, Ashley Faus, Content Strategy Lead at Atlassian, and Devin Reed, Head of Content Strategy at Gong.

Heike, Ashley, and Devin gave us the low-down on the role of content marketing (and why it should really be called content strategy). They also shared their best practices for building an empowered content team to drive your company’s strategic initiatives, with metrics you can use to measure success. 

What does it take to win at an enterprise, high-growth company? And how can product marketing chart the course? 

It all comes down to three key decisions product marketing leaders need to make to W.I.N.:

• WHO you are going to win with and WHO you are going to win against 
• IMPACT your product provides to your customer
• NARRATIVE you need to craft to convey your value 

In this episode of the Marchitect, Jorge Soto, from Reprise and I chatted with two seasoned enterprise marketing executives who gave us their expert take on how product marketing can position companies to W.I.N.

In this episode, you’ll learn from Robin Daniels (Ex. LinkedIn, Salesforce, Box), and Indy Sen (Ex. Google, Salesforce, Box).

Anthony Pierri and Rob Kaminski are the people you want building your homepage. They don’t mess around when it comes to positioning and messaging in product marketing and it’s why they’re on The Marchitect for this unmissable episode.

Unfortunately, there’s no place where companies lose their positioning and messaging more than their homepage. We’re here to fix that.

Credits:

The Compete Network by Klue is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps to product marketing at a Fortune 500, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement and competitive intelligence community.

Guests: Sangram Vajre, Trinity Nguyen and Yi Lin Pei

Producer: Grayson Ottenbreit

Editor: Stephen Despins

Timestamps:

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:19) Introduction

(00:04:44) What is positioning?

(00:06:20) The difference between positioning, messaging, and copywriting

(00:10:17) How to segment your audience

(00:18:20) Positioning based on category maturity

(00:28:55) Positioning multiple products

(00:37:54) Homepage best practices

(00:46:26) Tearing down a real Homepage

(00:50:48) Audience Questions

(00:55:23) Key Takeaways

In this replay episode, join our host, Rowan Noronha, as he discusses how to price with confidence with Jason Oakley (Founder, Productive PMM), Mark Stiving (Founder, Impact Pricing), and Kyle Poyar (Operating Partner, OpenView).

Your pricing structure is your top profit lever. It can boost profits much more than increasing sales or cutting costs can. But most companies leave money on the table because they don’t charge the right price.

Why is pricing underdeveloped in most companies? And how can companies do better?

In this episode, pricing gurus Mark and Kyle explain which function should own pricing (cough, product marketing) and how to choose the right pricing strategy.