Product Marketing is Not Working -Repair It By Using Thematic Product Launches -
Do you have a product marketing department trying to coordinate resources for marketing in order to handle an unending number of launches with vague release dates and an endless stream of product managers demanding tons of marketing attention with each release? Would there be a better way?
- Be sure to pay the greatest attention to all product releases.
- Tell an overarching product story that is greater than the parts.
- Marketing should be organized and well-organized so they can provide their best work to promote new products.
If you're dragging yourself to death with over-active product roadmaps, incessant "t-shirt" size adjustments for agile project estimations or slipping dates for release of your product and fretting that you're letting your managers down, it may be time to think about thematic product releases. Find out how to do it on this episode of Growth Stage!
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David Vogelpohl () (00:04)
Hello everyone! Welcome to The Growth Stage podcast by . I'm your host, David Vogelpohl. I am a part of the digital product community with my work at . and I am awed by bringing the best of community-to-community for you on the Growth Stage podcast. In this episode, we're going to be interviewing one person who's really important to me. He works with me here at . He's going to be talking about how product marketing is a mess and the best way to improve it by using thematic
product releases We'd be pleased to welcome to Growth Stage Mr. Braden Steel. Braden, welcome.
Braden (00:39)
Thank you for your time, I appreciated the introduction. I'm looking forward to chatting about product marketing today.
David Vogelpohl () (00:44)
Awesome. And I am so happy to work with you here at , Braden. And I had a moment of panic since I don't often pronounce your name loud. Then I thought, what if it is a weird pronunciation that I forgot to, I have forgotten over time or something, but welcome here. Of course, it is. What Braden will talk about are his thoughts on what is wrong with traditional product marketing and how the methods we employ is using periodic thematic launches of products.
Braden (00:58)
Yeah. Thank you.
David Vogelpohl () (01:14)
to give the best care to new product launches to ensure that you tell a coherent product story where the whole is worth more than its parts, and aid marketing in being more strategic and thoughtful so you can give the best effort to your releases. I attended Spryng organized by Wynter, W -Y -N T - E -R I believe, and also S.P. -R. -Y.N. -G, but it's an event.
The group was talking about the different problems and issues in marketing. The issue of product marketing was brought up. And people were feeling they were running ragged, you know dealing with every single feature launch and new product release and attempting to create a big splash for every single one of them. The topic of theme-based product launches was brought up by someone was in the group who had recommended it. We had adopted that here at the time of some quarters ago.
Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to talk about that topic here today. That's it, Braden, are you eager to get started?
Braden (02:18)
Yeah, let's do it. I'm excited to talk about the topic. it. it. it.
David Vogelpohl () (02:20)
Alright, good deal. I've been on here for a while now, but I don't know the answer to this question. Was the first item you purchased online?
Braden (02:28)
This is definitely a cool idea. I thought for a while about it. And it was in junior high. eBay was at its peak. Then I got an PlayStation 2 with a bundle of games. It had like some sports games and some other stuff. And I agonized over whether or not to buy it. However, I bought it and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I got plenty of value from the console and had a lot of enjoyment.
Another option is to use the money that I have earned was a didgeridoo was the first thing I ever purchased with my own money online. That's the third choice.
David Vogelpohl () (03:06)
It's all right. I like the distinction you made your personal money from the money of your parents how was it similar to your parents' money? How did you fund the PSP?
Braden (03:14)
Yeah, I may have gained it from weeding my yard or trimming the lawn or something. But the other one was just like the income from my job that I earned on my own.
David Vogelpohl () (03:24)
So, if you're trimming the lawn, it's your money, Braden. So, all right. Well, I kind of gave it away a little during the introduction But, can you talk about your thoughts with viewers about what you're doing at or in what you do here?
Braden (03:27)
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, sure. So I'm the Director of Product Marketing, Senior at . My primary responsibility is to manage go-to-market across all our products and the industries we are in. So when a product launches, you know, all of the messaging underneath the product, and surrounding the product, as well as helping with things such as B2B, games and other industries that we're really looking forward to selling to. Merchant of Record.
What that means is that we integrate everything from the buy button onwards for a complete digital selling experience. We partner in partnership with SaaS companies, gaming companies AI firms B2B companies, and other things like the. that. that. that.
David Vogelpohl () (04:18)
Excellent, excellent. Now, when you describe your experience it was that you covered many different aspects. There was a touch on new product launches, feature releases. Additionally, you mentioned verticals. You also mentioned B2B SaaS or video games. Today's product marketers is often embracing the vertical position in relation to a particular product. And I think that just even further amplifies the complexity of marketing products.
But what do you think is broken about product marketing? Was there something that didn't work for you in the conventional model?
Braden (04:56)
Yes, that's a excellent question. You know, product releases depend on many things that go beyond the reach the control of a marketer's product. Engineering, for instance and customer commitments that need to happen or sales have a big deal that's like, hey, you need to complete this product prior to when it's released. There are a lot of moving pieces around these product launches. So, working with the product teams to get the commit dates as well as to comprehend,
What time do these products are scheduled be released? What exactly does "release" mean? Are you able to access it in general or is it still in the beta phase? And then the question starts to be asked, when do we want to talk about the software? What is it that we'd like to talk about? Can we even speak about this since we're currently conducting tests on the product? There are a lot of concerns and a lot of unease happens with this model of, you know how engineering and product works. Therefore, I think that the major thing that's broken is that
it's so difficult to know when it's so hard to see the end product, and then set a date for release and also plan for the product to be prepared for launch. And so what can happen is that product marketing professionals such as myself get you know, a week before launch, one week prior to GA, and the manager of the product saying: Hey, this will be done. Finally, go do all of this work. Then it's like but hold on. There's other things I have to complete. I know you've mentioned verticals. It's been discussed.
That's right, it takes up a lot of time too. So the issue that I've been forced to resolve and thought about is, how do I complete the product launch work as well as the other aspects of my job when I have no control over when the launch will take place?
David Vogelpohl () (06:40)
If you're using floating timelines. The product's not fully functional. They discover a bug in the last second. They manage to power through the release and manage to get it out in time. You're trying to coordinate the resources of other marketers as well as designers and webmasters and content folks and things similar to such. And so it's this arrangement of these floating dates that I'm hearing there. Is there a different aspect? As the one I've...
you know, have worked in the field of product marketing in many capacities over the years. I'm like, I feel like every time I talk to a product person, they're like, I'm releasing X and I'm going to create a huge announcement over it. Do you think that expectations about the amount of effort required to promote various product launches can be excessive? Is that part of what's missing from traditional marketing for products?
Braden (07:28)
Yeah, for sure. I mean, these product managers, they're product managers with a purpose. They own those products. They're extremely excited about the product. They've oftentimes been working on these for, you probably, many years that they've been trying to get these items to be released. Naturally, they're going to want to get as much help as they can get for these products. When it's difficult to get an executive from the product team come up to you and say, I'm really excited about this feature.
I'd like a lot of backing, and here's a complete list of my ideas I'm going the courage to say: allow us to slam the brakes just a bit to accommodate reasons A, B or C, and I'm not able to support your ideas, or do it because, well, I'm just not in the mood, or, and that's discouraging and hard to maintain an ongoing relationship with these product managers due to they might feel that they do not want to help you or anything, but that isn't the case, obviously, you don't wanna help everyone you are able to.
David Vogelpohl () (08:26)
Yeah. This is why, you're looking at it from the perspective of coordinating a go -to marketing campaign around a launch You're dealing with floating dates in the traditional model and then every product director, and rightly so, as you mentioned, given all the investment and time they're investing in, it's like, let's make a big bang regarding this. but with all of those expectations, along with the floating dates you feel like you're doing less than your best work. It's like, you're spreading your time between all of these demands and you're finding it hard to be at your most effective work. That's what I'm getting. Is that right?
Braden (09:01)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. you end up in a place where a lot aspects fall down in a single moment. And suddenly you have to figure out how to, how to achieve all of them. Not only are there only 24 hours in one day, let alone, you know, working those full 24 hours, but also the, anxiety of having to think about keeping all those items in mind. So, consider the time to learn these technical aspects and.
condense them in an item that's market-oriented. That's why there are many challenges to overcome.
David Vogelpohl () (09:35)
You mentioned this just a moment ago, when we discussed the importance of supporting product managers as well as the relation between PMMs and PMs, if you will. If you're feeling this is the typical form of marketing for products, is it fair to say it can have some tension with PMMs and PMs?
Braden (09:58)
It's true, I'm thinking so. I've experienced situations where sure, it's an a little tense conversation to straight up say, I just don't have the resources to support the way you want to go. And, you know, in these situations you need to pay attention and understand what the PM is looking at, but it causes tension. And, you know, the key is to communicate well in situations where you're required to have to be there and engage in those discussions, being attentive.
Being clear, being adept at logging the progress you're making as well as, in the case of, deploying the theme-based launch method in order to eliminate some of that challenge that comes from traditional products.
David Vogelpohl () (10:41)
Now you've got the product managers asking for the most powerful megaphone they can get to announce their new products. The marketers saying that we need to be more planful so we can do better work? Also, you've discussed the move towards thematic releases of your products. So let's just start simply. What is a thematic product release?
Braden (10:59)
Yeah, great question. A thematic release is a collection of products under the subject. For example, B2B as the umbrella and all the items are in line with the theme.
David Vogelpohl () (11:16)
If we're talking about themes-based releases I'm guessing that we're talking about not one every week. Perhaps that if you're very determined do you release these on a quarterly basis, monthly?
Braden (11:30)
Good question. We have a spring and summer release, as well as a autumn release. There aren't many people around during the holidays at the conclusion of the calendar year, therefore we don't release it during that time. However, there are only three releases each year, with occasional release every now and then.
David Vogelpohl () (11:45)
So the product org intends to announce that each quarter we're going to make this theme-based improvement to this particular product or line of products and we're going to incorporate it into product marketing, we're going to bring it to life as a single campaign. What if it were to include the elements of each of the products and feature release within the subject?
Braden (12:08)
It will. It includes those elements. When we look over our customer plan and say okay, what are we planning for this next year? This helps us classify these products in themes. Therefore, we don't have to go from a top -down approach and saying, we need to find a solution for theme A, what are the products that are relevant to theme A? Instead, we consider what items we are planning to launch in the coming year?
Then what's the main subject matter that these merchandise can fall under during those seasons.
David Vogelpohl () (12:44)
This is what you'll get, you'll amplify the effect. It could be off by a quarter, maybe when the date of release is an event, but there could be a lag, I imagine, and you'll be aware of you've got it. Yeah. This means you're separating the GA, if you will in relation to the promotion.
Braden (12:51)
That's correct, yeah.
That's correct. Yeah. It's a good strategy. you know, we've deployed our GA actions that we carry out since these products require promotion after they go live. Therefore, as a part of the process that is thematic, can have GA actions and themes that we are able to apply to each of our products.
David Vogelpohl () (13:18)
Every launch, if it would like, gets to ride along in the themes released. And then you have kind of a small version like the GA rollout. You're basically getting the double dip It sounds like.
Braden (13:31)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's been extremely helpful in ensuring that the internal teams of our company are able to access GA. This means that customer satisfaction isn't just suddenly being able to get feedback from customers. They're like, Hey I'm using this amazing product. I'd like to know more about the product. Our customer success team wasn't set up. It's not the case since at GA we're releasing FAQ documents as well as value-based messages in order to ensure our employees know what's going on.
Also, go-to market messages, as you mentioned, may be a bit sluggish sometimes. If your product is scheduled to debut in January, but aren't able to release a thematically-related product till April, your product might not get as much marketing support in the beginning However, it'll get an opportunity to participate in that bigger push later in the year.
David Vogelpohl () (14:17)
If it was super strategically planned, would you include an X or a larger release between the theme releases in the event that you happen to be able to get a, like, GA date for some like very strategic product you've been in the process of waiting for?
Braden (14:30)
Yeah, absolutely. So we have ad hoc releases as well that we are able to assist with. we try to limit those to a couple of releases if they are possible. And we've built a process in conjunction together with the team of product developers where we engage in an exchange and think, okay, we have this amazing feature. It's not in the category, but it's really important for reason A and B. We plan for that as a team so that everybody understands the process we'll follow. And then, you know, that does get separate attention.
The benefit is that there isn't a chance of 15 items all at once, crashing to the floor at the close of quarter, which is, you know, oftentimes when product is delivering everything at the same time.
David Vogelpohl () (15:08)
Thank you.
One of my top business quips is actually, observation is that, the executives Q3 means the beginning of Q3 while engineering teams Q3 is the time to end Q3. It sounds like they're all, you know, of course moving towards the end to hit the quarterly OKRs. Yeah. Okay. I've got you.
Braden (15:33)
Yeah, exactly right.
David Vogelpohl () (15:38)
So you have this theme due out the next quarter, or maybe in the future or something, but you have a big product or feature release that doesn't fit in the overall theme. Could this be one of those unique ones you were talking about you could see within the time between the release of the thematic theme?
Braden (15:55)
Yes, precisely as you would expect. So I'll give you an example from what we're doing. We released a payment release early this year. and so we had a number of exciting payment features. One of the payments which slipped through the cracks of engineering and couldn't get to it by the time the thematic launch happened took place. It was Google Pay and everyone knows Google Pay. Then, we sat down and studied it, and thought, how could we make sure that we are promoting Google Pay? The feature isn't really a business-to-business service. Therefore we released a tiny release to Google Pay.
Created some documents for it FAQ documents, blog posts or blog post that is promoted on social networks such as that.
David Vogelpohl () (16:29)
So what happens then if you have this kind of release for an anchor product as well as a thematic release which isn't as good? It sounded as if you had an the anchor product that was the case in the thematic release Apple Pay slipped from or Google Pay slipped from. So what can you do? Wait to release the thematic release till the anchor products can be included? What else can you do?
Braden (16:54)
Yeah, I mean, it depends. It's usually an open-ended wait and see. We've had that happen. It's true, I was talking to the team behind product today who said, Hey, B2B could be something to wait and see coming up a little bit later this year. The benefit of the Thematic Launch is that there's no deadline to meet. We're setting that deadline for ourselves. And so if we need delay that deadline a little bit so that we can better meet the deadlines of engineering and the product then we are able to.
Or we could alter those themes at any point. If a major feature suddenly isn't gonna get launched, maybe we could take a couple of additional features in order to make an assortment that matches to a particular theme in an alternative way. There's a lot of an option to modify the model to allow for those changes that happen all through the time.
David Vogelpohl () (17:47)
That's a good idea. So as I think of an old-fashioned promotional campaign of a feature release is like an announcement blog post or perhaps a press release, some social coverage or email our clients, send our customers emails, this type of things. How is thematic release different in terms of structure?
Braden (18:07)
It's true, I've mentioned it a little in the past. Many of these things are still happening. And at the thematic moment they are happening, but we have what we'll call GA tasks. So a lot more than just internal enablement in -app notifications. You know, when you allow access to a device or software, we're enabling those customers and those-- the internal teams within us. This is separated from the thematic release.
Then, at the time, instead of paying attention to a large portion of the more like the same features there's this feature accessible, in bits and pieces and bits, we're able to tell more of a narrative story about the value broadly from all these aspects. And so that's a big distinction that you can't really do in the case of releasing something like, in a piecemeal fashion over the course of a quarter or a year.
David Vogelpohl () (19:04)
Yeah. This is a good thing, because it seems to help improve the quality of your story. Cause I, I like my ideal example is the enhancements to quality of life which are really difficult for engineering but do not necessarily make the product more marketable. Because, do isn't it? The person on the outside isn't aware that there was a problem or something. And, and so it's frequently difficult as Phil, as an employee of a product marketing company, to announce, Hey y 'all, we, we fixed this. In reality, it is actually beneficial both for the business as well as the customers.
Braden (19:08)
Yeah.
David Vogelpohl () (19:34)
It's like these releases do not just allow you to kind of give away the megaphone, they also help to make the case for some of these more high-quality improvements to life.
Braden (19:43)
You get to, you know, a lot of features benefit from this that otherwise wouldn't get marketing activities or even an, say, quick announcement in Pendo. Instead, they're displayed in a website that's a part of larger features. So, yeah, they get to, as you said, make use of that megaphone. Additionally, there's lots to gain from the less, you know, quality of life improvements.
David Vogelpohl () (20:08)
Okay, so has this approach, how many quarters are in?
Braden (20:13)
It's our third launch, and we'll be launching our third theme launch month, which will be in July.
David Vogelpohl () (20:20)
Three quarters into the program, do you agree that it's increased your capacity to manage marketing resources as well as support new the launch of new products, or is it too soon to judge?
Braden (20:33)
It's certainly improved on my part. The improvement that I see is not only do I have the ability to more effectively support the product team, and help them out and coordinate with other marketing departments and demand generation. You know, they get a lot of lead times now, which they had not before with this product.
And we could slot them in campaigns previously we struggled to do. So I would say that could be the greatest gain. The other advantage is that it allows time for us at to focus on the other ways to expand vertically for example, such as gaming and other games, which we would not have had as much time for or as much manpower to push the verticals ahead.
David Vogelpohl () (21:28)
You mentioned the video gaming segment at least a few months as well. The company has had video game customers for quite some time, almost since the start of the company. You talked about the company kind of leaning into the segment. Do you think that segmentation might play an important role in thematic release, or do you think they are more focused on set of features?
Braden (21:51)
Yes, segmentation plays a big role. As I said, our next launch is focused on B2B. It's a niche that we want to sell into and that we're enthusiastic to expand into. It's possible to imagine a future where we're doing that with video games too. You know, we mentioned the improvement we've made to Our Apple Pay and implemented Google Pay. This is why expanding the vertical theme does not just give you the possibility, but also allows you in terms of...
you get the benefits of the thematic launch. However, you also gain the benefits by incorporating aspects like thoughts leadership into your thematic launch. This is something you'd have a difficult time integrating with a traditional releases of products. And so you can get a bigger, potentially larger campaign, and more value out of this type of launch for the overall organisation.
David Vogelpohl () (22:44)
Excellent. This has been really interesting, Braden. I truly appreciate your coming to talk on air about this. This was an amazing discussion during Spryng here in Austin. It was my thought to have it to the show. that was awesome. Thank you so much for joining.
Braden (23:01)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me. It was really fun.
David Vogelpohl () (23:04)
Awesome. If you'd like to learn more on Braden's work, you can visit www.braden.com. Braden is working on as well as his upcoming theme-based release, please visit .com. Thanks everyone for joining this week's episode of Growth Stage. Your host is David Vogelpohl. I am a huge fan of the digital product community as part of my role at . and I am awed by the opportunity to present all the great things from the community to you here on Growth Stage. We appreciate everyone's support.
