The document provides an overview of Carolyn Bao's marketing fundamentals course on product marketing. It introduces Carolyn Bao and her experience in product marketing. It then discusses key topics that will be covered in the course, including product-market fit, how companies organize their product marketing functions, what product marketers are responsible for in inbound, outbound and customer advocacy roles, and how product marketing contributes to go-to-market planning. The document concludes by addressing some sample questions from students and thanking readers for their interest in the course.
Carolyn Bao's Product Marketing Fundamentals Lessons from Silicon Valley
1. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Clarity Product
Marketing
Fundamentals
Lessons from Silicon Valley
By Carolyn Bao
carolynbao@yahoo.com
2. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Introduction - Carolyn Bao
● 15+ Digital & Product Marketing experience with high tech products in
Silicon Valley
● Currently, Faculty of Management and Entrepreneur for MBA@Rice
University and Product Marketing consultant to QuickBooks at Intuit.
Previously, Facebook Global Product Marketing Lead, BrightEdge Sr.
Product Marketing Director, Visa Marketing Director and Yahoo Global
Product Marketing Manager
● Previous teaching experience: Tsinghua University X-lab startup
accelerator coach, University of Connecticut MBA guest lecturer
● Holds MBA from Emory University
5. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Most startups failed due to
lack of Product Market Fit
(PMF)
Improving PMF is the core
value added by Product
Marketing function
Source: CBInsights
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You know you have PMF - when your
customers sell your products
But, how do you get your customers to sell your products? This course will
show you how.
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Inbound focused
We are trying to define what we will be building
Goal of Inbound:
Identify market needs and determine what capabilities a product needs to
have to capitalize on opportunities
The Focus of PMM:
Strategy and early stage customer needs discovery
Work:
1. Market research
2. Customer research
3. Buyer and user needs
4. Product strategy and roadmap
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Outbound GTM (go-to-market) focused
We know what we’re building, but we are unsure if customers see
the value and will buy it with delight.
Goal of Outbound:
Translate features into value proposition and messaging that will resonate
with customers
The Focus of PMM:
Validate the product with customers and promote it into the marketplace
Work:
1. Go-to-market planning
2. Product value prop, positioning, messaging and customer
segmentation
3. Product testing and launching
4. Sales and upsell agent enablement
5. External communication and thought leadership content
6. Use case and solution marketing
14. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Customer empathy and advocacy
We know that our customers evolve and their needs and preferences
evolve. How to stay relevant with our customers’ needs?
Goal of Customer empathy and advocacy
Immersive understanding of customers, including user and buyer persona,
buyer’s journey, buying committee decision making process, buyer’s budget
cycle, influencers’ role in the buyer’s journey, customer education and
advocacy building, win/loss analysis, etc.
The Focus of PMM:
Provide source-of-truth about customers by persona, by buying cycle, by
use case and by industry
Work:
1. Customer buyer and user personas
2. Buyer’s journey
3. Claims and quotes collection
4. Pre and post-launch customer research
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Create the
content
Define target
persona
1
2
3
COPE
4
Test and
improve
5
Define your
product’s “story”
GTM planning includes positioning, messaging
and impacts integrated marketing campaigns
Growing business from 0 to 1
17. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
You know you
have PMF - when
your customers
sell your
products
Growing business from 0 to 1
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What can this course teach me
Company
● Role of PMM
● How to conceptualize
new product
opportunities
● How to drive growth of
the business with
innovation
Product
● How to avoid product
failures
● Should you charge for
your new products
● How to design GTM for
success
Individual
● How to become a PMM
● Whom does a PMM work
with
● How to level up as PMM
20. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Sample student question: How to cross
the chasm as we scale up?
Scaling business from 1 to 100
Also, by purchasing the course, you can join Carolyn’s PMM learning
group to network with peers or gain additional coaching
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Scenario
Already have some early adopters loving the products. Need to cross the chasm to achieve mainstream adoption
GTM planning
1. Understand the key characteristics of your ideal customers - to find lookalikes and scale up customer base
2. What stories do people tell about you products? Customer testimonials, case studies, claims, etc. Influencer
coverage of your products. Industry analysts’ coverage about your products
3. Refine and update value prop & messaging about your product on your primary landing page
4. Develop all channel, integrated marketing campaign plans, as if you have unlimited funds
5. Test paid media with selected channels - optimizing for CAC in relationship to Pay Back period
How to cross the chasm
Scaling business from 1 to 100
Also, by purchasing the course, you can join Carolyn’s PMM learning
group to network with peers or gain additional coaching
22. Copyright: Carolyn Bao
Additional questions from students
● How PMM’s success is measured, qualitatively and quantitatively?
● How do PMM work with PM?
● What makes one a good PM, in the eyes of PMM?
● Do you launch all features with the same rigor and resource?
● How does Facebook do its own integrated marketing?
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Thank you
Scan: QR code on mobile
Visit: bit.ly/Carolyn-PMM-Overview
Sign up for Clarity PMM fundamentals course today
Notas del editor
Product market fit
老司机也翻车:Google在这么小小的黑名单里居然两次榜上有名。
他们失败的原因各有不同。但是有一点是相似的:产品的定位有问题。
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7SqQnKuZOQ
What do these products have in common?
Webvan: biggest failure in dotcom era, losing $800M. Targeting lower-income households, instead of high income households which are more profitable. Additionally, Webvan built a costly delivery infrastructure that burnt out its cashflow.
Google Glass: Google Glass might have come too soon. Between a sky-high price, issues around privacy, and cultural backlash, this wearable product just didn’t connect. (didn’t sort out the legal & compliance issue before going public.)
Nike fuel bands: Nike’s wearable fitness tracker was well-received by reviewers, but failed to find a following with consumers, accounting for just 10% of the market two years after its release in 2012. By April 2014, Nike had fired most of the team behind Fuel. (single use case, high price - target consumers won’t pay)
Astro Pants, Lululemon: Yoga pants are designed to be form-fitting, but some models of pants and leggings from the yoga gear giant proved to be a bit too revealing, becoming translucent when wearers bent over. Inflammatory remarks from founder Chip Wilson only exacerbated the public relations fiasco. Wilson later issued an apology and the company issued a recall.
VCs requires companies to show monetization plan - just burning cash & amass users will not be successful. In fact, Andersen Horowitz has begun Youtube channel (a16z) to teach small companies on how to do successful product marketing so that they achieve product market fit at get-go.
*Top 3 reasons
No product market fit (No market need, poor product, product mis-timed)
Team issues (Not the right team, Disharmony on team/investors)
Money woes (Run out of cash, No financing investor interest)
PMM is more aligned to Growth than traditional marketing.
Based on company's business model, they would value PMM differently.
Companies like Facebook whose main competitive strength is Innovation, PMM inbound skillset is paramount. For companies who've had an established product and operational excellence is more important, they value more outbound skills in their PMMs, who can cut through the clutter in the communications execution. To some extreme, these companies do not want their PMM to touch/influence product roadmap.