Product Marketing Aliance Singapore Chapter Nov 2023 — Learnings and Notes
Product Marketing — A new function which could be segregated from what we do for VICCAS or @Hylobiz as the big umberalla of digital marketing. A new function which is trying to find a seat on the table as I understood from the practitioners. We all know the digital marketing itself didn't have a seat on the big table. Most of traditional thinking business people and sales folks, still thinks these functions as something good to have, not yet essential. Gladly these were discussed and I was delighted to vent some of the frustrations which we all had were collective and not just a vent.
Alycee was the host and PMA did choose the right candidate for him. Her humor and vivaciously did keep us on time with the proceeding and made all of the learning a pleasurable experience. I did broach with her “How does she manage it all?”, a weary birdy to another who want to learn from her and she did say it wasn't easy journey managing a product marketing job at LinkedIn and her interest to develop her skills through engagements like these.
PM, was defined for me and some of the participants from the beginning of the session by Alycee. Made it easier to figure out how does it fit in the bigger corporate world and how can it be done for smaller startup world like ours.
Now always the buzz king of the season, AI needs addressal. In came a very seasoned professional who made us all gave insights into tools and techniques which he uses in his day to day work. He made it all humorous with what AI cant be expected to do by asking it for jokes and such. Ben Munroe. He concurred with a thought of making it a colleague who needs some training from our end to understand your requirements in terns of customisation, integration and insights before it can be of help to you.
Alycee moved away from being the able host to a presenter seamlessly and took us through how in her work front she navigated the alliance of product and product marketing in one of the features being released in the APAC region, with the product team located in US. This gave an insight as to region wise validity of a product needs attention and this cannot be something which can be vested upon product teams who could be sitting remotely. The local flavour and local sentiments for the product release needs a lot of thought and timing consideration. Even in case of bigger companies these could be missed and how as a product marketeer she cruised through one of the challenges. The live examples are always goldmine of learning, her nuggets were that.
Did someone say, B2B SaaS, yes my ears perked up to hear what he had to say about that tribe of us — Srikant Kotapalli from @insider. He had to educate us on PLG — Product Led growth mindset in the marketing team at first and then to the organisation as a whole. The presentation had a lot of emphasis on the experience and value which we are to provide to all of our customers, here the end customers, product teams and marketing teams and many more internal customers which could in picture, before “the product” goes to market. GTM another buzz world we all like and dread.
The mini usecases, listing in marketplaces, dogfooding on your product, DIY product demos and experialtial free tools were introduced to us by Srikanth. To relook at these in this perspective and understand from his experience was enriching. Upselling and retention was the focus of all these activities and this was reiterated in all the sessions.
Glad that these discussions were included among smaller groups in between the sessions. It did help to break away from consuming all the content which the experienced panel had to share and connect with the other participants and realise their world and what brings us all together. Did discuss upon, what niggles us the most in our spectrum of marketing and more specifically PM. Found these sessions more of venting ones where be it Shally who was the consultant from this region, Delita from Logistis tech or Nupur from Dell Inc. We all could empatise with each other woes on being the bridge between our internal customers and external ones.
The quintessential question — Do we have a seat on the table? Never knew it was a question which a lot of us wonder, as I being in this role for a decade and a half, it had been a struggle. Pete from Grab did uncover the secrets to proving value to stakeholders. Yes value talks and stats do the most talking. A secret which was discovered recently or rather was worked upon. His emphasise on data lead approach, Insights driven communication and delving into strategic projects as a team were great takeaways.
Glenn Bacalso from Workday, gave his journey as a sole member of customer advocacy and tools which helped him do it well across APAC region.
Sanket Mokashi — looked very child like when he was called on to the podium and there was nothing childlike when he rattled off about his evolution as a product maketeer. I had a lot of take aways of his methods which emphasised on communication of value proposition and customer segmentation and analysis. MCCU, KANO to list a few which are my to do list from his insightful and in-depth presentation. waiting to rehear it as and when PMA shares it.
Ishara was entertaining with her theaterics which she imbued into her insightful presentation on how to built value for the sales. Starting from the right questions to the tools which they can use — Battle cards and the usual brochures and “One pagers”. How to spunk them all up was her essence and many take aways. I felt amoured to extend my hand for friendship to sales as usual which every workday I vouch not to talk to them. But with these renewed goodies in my booty they might want to be friends with me.
Glad the round table discussion was the closing session with ever present Alycee as the moderator. Did I miss mentioning her in between, I shouldn't have actually, she cruised us all through these with her introductions of each of the participants and her summary of the presentation after each of them. I am sure these buzz words which she was scribbling on her pad all through the day and then presenting would haunt her that night — customer advocacy, seat at the table, Empathy, strategy, upsell, retention strategy, Product demos and many many more.
The able panelists Ashwin from Stripe, did make us understand the complexity of being in a fintech which is B2B, Judson from foodpanda was very straight forward and most whom I could relate to, who is struggling to get it done, but somehow managing to be friends with all in doing so. And Vladyslav with his immense knowledge did entice us all through the day with his questions and now ending it with a bang.
The discussion was how to built a career in PM and how to criuse it to success as understood this function can get sandwiched or more precisely used as a postamsterly job between sales, marketing and product development. This was also powerpacked and would need a rerun from the recording to precisely get the notes down. End of a day which was filled with a lot of learning and takeaways.
Thanks to the location partner — St Regis Singapore, we were well taken care of.
