Product Marketing is Not Working -- Fix It With Thematic Product Launches -
Are you and your team of product marketers having trouble coordinating marketing resources to support an endless stream of product launches, with vague release dates and an endless stream of product managers wanting to get tons of marketing attention for each release? Would there be some better ways to do it?
- Pay the highest attention to all product releases.
- Tell an overarching product story in which the entire is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Marketing should be organized and logical so that they are able to be the best at their job to promote new products.
If you're struggling with over-active product roadmaps, the endless "t-shirt" sizing for project estimates that are agile, slipping product release dates and fretting about failing to keep your product management team down, it might be time to consider thematic product releases. Discover how this can be done on this episode of Growth Stage!
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Transcript
David Vogelpohl () (00:04)
Hello everyone! You are invited to join this episode of the Growth Stage podcast by . I'm your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community with my work as . And I love bringing the best of community-to-community and to you through The Growth Stage podcast. This episode, we're going to be interviewing one person who's really special for me. He works with me at . He's scheduled to talk about the way that product marketing has been broken and the best way to improve it by using thematic
new product launches we'd be pleased to welcome to Growth Stage Mr. Braden Steel. Braden, welcome.
Braden (00:39)
Thank you for your time, I appreciated your introduction. I'm looking forward to chatting with you about marketing for products today.
David Vogelpohl () (00:44)
Awesome. Well, I love working together here at Braden. And I had a moment of panic because I rarely use your last name in public. It's like is it possible that this pronunciation was some weird pronunciation I didn't know about, or have forgotten over time or whatever, but I'm glad you're to the forum. Yes, absolutely. And what Braden's going to talk about are his thoughts regarding the flaws in traditional marketing for products and we, here, are using periodic thematic launches of products.
Braden (00:58)
Yeah. Yes, I'm grateful.
David Vogelpohl () (01:14)
to give the best focus to the new releases of your products make sure you create a cohesive product story that will be more important than the sum of its parts, and help marketing be more planful and careful so that you are able to give the best effort to your product releases. I attended Spryng hosted by Wynter, W -Y -N T - E -R I think, and S -P -R -Y -N -G, but it's an event.
We were at a roundtable to discuss the many challenges and marketing and the topic of product marketing came up. And people were feeling they were running ragged in dealing with every little feature release, new product releases, and trying to make an impact for all of it. The topic of thematic product releases was brought up by someone other in the group recommended it. We had adopted that here at a few quarters back and
Therefore, I thought it would be neat 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 looking forward to discussing the topic. it. it. it.
David Vogelpohl () (02:20)
Alright, good deal. I've been here for awhile and I still don't have the right answer for this question. What was the first product you purchased online?
Braden (02:28)
It's a cool topic. I spent some time thinking about the subject. This was during junior high. eBay was in its heyday. It was also when I purchased an PlayStation 2 with a bundle of games. It had like some sporting games, as well as additional games. It was a constant debate over whether or not to purchase it. However, I bought it and loved it. I got a lot of enjoyment from that console, and also had lots of fun.
Another option is to use the money that I have made was to purchase a dogeridoo. It was the first item I ever purchased with my own money. So that was the other alternative.
David Vogelpohl () (03:06)
It's all right. I like the way you distinguished between the money you own and the money of your parents, what was it, similar to your parents' money? Which way did you finance the PSP?
Braden (03:14)
It's possible that I made it by weeding the lawn or cutting the garden or something. The other was just like the income from my job which I made on my own.
David Vogelpohl () (03:24)
So, if you're trimming the lawn, you're making money. Braden. So, all right. Well, I kind of did it a at the beginning, but could you share with the audience the things you are doing here or in how you work here?
Braden (03:27)
Sure, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, sure. So I'm the Director of Product Marketing, Senior at . My job is everything go-to-market for all of our products as well as the industry that we operate in. So when a product launches it's all of the messaging underneath the product as well as around it. And then supporting things like video games or B2B or other sectors that we're excited to sell to. is a merchant of record.
The way we do it is that we incorporate everything starting beginning with the purchase button and ending in a digital product selling experience. We partner together with SaaS businesses, gaming companies, AI companies, B2B, things like that. that. that. that.
David Vogelpohl () (04:18)
Excellent, excellent. Now, when you describe the kind of work you performed You touched on many different aspects. You touched on product releases as well as feature announcements. Additionally, you mentioned verticals. The B2B category was mentioned. SaaS or video games. Today's product marketers tends to favor the vertical position for a particular product. And I think that just even further amplifies the complexity of product marketing.
But what do you think is broken about product marketing? Was there something that didn't work for you with the traditional method?
Braden (04:56)
Yeah, it's a really excellent question. The fact is that product launches depend on many moving factors that are outside of a product marketer's control. For instance, engineering issues and customer commitments required and sales are suddenly significance that's"hey, we need to complete this product prior to when it's released. There are a lot of moving parts around these launches. So, working with the teams from the product team to set commitment dates, and to understand
What time do these products are scheduled be released? What exactly does "release" mean? Is it generally available or is it in an early stage of testing? Then the questions begin to come, well, when do we want to talk about it? What are the topics we'd like to talk about? Can we even speak about this because we're testing the product? This raises a number of questions and a lot of unease happens with this model of, you know, just the way that engineers and products work. So I believe the most important thing that's broken is that
There's a reason why it's hard to envision the final product and plan around a release date and plan for a product to be ready to launch. So what occurs is that product managers like myself end up, just a week before launch, one week prior to GA, and the product manager saying, This will be finished. And then, get to and do this job. And it's like, okay I'm holding for a second. I got other stuff I had to finish. You know, you mentioned verticals. We've been talking about that.
That's right, it is a huge chunk of time too. So the issue that I've needed to answer and have to consider is how can I do the work of launching the product as well as the other aspects of my job in the absence of control over the date of launch?
David Vogelpohl () (06:40)
You've seen these floating timelines and so the product's not fully functional. The team discovers a flaw just before the deadline. They manage to power through the release and get it done early. It's a challenge to coordinate resources with other marketers as well as designers and webmasters and content folks and things like that. This coordination with floating dates is what I'm hearing there. Is there a different side? Like you've...
you know, worked in product marketing and various capacities throughout time. It seems as if every time I speak with a person from product, they're like, I'm making X and I'm going to go out and make a statement regarding it. Do you think that your expectations regarding the level of effort for all these different product releases is sometimes excessive? Is that part of what's wrong with the traditional approach to product marketing?
Braden (07:28)
Yeah, for sure. It's true that those product managers, they're product managers because of a reason. They're the ones who own these products. They're extremely excited about this. They've worked on these items for understand, all the way to several years, trying to get these products to release. Naturally, they'll need as much support as they get from these items. When it's very challenging to have an executive from the product team come up to you and say, I'm very excited about this new feature.
I'm looking for a great deal of support, here's all of my suggestions, and to have to say, well, we'll let the brakes go just a bit to accommodate the A, B, or C reasons, but I'm just not in a position to help your ideas, or because I don't have the time or the resources. It's difficult to sustain an ongoing relationship with the product managers since you might think that because they feel, you don't wanna help you or anything, but that does not happen. Obviously it's not your intention to assist as many people as possible.
David Vogelpohl () (08:26)
Yeah. This is why, that from your point of view of coordinating a go -to -market around a product launch and dealing with floating dates that are part of the standard model, and every other product manager and rightfully so, as you mentioned, given the time and money they're putting in it, it's like, lets make an announcement over this. but with all of those demands, plus floating dates you feel as if you're not performing your best work. You're distributing yourself amongst all these things and it's hard to really be at your most effective work. That's kind of the gist I'm receiving. Does that sound reasonable?
Braden (09:01)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's the position where all aspects fall down simultaneously. And suddenly you have to find out how to achieve each of them. Not only are there only 24 hours in a day, let alone that you have to work all day long, but also the, pressure of trying to think about, keep all of those things in mind, take this highly technological approach and.
make them more compact into an item that's market-oriented. That's why there are plenty of issues to be faced.
David Vogelpohl () (09:35)
You mentioned this just a moment ago, when we talked about supporting the product managers and the relationship between PMMs and PMs in the sense of. Do you think that the traditional form of marketing for products, is it fair to say it can have some tension between PMs and PMs?
Braden (09:58)
Yeah, I think it's true. There have been times when, yes, it's definitely an a little tense conversation to straight up admit that I do not have the resources available to help the way you want to go. It's true that in those cases, you want to listen and attempt to figure out what the PM is looking at, but it can cause tension. You know, you need to be able to communicate effectively in situations where you're required to must be present and be being attentive.
Be clear, be adept at logging what you're doing as well as, in the case of, deploying the theme-based launch method to help avoid some problems that are associated when you launch a traditional product.
David Vogelpohl () (10:41)
You have Product managers asking for the biggest megaphone possible in their announcements. You have the rest of marketing saying that we need to become more organized so that we can do better work? Also, you've talked about the shift to thematic product releases. So let's just start simply. What is a theme-based product release?
Braden (10:59)
Yeah, great question. Thematic releases are collection of products under the subject. As an example, B2B as the umbrella and all the products are supporting that theme.
David Vogelpohl () (11:16)
So when we talk about thematic releases, I mean I'm assuming there's not a single release every week. It could be it's if you're extremely committed, however is it happening on a quarterly basis, every month?
Braden (11:30)
Good question. There is a spring release or summer and fall release. The public isn't in the mood for the holiday season at the conclusion of the year, so we don't release it in that period. It's true, only three times a year with ad hoc releases occasionally in between.
David Vogelpohl () (11:45)
This is because the product organization intends to announce that every quarter we'll make this theme-based improvement to this product or product line and we're going to integrate it into the marketing for the product, and we'll try make it real as a single campaign. What if it were to include the elements of each of the items and releases within that topic?
Braden (12:08)
Yes, it is. It includes those elements. When we look over our customer plan and say okay, what are we doing this next year? And that helps us categorize these products in themes. Therefore, we don't have to go in a downward-facing direction in saying that we have to find a solution for theme A which products which fit into the theme of A? Instead, we will look at what are the suite of products that we're planning to introduce in the coming year?
What's the overall subject matter that these merchandise can fall under during these seasons.
David Vogelpohl () (12:44)
This is what you'll get, you'll increase the sound. There's a chance that you'll be missing in a quarter at the time of release or some other thing, but it could be a lag, I imagine, and you'll be aware of you've got it. Yeah. This means you're separating the GA in the event you want to, from the promotion.
Braden (12:51)
That's correct, yeah.
That's correct. Yeah. That's an approach, that's why we've implemented our GA actions that we carry out since these products require promotion after they become live. Therefore, as a part of the thematic process, we have GA activities and then themes that we are able to apply to each of our products.
David Vogelpohl () (13:18)
Every new product, if you can, sort of is a part of the thematic releases. And then you have kind of a shorter version such a thing as the GA rollout. So you kind of get the double dip, it sounds like.
Braden (13:31)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it's really helped in ensuring that the internal teams of our company have access to GA. This means that customer satisfaction isn't just suddenly getting feedback from clients. The customers are saying, Hey I'm using this amazing product. I'd like to know more about the product. The customer success team was never set up. That doesn't happen because in GA we're constantly releasing FAQ documents and value messages to ensure that our employees know what's going on.
And then the go -to marketing messages, as you mentioned, may be a bit sluggish on occasion. If your product is scheduled to debut in January, but don't have a thematically release until April, that product may not receive as much marketing support at the start, but it will get to tag along with that bigger push later during the year.
David Vogelpohl () (14:17)
If you thought it was extremely strategically planned, would you throw in an X, you know, a bigger release that was in between the other thematic releases in the event that you happen to be able to get a, that GA date for some like extremely strategic item you've been looking forward to?
Braden (14:30)
Yeah, absolutely. We also have occasional release that we are able to provide support for. We try to keep them to a couple of releases if they are possible. We've developed a procedure, you know, along with your team of product developers where we engage in conversations and then we think, okay, we have this great product. It's not in the theme, but it's really important for reason A, B and C. So we've planned for that as a team to make sure everyone's understanding what we're planning to accomplish. And then, you know it gets its own consideration.
However, the advantage is there isn't a chance of 15 items suddenly crashing down at end of quarter, which is usually the case as the product delivers every single thing at once.
David Vogelpohl () (15:08)
Thank you.
One of my favorite business jokes is that, actually, observation is that, the executives Q3 is the time to start Q3 while engineering teams Q3 signifies the conclusion of Q3. This suggests that they're all kind of, you know, of course moving towards the close to reach those quarterly OKRs. Yeah. Okay. I've got you.
Braden (15:33)
Yeah, exactly right.
David Vogelpohl () (15:38)
So you have this theme coming out in this quarter or next but there's a significant new feature or product that isn't compatible with the theme. Is this just one of those unique ones you were talking about that you might pop up within the time between the release of the thematic theme?
Braden (15:55)
Yes, precisely as you would expect. Therefore, I'll provide you with an example from the work we're currently doing. We did a payments release in the beginning of this year. This meant we could offer a number of exciting payment features. One payment that slipped engineering just couldn't be able to get it right by the time that the theme launch took place was Google Pay and everyone knows Google Pay. And so, you know we took a seat to look at the feature and asked, how do we make sure that we are promoting Google Pay? The feature isn't really a business-to-business function. So, yes, we did a little mini release for Google Pay.
I have created some documents to accompany it FAQs, a blog post or blog post that is promoted on social networks like those.
David Vogelpohl () (16:29)
Then what do you do if you have this kind of release for an anchor product with a theme release that isn't as good? I mean, it sounded like you were still using an the anchor product it was in the thematic release Apple Pay slipped from or Google Pay slipped from. But what do you do? Just wait to do the thematic release till the anchor products can be included? Or what do you do?
Braden (16:54)
Yeah, I mean, it depends. Oftentimes it can be an open-ended wait and see. We've had that happen. It's true, I was speaking with the product team today that said, Hey, B2B may be an option to waiting and seeing launch coming at some point later in the year. The benefit of the Thematic Launch is that it's not a hard deadline. We're setting that deadline for ourselves. If we have to delay it a little bit to better support the deadlines of engineering and the product We can.
We can also alter the themes at any moment. In the event that a crucial feature suddenly isn't gonna get or isn't going to be released, we might take a couple of other smaller features to create the perfect bundle to fit the theme in a different method. There's a lot of an option to modify the model to allow the possibility of changes throughout the year.
David Vogelpohl () (17:47)
That's a good idea. So as I think of an old-fashioned product marketing campaign for an announcement of a new feature It's like an announcement blog post or perhaps a press release and some coverage on social media, email our customers, send our customers emails, this sort of item. How does thematic release differ in its structure?
Braden (18:07)
Yes, I mentioned it a little in the past. Many of these things continue to happen. At the moment of the theme they are happening, but we have what we'll call GA tasks. This means that we have a variety similar to internal enablement in -app notifications. If someone could access that piece of software or technology We're providing that technology to our customers as well as the internal teams within us. This is separated from the this theme release.
Then, at the time, instead of paying attention to a large portion of what's more features, like, "hey there's this feature accessible, fragmented and bits, we're able to tell an even more compelling of the overall value of all of these features together. This is a huge distinction it's not possible to do with a release, like, in a piecemeal fashion over the course of a quarter or a year.
David Vogelpohl () (19:04)
Yeah. It also feels like it helps you enhance the narrative. Since I'm a fan, my ideal example is the improvement in quality of life that have been extremely difficult to engineering but do not necessarily make the product more marketable. Because, do are you aware of what I'm talking about? The person on the other side doesn't realize there it was an issue or something. And, and so it's usually difficult for Phil, as a product marketer to go out and say"Hey everyone, we've fixed it. In reality, it proved to be extremely valuable for the business and for the customers.
Braden (19:08)
Yeah.
David Vogelpohl () (19:34)
It's that thematic releases don't just allow you to kind of broadcast your megaphone however, they can also elevate the story of some other improved quality of life enhancements.
Braden (19:43)
You have the opportunity to many features benefit from this that otherwise wouldn't get marketing activities or even the benefit of a short announcement from Pendo. Instead, they're displayed on a page that is a landing site alongside larger features. So, well, do be able to make use of that megaphone. And there's a lot to gain from the less things, such as quality of life improvements.
David Vogelpohl () (20:08)
Okay, so has this method worked? How many quarters of your time are you?
Braden (20:13)
It's our third launch, and we'll be launching our third launch of thematic themes this year during July.
David Vogelpohl () (20:20)
Okay, so three quarters later, can you consider that this has improved your ability to coordinate marketing resources as well as support new the launch of new products, or is it too early to say?
Braden (20:33)
I'd say it's definitely improved, you know I'm the one who made it happen. I think the improvement I've noticed is not just do I have the ability to better support, the team behind the product, but help them out, but also coordinate with the rest of marketing, specifically demand gen. You know, they get a lot of lead time that they didn't have before about this product.
We can also incorporate things into campaigns that previously we struggled to accomplish. So I would say that is the most significant advantage. The other advantage is that it has opened the door to concentrate on other vertical expansion, like into video games and other games, which we would not have had as much time or enough manpower to push these verticals forward.
David Vogelpohl () (21:28)
You mentioned the video game section for a while as well. The company has had video game players for a good long while from the very beginning of the business. The company was kind of leaning into the video game segment. Are you of the opinion that segments can play a part in thematic release, or do you think it's more around the feature sets?
Braden (21:51)
Yes, segmentation plays an important role. It's true that I've mentioned our next launch is about B2B. This is a market which we're hoping to sell into, that we're excited to expand into. I can see a world where we're doing that around video games as well. We've mentioned that the improvement we've made to our Apple Pay and implemented Google Pay. So yeah, expanding, having these vertical themes is not just opening up the possibility, but also allows you for...
You get the advantages of the theme-driven launch, however it also offers the advantage of incorporating things such as thoughts leadership into your thematic launch, which you may struggle to combine with traditional releases of products. And so you can get a bigger, potentially an even bigger push for your campaign as well as more value from these product launches for the broader company.
David Vogelpohl () (22:44)
Excellent. Well, this has been very interesting Braden. I appreciate the fact that you came to the radio and speaking about this. This was an amazing debate during Spryng this week in Austin. It was my thought to kind of bring it on the show, but this was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on.
Braden (23:01)
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you having me. It was really fun.
David Vogelpohl () (23:04)
Awesome. If you'd like to check out more on what Braden is up to and possibly his next thematic album, go to .com. We thank you all for being part of this segment of Growth Stage. Your host is David Vogelpohl. I enjoy supporting the online product community as part of my role at . It is my pleasure to bring all the great things from the community here on Growth Stage. We appreciate everyone's support.
