Engineering as marketing? Or marketing as engineering? ??
Hey folks,?
Traditionally, marketers and engineers don't mix well.?
We see them as weird nerds in flannel shirts. They see us marketers as these wishy-washy folks who say "it depends" way too often, and can't wait for AI to replace us.?
But hear me out. The whole "us vs. them" divide is what may be holding you back from unlocking more Product-Led Growth channels.?
1. (Product) Marketing as Engineering?
This month, I met up for virtual coffee with one of the Product Rants readers here?- Gus Bartholomew, Head of Revenue & Ops at Grain.?
We talked about how we're achieving Product Led Growth at Userpilot, when I suddenly had an epiphany...
Even at Userpilot, we delayed working on our product-led growth experiences forever thinking 'we don't have the time' and 'it's too early for product marketing'. I hear the same stories all the time. But truth be told, there's never a good time for building in-app experiences to push users to unlock more value from your product. You'd be leaving all these??expansion revenue opportunities ?on the table.?
And then, this just rolled off my tongue...
"Involving a product marketing manager in your release sprint, and baking the product adoption experiences into the sprint, would be a game changer."?
Duh.?
Why don't we do that? Why don't we make product marketing part of the engineering sprint??
How much better would your product experience be if you planned how the new feature/UX improvement you're releasing should be discovered by different personas at each stage of their user journey? And then simply?implemented a reactive onboarding experience for it? ?
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Another way how engineering and marketing can work together to generate more Product-Led Growth is by deploying free mirco-apps as PQL (Product Qualified Lead) magnets.?
The microtools should be complementary and highly relevant to your core product or service. They should also be free to access and provide added value to your target audience.?
One of the most well-known (and original) examples of engineering as marketing is HubSpot’s?Website Grader . It’s a free tool that HubSpot launched in 2007 that scores your website based on factors like speed, SEO, mobile-friendliness, and security. The Website Grader intends to show users personalized recommendations on how to improve their site while weaving in HubSpot’s products as a solution.
We also built a free tool like that at Userpilot - a free online?NPS calculator ?that makes it quick and easy to plug in your survey responses and find your NPS score. But if you want to?use the scores to segment your users, and send relevant in-app messages to those segments - you need to?sign up for Userpilot .?
P.S. If you don't have enough engineering resources to build microapps as marketing plays, then at least you can showcase how your tool works on your website, landing pages and blog posts with realistic animations and GIFs:?
Have you involved your marketing in your engineering, or your engineering in your marketing yet? How did it go??
Curious to hear your tips and stories!?
+ Don't forget to grab your seat at?Product Drive - here's the full schedule!?
Meanwhile - see you all next week.
?? 10x Your SaaS MRR with Our 'Link Reputation System' | Ready for Results? Check My Profile | Follow for Actionable B2B SaaS Link-Building Tactics | 25k+ Links
2 年Oh, those fights between marketers and engineers about tech stack... Engineers are usually completely oblivious of what needs to be done for marketing purposes and think that the most interesting solution is the one that seems logical... Yet people buy based on their emotions first...
B2B Copywriter | Brand Builder| Video Strategist | Meditator. I help businesses achieve their marketing goals using impact driven copy & research- backed content .
2 年Couldn't agree more. Iam a Tech Copywriter with a background in Engineering and whenever I write marketing stuff for tech products, it is engineers I mostly speak to - for an in-depth understanding of the technology behind it. Without a proper bridge between Engineers and Marketers, the end goal of sales and conversion will take a hit. Glad that you brought this one out.
Coach for heads of growth | PLG advisor | Former 2x growth leader (Wistia, Postscript) | Podcast at media.deliveringvalue.co
2 年Learning to work effectively with engineers is one of the highest leverage skills a marketer can learn. Unfortunately, most engineers I know hate working with marketers. They have trouble prioritizing their asks. Defining their scope. And almost always have last minute data needs they forgot about.
MAKE DIGITAL FUN AGAIN: making your Strategy happen with Web Dev & Design | SEO | Content Creation | Branding & Design | Social Media | Email | Campaigns
2 年This issue is so difficult. I’m not in product marketing, but B2B marketing. Creating a matrixed team structure in which specialists actually communicate with each other is a classic challenge. I think it goes all the way back to Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” and his theory of specialization and division of labor (just took a pic of him in Edinburgh ??). But now, in a Digital environment, that division of labor doesn’t pay. Want to advertise digitally? Ok, that means you are sending someone to a link. Is your (marketing) message spot on? Great. Now when they arrive at that link, is your site engineered so that all the info the audience needs available in a nice UX format? (Translation: can the marketers talk with the web dev engineers?) And does that take into account good SEO (another speciality) and conversion optimization (h/t Martin Greif)? But the system has taught us to specialize. I think the only way forward is for some people (humans!) to start leading the way within their organizations to glue it all together. To do that, they need to be more educated, bold, and also be given the time and resources to achieve successes and then use those as case studies to guide others. It’s complicated!
SR PMM @ Unmind | Author: The Product Momentum Gap | Writer, Speaker, Advisor ??
2 年or maybe Product Marketing is actually product, and should be treated as such. ;) #launchbetterproducts