Speaker: Alex McDonnell, Marketing , InVision
How do you ensure a successful launch, and who should you align with to ensure launch success?
Alex McDonnell: So what I love to see in a launch is a simple message that takes a clear stance, gives people something to believe in. If you've done that, it gives folks internally and externally, something very clear to rally around. So the logistics are one thing, but getting everyone aligned on the story what this launches about, who it's for, what changed in their world. What we're asking them for is the really important point to rally around.
What’s product management’s role during launch?
Alex McDonnell: I think there's a lot more potential for marketers to capture the story of product development through their partners and product managers. As part of the launch message, you think about all the steps that product goes through and the cycles they go through, starting from the very first kernel of an idea through iterating on it and prototyping it and getting feedback from users. There's so much story there that we could actually be using more as marketers as the content when we go to launch. Here's where the idea started for us. Here are the pitfalls we ran into. Here's how you our customers helped us shape and sharpen this idea, and here it is now ready for you to use. I'd love to see more collaboration between marketers and product managers in that sense.
What’s the secret to closing lots of deals quickly?
Alex McDonnell: I have no claims over a secret to closing a ton of deals quickly. But I can speak to one of the key ingredients that I think is really central, which is empathy. I think you have to have empathy for everyone involved in the purchase process on both sides. And understand the story that they're going on, the change that they're trying to make in their world. I don't think there's a ton to be gained from trying to exert pressure on someone, whether that's through really abrasive messaging or last minute discounts. And I think that's the way toe close deals quickly or consistently for the short or long term. Instead, I think if you deeply understand that sort of journey that people are trying to go on, the change they're trying to make. You help them get informed, help them make sense of their world, what has changed in their world. That is a pretty core ingredient for sales success in my experience.
What is sales enablement? Why is it important? What is product marketing’s role?
Alex McDonnell: So for me, sales enablelement is about giving our partners and sales structures and frameworks and platforms collections of sound bites that they can work from. Not about giving them scripts to strictly adhere to or anything like that. Yeah, these are incredibly smart and motivated people who are going to be able to internalize a story and then contextualize it for the customer. And we should really think about it as it a two way flow. They are spending so much time with customers and have so much to share about the customer buying experience and what they're trying to achieve. They can make us marketers look really good as well if we're able to tap into that signal.
