Browsing Tag

product marketing

Marketing is in the Middle: Elizabeth Quintanilla

The final person in the series is a person who tirelessly given back to the product marketing community and just the community in general – Elizabeth Quintanilla. Within 30 seconds of meeting Elizabeth you’ll know that she brings passion and energy to ANY effort she applies herself to. I first met her at a product camp and have been actively watching her tweets since then.

Elizabeth isn’t just a leader in the product management and marketing community, she devotes her time to improving Austin and works to advance efforts locally as the social media ambassador of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GAHCC). The other cool thing about Elizabeth is she might be able to be technically called a rocket scientist with a long stint managing products for the Jet Propulsion Lab.

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

Surprisingly, I had a strange start to Marketing. My first taste of product management was a systems re-engineering project at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was my job to solicit requirements on how over 200 engineers how and wanted to actually use a software system used to navigate all current robotic missions at JPL. After graduating with my UT-MBA, I had another product manager role within a product group of IBM’s WebSphere. In 2009, I decided to start a woman-minority owned marketing and community outreach firm. Since then, I have worked with government, high tech, small family business, and restaurants.

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

What I really enjoy is the creative part of marketing – ranging from storyboards to the full video creation. Also, I enjoy finding all the analytics based on the customer metrics and presenting them in a digestible format for the small business owner so they can see the impact of their marketing activities. Some have described me as a creative analyst.

With my background in technology, my first client engagement in the food and beverage market was a challenge because of the rapid ramp time to address their unique concerns. I had to remember all my experiences of having that part-time high school job.

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

Speaking and teaching; volunteering my skills with non-profits; building relationships that generate referrals based on volunteer, presentation, and coaching activities.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

Executive Buy-In – there must be acceptance from exec team for bringing in an outsourced marketing resource and provide timely relevant information.

How have you seen organizations change in the last 3-5 years to better support the needs of product marketers, product managers and communications teams?

Better realignment between where product managers report to (Development, Sales, or Marketing) and the overlap in teams. Move to an agile adoption where each of the teams have 30, 60, and 90 day plans.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

One where the Execs buy in to the process and if I could get a little more dreamy, daily stand ups through the organization to improve communications.

How far is this from reality?

I see an increase of adoption within marketing teams and leadership teams, but it still requires work for most companies.

So what’s next?

More teaching small business, and working with interesting clients as a marketing gunslinger for me. For the industry, a steadfast movement away from big ideas, tech and products and alignment with the needs of the markets.

——-

Web: EQ Consultants

Blog: elizabeth-quintanilla.com

Twitter: @equintanilla

Many thanks to Elizabeth for her participation. What a positive note to end the series on!

February 16, 2011 by Jon Gatrell

Marketing is in the Middle: Lauren Carlson

The next person in the series, is Lauren Carlson. I asked Lauren to participate since as the interviews started to unfold from a content perspective, no one was really talking about tools which provide marketers an edge. Lauren writes about various topics related to CRM software, with particular interest in sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service and this background clearly made her a great fit to help fill this gap which has emerged in the discussions around marketing being in the middle.

Like all marketers or people around tech – Lauren isn’t formally trained in technology or marketing. She has a background in the music industry, and when she isn’t writing about software, you can find her running at Town Lake and singing at local venues around Austin. So maybe, just maybe I should have entitled the series Austin is in the Middle of Technology marketing with a couple of other geographies added to the mix, just for fun.

Here is Lauren’s take:

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

I am relatively new to marketing but I continue to get exposure to many software marketers, companies and service providers as a journalist. The role I have at Software Advice provides great access to leaders in the community. As a practitioner, I am actively involved in doing search engine optimization.

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

Targeting the right segments in the market. Ultimately as marketers, we have to find our niche or audience. So finding the right audience can often be difficult. Sometimes we have really great content, but if it doesn’t hit the right person, it is useless.

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

Doing the background research! Certainly it can take a good deal of effort and a bit of time, but it often brings back the most returns. I spend days researching keywords and search stats to better understand my audience. It can be tedious, but when we start to rank for those competitive terms, that’s really when you see the fruits of your labor.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

Content. Content. Content. Content drives everything. You can have the most talented people or the best business model, coolest tech, but if your content is bad, you’ve got nothing to keep your audience/buyers engaged.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

It would be focused on collaboration and creativity. Sometimes I get my best ideas when talking with a co-worker or when I am simply away from my desk interacting with others. Don’t get me wrong – some structure is great, but I think having the freedom to team up or step out of a structured environment can really free the mind to come up with some awesome stuff.

How far is this from reality?

I think that a lot of new start-ups are adopting this environment. Our company is working toward it and I have heard of others that are using this model. I think it is possible in organizations with a legacy in the traditional way of marketing. It is simply a matter of them accepting it and making the decision to adopt it.

So what’s next?

I have personally done a lot of research in the area of marketing automation – a piece of software that automates basic to complex marketing tasks. Companies are beginning to see the value of adding a marketing automation system to their enterprise software mix. However, the issue of adoption is what is holding it back. Software Advice just published a very interesting article from Jeff Pedowitz called, “Why the Marketing Automation Market is Floundering & 5 Fixes to Fuel It.” One of the stumbling blocks faced by the industry is education. We have this great new software, but we have not educated marketers on what it is or how to use it. I think we will see a new generation of marketers popping up in the next few years. These marketers will be true analytical thinkers more focused on process. We still need creative minds, as well. I think when you combine great technology and process with vibrant creativity and ideas, you have the perfect marketing mix.

——-

Twitter: @MASoftwareGuide or @CRMadvice

Blog: www.softwareadvice.com/articles/crm/

February 14, 2011 by Jon Gatrell

Marketing is in the Middle: Joshua Duncan

Josh Duncan took some time out his busy schedule at start-up Zenoss to provide some insights. Josh is an Austin native and has had a very diverse background which spans hardware and software for both B2B and B2C markets, so he bring a bunch of experience to the table for this effort.

So here is Josh’s take:

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

I started the first phase of my career as a software consultant for Accenture and ended up an Enterprise Architect doing technology strategy for Bank of America. I loved the strategy aspect but wanted to do more on the business side of the organization so I did a career switch over to marketing.

My marketing roles and background have covered both business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing, all in technology marketing.

As a consumer marketer, I worked planning and launching desktops, netbooks, and tablets for Dell’s consumer product group.

I currently lead the product and social marketing at Zenoss, an enterprise software start-up..

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

That’s a trick question, right? One of the reasons that I made the career switch was because of all the interesting aspects of marketing.

Currently, I am finding building a product marketing program, in startup environment, is a very interesting challenge. When there is more work to do than time to do it and limited resources, what do you focus on to deliver the most results?

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

Currently, I am a big fan of projects that can be reused across multiple channels. For example, if we are working on building momentum around a product launch and are thinking of sponsoring a webinar, what else can we do at the same time? Can we turn this into an interview series, a blog post, a case study, a white paper, etc?

Basically, once we land on a good story, how many ways can we get it out there so that it finds its way to our customers in a manner that works for them.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

Being able to work with the organization to effectively build a marketing strategy that delivers results.

How have you seen organizations change in the last 3-5 years to better support the needs of product marketers, product managers and communications teams?

I would say that now, more than ever, successful organizations are finding a way to align their marketing, sales, and support teams to best server their customers. There is a greater understanding that all of these touch points are important when it comes to the customer experience.

In the past, it might not have been as apparent when there was communication challenges and dysfunction in the company but not any more. Consumers have much higher expectations and much lower threshold for B.S.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

A great environment for a marketer is at a company that has figured out who their customer is (and whom to avoid) and unmercifully focuses on meeting their needs.

A perfect environment would be a company that isn’t just focused on selling a product for the short term, but is willing to take the time to invest in efforts with a long term horizon – building a movement (borrowing from the Brain’s on Fire terminology) .

How far is this from reality?

I think there are handful of companies out there, small and big, that are starting to figure this out and thriving because of it.

The trouble is that it is hard to bolt this on after the fact. It has to be a result of decisions made early on in the company’s life that are then maintained and built on over time.

So what’s next?

I think the big challenge for 2011 and beyond is going to be finding ways to be relevant. If you think it is noisy now, just wait till you see what the next few years bring.

This was a topic that I spoke on, along with three other marketing leaders, at the last Product Camp conference in Austin, TX. As we marketers look to grow our business, finding way to become and maintain relevancy are going to be critical.

It is going to be a tremendous challenge but I think if it is done right, is going to be worth the effort and has the potential of being a lot of fun.

—–

Twitter: @joshua_d

Blog: www.arandomjog.com

—–

Many thanks to Josh for his answers and make sure you connect with him if you are in Austin.

February 7, 2011 by Jon Gatrell

Marketing is in the Middle: Jennifer Doctor

So the next person to participate in this series of interviews is Jennifer Doctor, she is a product marketer who tirelessly gives time to volunteer for the community of marketers with participation in Product Camp ATL and Product Camp Minnesota.

Jennifer is also an active blogger and I’m thankful she took time out of her hectic schedule to participate. On to the answers….

What marketing roles have you had and in what markets?

Over the last nearly 20 years, I’ve worked in marketing, product marketing and product management. This includes everything from marketing communications and pr/media work, web development and marketing, and classic product marketing and product management. I’ve been in a variety of industries and technologies, including nonprofit agencies, hardware, b2b software for enterprise and small business – ASP (forerunner to SaaS,) ERP and desktop, and also services.

When you look at your career in marketing, what activities have you found most interesting/challenging?

I haven’t found the activities involved in marketing “hard;” rather, I believe what is hard is understanding and adapting to the different cultures I have entered and left. Each environment brings its own set of expectations and rules, mostly unwritten and tribal driven. This can make it challenging to drive to what is right and make a difference.

Based on your experience what activities do you think get the most return?

I believe that investing in any activity that brings about a greater understanding of the market is the where you are most likely to get the result. Tactics are driven better when you have that understanding of how your buyers, the potential market, will respond. Without this, no amount of marketing effort will succeed.

What do you feel is the most important component of a successful marketing gig?

The most important element of a successful marketing gig is to understand the buyer. I believe that you have to understand what the buyer is seeking, so they will invest in the sale. This understanding is important for any size product or sale. Without this knowledge, no amount of marketing of your solution will matter – regardless of how creative, flashy, interactive, or informative.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

Wow. Not easy to answer. A perfect corporate environment is where the silos of the organization do not exist. Teams are formed which are more agile (not capital A agile as in development process,) and combine skills and talents from different focus areas to come together to solve the problem for the market – at that time. These teams need to have a single challenge to tackle, and be in alignment with the overall strategic vision. They also need to be empowered with the right resources – from talents to money to time – to make it happen. It all comes down to creating a collaborative atmosphere, which exists without the barriers.

How far is this from reality?

I have no idea how far my ideal is from reality. I know that when it is achieved – and I have seen it work in organizations – it can produce amazing results. Unfortunately, I believe that it takes leadership, leadership which embraces collaboration and empowerment.

So what’s next?

Next? I have seen great strides in recent years from marketing (including product marketing and management) coming closer together in alignment to execute. I also would like to see more organizational leaders break down the walls that still exist. It’s time more people start worrying about who is right, and focus on what is right. It’s business. It’s not personal. More environments need to embrace this.

—-

Blog: Outside-In View

Twitter: @jidoctor