Ari Plaut - Scaling Up: Product Marketing Lessons from Ten Years at HubSpot (Turing Fest 2022)

As it has grown from a startup to a billion-dollar business, HubSpot has consistently found a way to stand out in a complex and competitive space. In this presentation, get the inside scoop from longtime HubSpot PMM leader Ari Plaut on how HubSpot has built a product marketing team for sustained success at scale, and how you can apply their lessons to your business.

Head to www.turingfest.com to learn more about Europe's best cross-functional tech conference.

Transcript

1. Scaling Up:
   Product Marketing Lessons from
   10 Years at HubSpot
   

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3. Ari Plaut
   Global PMM Lead
   10+ years at HubSpot
   5(ish) different roles
   2 countries
   1.5 years on the road
   1 visit to Scotland (until now)
   0 cups of coffee a day
   

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   About HubSpot
   CRM Platform that helps companies grow better.
   Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations Software.
   Founded in 2006 in an MIT dorm room.
   Went public in 2014.
   Based in Cambridge, MA.
   

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   In my time at HubSpot…
   Unpaid Intern ! Global Lead
   Single college kid ! Married and middle aged
   No appreciation of beer ! Knows a good Guinness
   0 product lines ! 5 product lines
   1 office ! 13 offices
   200 employees ! 6400 employees
   Brian Halligan keynote → Barack Obama keynote
   

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7. Product marketing is like crypto.
   You know it’s valuable, but you don’t
   quite know what it is.
   And everyone you ask has a different
   answer.
   

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8. Things I’ve been asked to do…
   Messaging
   Positioning
   Customer emails
   Manage betas
   Sales enablement
   Competitive intelligence
   Market research
   Sunset features
   Name products
   Price products
   Package products
   Laugh at Dharmesh’s jokes Make slides pretty
   Build community
   Upsell
   Cross-sell
   Manage a marketplace
   Create a roadmap
   Present at user groups Put up balloons
   Staff events
   Run webinars
   Train partners
   Run won/lost analysis
   

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10. 1. Make your team a membrane, not a megaphone.
    2. Bring customer stories to life.
    3. Use words your customers actually understand.
    4. Tie every product message back to your “why.”
    

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11. 1.Membrane, not Megaphone
    

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12. PM PMM
    

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14. Product PMM The Market
    From Megaphone to Membrane
    

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15. The Dangers of the Megaphone Approach
    ● Rushed Go-to-Market

    ● “Hit it then quit it” strategy

    ● Missing insights. 

    ● No investment in unsexy features

    ● PMM a bottleneck

    

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17. Of PMMs own 5 or
    more products
    Of PMMS say their
    stakeholders totally
    understand what
    they do
    35%
    4%
    From Megaphone to Membrane
    

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    Lack of understanding about the
    strategic role that PMM plays
    Our product and engineering teams
    do not commit to deadlines more
    than 30 days out. Makes it
    impossible to plan.
    I'm overloaded,
    I don't have time for most of
    the things I want to do.
    Getting brought into projects too
    late and trying to catch up
    Being recognized more for
    their strategic capabilities, and
    not just tactical product
    launches.
    I'd like to see us brought into
    more upstream strategic
    conversations vs. getting looped
    in down the line.
    

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20. Product Market
    PMM
    

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21. Product Market
    PMM
    From Megaphone to Membrane
    

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22. ● Rushed Go-to-Market

    ● Missing insights

    ● “Hit it then quit it” strategy

    ● No investment in unsexy features

    ● PMM a bottleneck
    ● All timing is accounted for

    ● Fully insightful

    ● Consistent support

    ● Purposeful investment

    ● PMM a strategic partner
    

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23. Align goals
    At HubSpot: I co-own
    revenue, usage, and upsell
    goals with product.
    ● Align PMM goals with product
    (or sales) goals.
    Align priorities
    At HubSpot: PMM writes
    memos to align priorities (&
    omissions) with product.
    ● Align on strategic initiatives
    and milestones.
    Align deliverables
    At HubSpot: We use launch
    tiers — P1 to P4 — to set
    clear expectations.
    ● Align PMM deliverables to
    avoid surprises.
    From Megaphone to Membrane
    

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24. From Megaphone to Membrane
    

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25. 2. Bring customer stories to life
    

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26. A new insight…..
    Ops people spend almost half their time (45%) on reactive work.
    Almost half of ops people say that putting out fires is their least favorite thing to do.
    

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30. Pull report for VP
    

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31. ….
    Pull report for sales VP
    Figure out lead status issue
    Automate customer renewals
    Audit sales rep notifications
    Check on tracking URLs
    Look into lead discrepancy between CRM and BI
    Add new option for campaign property
    Create automation for property setting
    Update required fields
    Change page layout for CS
    ...
    

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33. You showed up ready to (finally) break the surface.
    

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34. Welcome to a day in the life of an operations professional.
    

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36. Bring customer stories to life
    

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39. Bring customer stories to life
    Of audiences
    remember stories
    Of audiences remember
    statistics
    63%
    5%
    

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41. Be Proactive. Tell Stories. Make impact.
    ● Host “Cocktails and Customer Insights.”
    ● Bring the “voice of ___” to monthly QBRs
    ● Host an empathy session with partners
    ● Do a quarterly roundup of customer roadblocks and ideas
    ● Shadow techs support, and share your learnings
    ● Invite product team members to customer calls
    ● Host office hours and show-and-tells in your community
    

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42. 3. Use Words your
    Customers Understand
    

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47. CMS = $72 billion
    CMS = Familiar
    

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50. The “Mom” rule:
    Can you explain it to your mom?
    

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51. The “Cocktail Party” rule:
    Can you explain it in 20 seconds?
    

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52. The “Pricing Page” rule:
    Does a rep need the pricing page?
    

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53. The “Head Nod” rule:
    When you explain it, does anyone nod?
    

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54. The “Comparison” rule:
    Can you compare it to something familiar?
    

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55. Use Words Your Customers Understand
    ● The “Mom” Rule
    ● The “Cocktail Party” Rule
    ● The “Pricing Page” Rule
    ● The “Head Nod” Rule
    ● The “Comparison” Rule
    

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56. 4. Tie every product message
    back to your “why”
    

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57. 2005 2012 2019
    

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58. (and see u at INBOUND)
    

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59. Help companies grow better (see: INBOUND).
    All-on-one CRM platform that’s powerful and easy, so
    you can create delightful customer experiences.
    Ops Hub is data management software that empowers ops
    teams to move from reactive to proactive.
    Data sync is an integration engine that makes it easy to
    connect apps.
    Brand Positioning
    Platform Positioning
    Product Positioning
    
    
    Feature Positioning
    

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60. The impact
    Why it’s hard
    Our solution
    Brand tie-in
    Ops Hub makes it easy to connect, automate, and analyze your data,
    
    
    so ops teams can focus on growth, not fires.
    You’ve got to run better to grow better.
    Complexity turns your ops team from strategic force
    
    
    to reactive firefighter. Your internal teams stall out, your customer experience suffers, and
    your business stagnates.
    We live in a world of “more.”
    
    
    Tools, processes, and data are proliferating faster than businesses can keep up.
    Ops Hub Narrative
    
    
    The shift Internal efficiency is the key to a cohesive customer experience.
    

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63. I never know how my story will start.
    But I know how it’ll end.
    

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64. How does your product story end?
    Does it end the same way every time?
    

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65. 1. Make your team a membrane, not a megaphone.
    2. Bring customer stories to life.
    3. Use words your customers actually understand.
    4. Tie every product message back to your “why.”
    

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67. Thank you
    

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