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.

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Transcript

1. Scaling Up: Product Marketing Lessons from 10 Years at HubSpot
2. Add section title here
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
4. Add section title here 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.
5. Add section title here 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
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.
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
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.”
11. 1.Membrane, not Megaphone
12. PM PMM
14. Product PMM The Market From Megaphone to Membrane
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

17. Of PMMs own 5 or more products Of PMMS say their stakeholders totally understand what they do 35% 4% From Megaphone to Membrane
18. Put section title here 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.
20. Product Market PMM
21. Product Market PMM From Megaphone to Membrane
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
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
24. From Megaphone to Membrane
25. 2. Bring customer stories to life
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.
30. Pull report for VP
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 ...
33. You showed up ready to (finally) break the surface.
34. Welcome to a day in the life of an operations professional.
36. Bring customer stories to life
39. Bring customer stories to life Of audiences remember stories Of audiences remember statistics 63% 5%
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
42. 3. Use Words your Customers Understand
47. CMS = $72 billion CMS = Familiar
50. The “Mom” rule: Can you explain it to your mom?
51. The “Cocktail Party” rule: Can you explain it in 20 seconds?
52. The “Pricing Page” rule: Does a rep need the pricing page?
53. The “Head Nod” rule: When you explain it, does anyone nod?
54. The “Comparison” rule: Can you compare it to something familiar?
55. Use Words Your Customers Understand • The “Mom” Rule • The “Cocktail Party” Rule • The “Pricing Page” Rule • The “Head Nod” Rule • The “Comparison” Rule
56. 4. Tie every product message back to your “why”
57. 2005 2012 2019
58. (and see u at INBOUND)
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
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.
63. I never know how my story will start. But I know how it’ll end.
64. How does your product story end? Does it end the same way every time?
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.”
67. Thank you