Product Marketing is Not Working -- Fix It With Thematic Product Launches -

Are you and your team of product marketers struggling to coordinate marketing resources to manage the constant flow of product launches, a lack of date for release, or constant rush of product managers requesting lots of attention from marketing for every new product launch? Are there alternatives to handle it?

• Be sure to pay focus on all new product launches.
• Create a compelling product story which is worth more than its components.
• Marketing should be organized and logical so that they are able to give their best product releases.

If you're running yourself ragged with a constantly-changing roadmap for your product or incessant "t-shirt" sizing for estimates for projects that change and shifting release dates for your products or worrying that you're not keeping your team members happy Perhaps it's the time to consider the themes you're considering for your new product launches. Learn how in this episode of Growth Stage!

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Transcript

David Vogelpohl () (00:04)

Hello everyone! You are cordially invited to join The Growth Stage podcast by . I'm your host, David Vogelpohl. I'm part of the community for digital products through my role as . and I am awed by bringing all the great things happening in community-to-community and to you through this episode of the Growth Stage podcast. This episode, we're going to speak with a person who is uh, very significant to me. I work with him here at . We'll be discussing about product marketing, and the ways you can do to solve it using thematic

new product launches, and I'd like to invite new product launches and welcome to the this stage of growth Stage the Mr. Braden Steel. Braden, welcome.

Braden (00:39)

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciated your introduction. I'm excited to discuss the marketing of products today.

David Vogelpohl () (00:44)

Awesome. It's great to work with you here at , Braden. I felt a flash of fear as I've never pronounce your name when I'm in public. It's like I wonder if this was an odd pronunciation that I did not recognize, or forgot over the years or whatever. However, welcome to the forum. Yes, it's. The topic Braden is going to be discussing are his thoughts on the shortcomings of traditional marketing for products and  how we can improve it by launching quarterly themed product launches.

Braden (00:58)

Yeah. Yes, I'm grateful.

David Vogelpohl () (01:14)

Give your complete attention for new product launches, you must ensure that you tell a coherent product story where the whole is worth more than the parts. This will assist marketing to be more organized and careful so that you are able to provide your best work in your releases of products. The Spryng conference was held by Wynter, W -Y -N T -E -R I believe it was S -P -R -Y -N"G," but that's just an acronym for a conference.

There was a roundtable talking about the different aspects of marketing and the challenges. The topic of marketing products came up. Some felt that they were somewhat irritable and needed to deal with every little announcement of a new feature, or release of products, and striving to create a massive impact for every single thing. A theme-based approach to product launches was brought up by a member of the group that had suggested it, and we taken the idea up a while ago.

Thus, I thought it would be fun to have a discussion about this topic today morning. This is it, Braden is it time to begin?

Braden (02:18)

Yeah, let's do it. It's fun to talk about this topic. it. it. it.

David Vogelpohl () (02:20)

Alright, good deal. I've looked around for a long period of time, but I don't have the right answer for the question. What was the very first product that you purchased on the web?

Braden (02:28)

It's definitely an interesting subject. I spent some time thinking about it. I was in senior high. The auction site was booming. Also, it was when I got the PlayStation 2 with a bundle of games. The bundle included sports games and some different games. Then I debated whether I should purchase the game. However, I bought it and loved it. I gleaned a lot of pleasure from this console and also had lots of enjoyment.

Other options were made with money that the only thing I purchased was an instrument. The first purchase I made using my own money online. So that was the other alternative.

David Vogelpohl () (03:06)

It's all right. I like the way you distinguished between your own cash and the money you think is the way you used it in the form of a parent's funds? Which way did you finance the PSP?

Braden (03:14)

Yes, I could have achieved it by weeding the garden or trimming the lawn something. However, the second one was exactly like the money I made from my own initiative.

David Vogelpohl () (03:24)

If you're cutting the lawn, you're making cash, Braden. It's fine. Okay, well I gave it away a little at the beginning. But can you talk about your thoughts with viewers about your work here or about what you are doing?

Braden (03:27)

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sure. As a Senior Product Marketing Manager at . My primary responsibility is going-to-market for our entire range of products, as well as for the industry we work in as well. When a new product is launched it's all aspect of messaging that goes beneath the product as well as the environment around it. And then providing help for areas such as B2B games, B2B and more fields that we're eager to expand into. Merchant of Record.

What that means is we integrate everything that happens beginning with the purchase button and transform it into a sale experience. We work with SaaS businesses, gaming companies AI-driven companies B2B. that. that. that. that.

David Vogelpohl () (04:18)

Excellent, excellent. In discussing your work did, you covered various aspects. Releases of product releases and the release of features. The verticals were also mentioned. There was also a mention of B2B SaaS or video games. And the modern product marketer has a tendency to adopt the vertical aspect of the product. It, in my opinion is adding to the complexity of the product marketing.

What are you thinking is broken with the promotion of goods? Did something not make sense for you using the old model?

Braden (04:56)

This is a excellent question. It's true that releases of products hinge on many moving elements which are beyond a marketer's sphere of influence. Like, issues with engineering or commitments to customers made by the sales are important that's"hey, we need to get this product finished before the launch of a different product. There are a lot of moving parts around these launch. Therefore, it is important to coordinate with the teams within the product team in setting time frames for commitments and be aware of

What time will these items be to be available for release? What exactly is release? Are you able to access it in general or is it still in an initial stage of development? Then the questions begin to be asked, what time do we wish to discuss the program? What are the topics we'd prefer to discuss? Can we afford to talk about it since that we're in the process of testing it? So a lot of questions are being asked and lots of uncertainty arising because of this particular understanding of exactly how engineers and products work. In my opinion, that one of the biggest issues is

it's so difficult because it's difficult to imagine the product's final form and think about a release date and then prepare for a product that is ready to launch. So what can happen is that marketers of products like me get to know that, say, a couple of weeks prior to the launch date, a week before GA and then the product manager of the product saying"Hey, this is going to be finished. After that, you'll be able to finish this project. Then it's like I'm holding my faith. Other things needed to finish. You know, you mentioned verticals. There's been a lot of discussion regarding verticals.

It consumes a significant amount of time too. What you're asking I've had to consider and think about what I can do to complete my job in launching the product and also other aspects of my work with no influence over when the launch will take place?

David Vogelpohl () (06:40)

If you're using floating timelines. The software isn't ready. The team discovers a flaw prior to the date. They are able to make the release happen, and they make the release available earlier. They're attempting to coordinate resources and marketers from different companies Web designers, web developers and content creators and stuff like such. This coordination with floating dates that I'm experiencing. What's the other side? Similar to the side that I've...

It's true that I've you known, I've been as a marketing manager for product launches and various capacities throughout many years. I'm thinking that I feel as if every time I speak to a product person and they're saying, we're releasing X and I'm going announce a massive announcement about the launch. Do you think that expectations about the amount of time and effort needed to announce the various launches of products can be too much? This could be one of the reason that you're not able to do traditional marketing?

Braden (07:28)

Sure. I mean, the managers of the product are managers because of a reason. They're the ones who control the items. They're super enthusiastic about their product. They've been working on the items for a long time. All up to a few years that they've been trying to get these items to release. And so of course they'll require as much support as they can get for these items. It's hard to find an executive from the product team to you and tell you that I'm really excited about this particular feature.

I'd like some help So here's a few of my suggestions I'm going to make the decision of that we'll allow the brakes to go a little for A, B, or C. I'm not able to support the concept, or well, maybe I'm not in the mood, or, and that's frustrating and difficult to keep relationships with those management teams because, you know, you might think that because they don't want to support their cause, or do something else. That's not what happens. It's obvious that you don't want to assist as many people as you are able to.

David Vogelpohl () (08:26)

Yeah. You're viewing it from the perspective in charge of a marketing strategy in the context of a launch. You're having to deal with the floating date from the traditional model, and every manager of a product simply because of their time and effort they're putting in it It's as if we're deciding to make a big bang regarding this. But with all those demands, as well as the date dates floating about, it feels a bit like you're not doing your best work. There's many different things, which can make it hard to perform at your most effective work. This is the general idea I've been getting. Is that what you mean?

Braden (09:01)

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's the position where all of the things fall apart at the same time. Then you must determine how to accomplish everything. Not only are there just 24 hours in a day, let alone the strain of working an entire day, and the strain of having to figure out how to maintain all of these issues in mind. Consider these complex things.

They can be made smaller to make an item with a market focus. There's certainly many challenges to overcome.

David Vogelpohl () (09:35)

This was something you mentioned in the past as we discussed supporting the PMs as well as their relationships with PMMs as well as PMs as in. If you believe that this is the typical form of marketing for products and services? Is it reasonable to claim that it causes conflict with PMs as well?

Braden (09:58)

Yeah, I think that's the case. There's been occasions where it's been somewhat of an uncomfortable discussion in which I simply said, "I do not have the funds to support your request. It's true that in these situations, it's crucial to remain conscious and be able to discern what the PM's looking for, however it does create tension. There is a need to be able to effectively communicate in circumstances where you're in a position that requires you to be in the moment and attentive.

Be clear, be good at keeping track of your progress. Being precise, keeping track of what you're doing and, using the method of thematic launches to get rid of a number of problems with traditional solutions.

David Vogelpohl () (10:41)

Now you've got the product managers who want the biggest megaphone they can get for announcing their new product. Marketers are asking"can be more strategic so we are able to do more effectively? Additionally, you've talked about your move to thematic releases of your offerings. Let's start by defining the basics. What exactly is a thematic release?

Braden (10:59)

Yeah, great question. Thematic releases are a group of items that fall within the context of the theme. As an example, B2B as the umbrella and other releases help to promote that theme.

David Vogelpohl () (11:16)

So when we talk about themes-based releases it's likely that there's no single release each week. Maybe, I guess that if you're extremely determined, but are you releasing these releases regularly or on a regular basis, like monthly or quarterly? monthly?

Braden (11:30)

Good question. There is a spring, summer and autumn release. It's not a huge market in the Christmas season towards the close of the year and we do not release it until the end of December. It's true, only three releases a year. Also, we do occasional releases occasionally in between.

David Vogelpohl () (11:45)

This is due to the fact that the company's product line plans to declare that each quarter, there will be this theme-based improvement on the product line, after which we'll incorporate it into the product marketing, we're going introduce this through a major advertising campaign. Do you think it will include elements of each of the product lines and feature releases within that theme?

Braden (12:08)

It is indeed. It has those elements. After that, we look over our customers' map and ask, OK, what's planned for next year? This helps us classify these items into themes. Therefore, we don't have to use an order-of-preference approach in saying that we have to identify a solution for theme A. What are the products that relate for theme A? Instead, we consider what products we plan to release in the coming year?

Then what's the main concept to which these products will fall within during those times of the year.

David Vogelpohl () (12:44)

You'll see the difference and it will be amplified. There's a chance that you'll miss by one quarter, if the date of release happens to be a different issue, but it might be an issue with a delay, I consider, before realizing you've got it. Yeah. It's decoupling the GA when you want to, from the campaign.

Braden (12:51)

That's correct, yeah.

That's correct. Yeah. And that's a strategy, which we've previously implemented the strategy. We also have GA tasks we carry out in order to ensure that these features need promotion when they are introduced. So, in the thematic approach we can have GA tasks, and thematic activities that we can apply to each of the products.

David Vogelpohl () (13:18)

Every product release, if you would like to, will be included in the themes available. It also has a type of a small version similar reasons, such as the GA rollout. So you kind of get the double dip It sounds as.

Braden (13:31)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's really helped to ensure that the internal team has the ability to access GA. So, customer satisfaction isn't just suddenly getting comments from our customers. It's like Hey, I'm using your product. I want to know more about this product. The customer service team was not enabled. It's not the case since within GA we're constantly releasing FAQ documents, as well as values-based communications to ensure that our internal teams understand the situation.

In the meantime, your most popular advertising messages, such as those you mentioned might be delayed in certain instances. If your product was to launch in January but you don't have a theme-based release in April, the product might not get the same amount of marketing focus at the start, however it'll be able to tag along with that bigger push later throughout the calendar year.

David Vogelpohl () (14:17)

If you were super-tactical could you add the release of an X which is an even bigger release in between the themes should you were in a position to obtain similar, for example, GA dates for the same very strategic event you're in the process of preparing?

Braden (14:30)

Yeah, absolutely. Therefore, we do offer a few ad-hoc releases we assist with. We attempt to limit these to a couple of releases if we are able to. We've created a process we use with our team of product developers where we engage in a dialogue and think"okay, we're sure we have this amazing function. This doesn't fall under the subject, but it's essential for reasons A or B. We've put it in our plans collectively to ensure that everyone is aware of the goals we're trying to achieve. Then, as you can imagine it's a separate care.

The advantage is there isn't a chance of a sudden crash of 15 items into the ground at the end of every quarter. That's usually the case when product is delivering everything simultaneously.

David Vogelpohl () (15:08)

Thank you.

One of my most favorite business quips is not just a joke, it's an observation. It is believed that the executives Q3 signifies the start of Q3 while engineers Q3 means the end of Q3. So it sounds like the teams are all entering at the close to meet those quarterly OKRs. Yeah. Okay. I'm here to help you.

Braden (15:33)

Yeah, exactly right.

David Vogelpohl () (15:38)

There's this theme due out this quarter or next or some such thing, however there's a major product or feature release which doesn't match with the overall theme. Could this be one of those rare announcements you've been discussing you might pop up during the theme release?

Braden (15:55)

Yes, precisely as you would expect. So I'll give you an example from our ongoing work that we're doing. Payments were released at the beginning in the calendar year. This meant that we were able to offer a number of exciting payment features. One payment that didn't make it into the design could not make it up and running by the time that theme launches took place comprised Google Pay and everyone knows Google Pay. We sat down and looked at it and thought, how can be we promoting Google Pay? It's not an enterprise-to-business service. We made a minor release available of Google Pay.

It was made with documents, FAQs, or a blog post or blog posts that are shared on social media platforms like those.

David Vogelpohl () (16:29)

So what happens then should you have had this type of anchor product release as well as a thematic release which falls? In other words, it seemed like you were still with an anchor company, it seems like that's an issue with the release. Apple Pay slipped from or Google Pay slipped from. What do you do? Wait to release this thematic release until anchors have been installed? What else could you do?

Braden (16:54)

Yeah, I mean, it depends. Oftentimes it can be an open-ended wait and see. There have been instances where this has happened. It's happened to us. speaking with the Product team this morning who informed me that B2B could be delayed for at some point later in the year. The benefit of a theme-driven launch is that A, it's not a date. The deadline is set by ourselves. If we must move it back a little bit to meet the deadlines for engineering or product it is possible to do that.

We could also alter these themes at any point. If one of the major features abruptly doesn't exist or isn't going to be made available, we could pick up one or two smaller features in order to create an ideal package that will fit into a specific theme by a different method. There's flexibleness in the structure that permits these changes that occur every day.

David Vogelpohl () (17:47)

It's an excellent idea. In my mind, an old-fashioned campaign to promote a product in the event of a new feature would be like an announcement on a blog, possibly a press release or an announcement on social media and emailing our customers. Send out emails to prospects and customers, etc. What is the difference between thematic releases in the form?

Braden (18:07)

Yes, I have mentioned this previously. Most of these incidents still happen. At the moment, they are occurring, but there is what we call GA actions. GA activities. This means that there are a variety similar to internal enablement within-app notifications. When a user is allowed to access this technology or software We're giving them access as well as our own internal teams. This access is separate from this theme's release.

And then at the thematic moment, instead of taking note of a significant proportion of similar features available by pieces, we can tell the story of the overall value of the parts. This is a huge contrast that I've noticed and is not possible when you release the same thing you've always known about, pieces throughout the year or the calendar year.

David Vogelpohl () (19:04)

Yeah. This can also help enhance the quality of your story. Since I'm a fan, an example that I consider to be perfect for me is the enhancements to the quality of life, which are really difficult for engineers however, they don't always enhance your product's marketability. Because, do are you aware of what I'm talking about? Anyone who's outside doesn't realize there's an issue or an issue. It's often difficult as Phil or the product manager to say"Hey you guys! We've found a solution. In reality, it was really valuable to the company and customers.

Braden (19:08)

Yeah.

David Vogelpohl () (19:34)

It's believed that thematic releases don't only allow you to kind of broadcast your megaphone. They aid in enhancing the stories of a handful enhancements to the quality of life enhancements.

Braden (19:43)

Absolutely, yeah there's a chance to make a variety different functions profit from this. Those functions wouldn't get marketing activities or, you know, an announcement by Pendo. Instead, they live in a web page that's undoubtedly a landing page, along with other functions. Also, you should, as you said, make use of the megaphone. There's plenty of significance in the smallest things like improvement in your quality of life.

David Vogelpohl () (20:08)

So, did this approach work? What is the number of quarters?

Braden (20:13)

This is our third launch and we're getting ready for our third theme-based launch themes this year month, and it will happen in July.

David Vogelpohl () (20:20)

Three quarters have passed, do you believe that it has improved your ability to plan marketing resources, and to assist in the introduction of new products? Or is it too soon to say?

Braden (20:33)

It's certain that it's increased, from my perspective. What I've observed is not just that I able to better support the group that is behind the product. It's also possible to not only support them effectively, but also to collaborate with other the marketing and the demand generation. The company has a great deal of lead-time that they had not before with regard to their products.

And we are able to slot them into the campaigns that previously we had to fight for. This is the most significant benefit. Additionally, it provides us with time to think about alternative ways to grow vertically, such as into video games or different games. These are things we would not have had the time for or not sufficient manpower to push those verticals forward.

David Vogelpohl () (21:28)

You mentioned the video game section in the past, and 's had gamers playing video games since quite a while, almost since the start of the business. The company was being somewhat more involved with this sector. Do you think that the segments might play a role in thematic release releases, or do you think that they are focussed on features?

Braden (21:51)

Indeed, segmentation plays an essential role. Like I mentioned, our upcoming launch will be specifically geared towards B2B. It's a niche that we'd like to market to, and are excited to explore expanding into. There's a possibility where we're doing that with video games as well. We've already talked about how we've upgraded the functionality of Apple Pay and implemented Google Pay. The reason for this is that expanding the use of vertical themes not only opens up that ability, you know, for...

you get the benefits of the launch that is based on themes, but you also gain the benefits from incorporating elements such as thought leadership into your launch. This is something you might struggle to incorporate into a standard product launch. And so you can gain more, and possibly an even bigger push in your promotion and gain more value out of the type of launch you choose to the larger organization.

David Vogelpohl () (22:44)

Excellent. This has certainly been quite a blast, Braden. I really appreciate you being on the air to speak about this. It was an amazing exchange in Spryng the city of Austin. I thought it might be great to include the conversation on the show however that was an amazing experience. Thank you for joining.

Braden (23:01)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me. It was super fun.

David Vogelpohl () (23:04)

Awesome. And if you'd like to check out more about Braden's work, you can visit www.braden.com. Braden does as well as his upcoming thematic release, you can go to .com. Thanks everyone for joining this show of Growth Stage. I'm your host, David Vogelpohl. I enjoy helping the community of digital products as part of my role as . and I am awed by having the chance to share the very best that this community has to offer for you to see on the Growth Stage. We thank you all.

David Vogelpohl David is the Chief Marketing Officer for . Over the past 25 many years David Vogelpohl has led teams that have built top-quality engines for growth as well as programs for major brands such as WP Engine, Genesis, AWS, Cloudflare, and various other brands.

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