Product Marketing Adventures

What do you do when your sales team is already overwhelmed by new product launches and one more enablement session just won't cut it? In this episode, Cristina Sainati, staff product marketing manager at Samsara, shares how a senior leader's advice to "make it easier to sell" changed how she approaches launches, and why it became her north star.Cristina walks us through her campfire launch analogy: the enablement deck and messaging are the kindling, the launch moment lights the fire, and one-on-one outreach gives it the oxygen it needs to catch. She explains how she treated sales reps like prospects, led with account data hooks, and kept her messages to a couple of lines so reps had a real reason to reply.From there, we get into the workflow behind it. Cristina used Databricks to pull account insights and Claude to draft personalized Slack messages, turning a weekend of work into about 30 minutes, while still reviewing every draft to keep it human. We also dig into her results, including roughly a 70% response rate, pipeline created and trial activity, and a step-by-step playbook you can borrow.We wrap with a messaging critique of Wispr Flow, covering why its onboarding works so well and what could come next beyond speed.LINKSDusted:  https://dusted.io/ Messaging Critique (Wisprflow): https://wisprflow.ai/Connect with Cristina:Website: https://www.samsara.com/LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/csainati/Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Okay, PMMs. Have you ever walked into a company with no real product marketing function and wondered where on earth to begin? In this episode, Matt Agnew shares how he did exactly that. With 15 years of B2B SaaS product marketing experience behind him, he was hired into a well-established enterprise SaaS company with almost 100 product managers, one product marketing manager and a very capable intern.Matt walks us through his case study: discovering that product marketing was already happening across nine different teams without the name or the strategy, then choosing to listen before doing. He booked meetings high and low in the org chart, grouped what he heard into themes, and sprinkled in his experience to build credibility. We take a look at how that earned him early wins, including getting a new concept in front of sellers about two months faster, and how it moved the team from reactive to proactive.From there, we turn the story into a playbook for PMMs and PMM leaders. Make allies on the teams that matter, learn to play the game, present to executives like it’s the first time, and tie everything to both business goals and your stakeholders’ personal goals. Matt also shares how he made the case for headcount with a capacity dashboard, why he’d hire for creativity and presentation skills over industry experience, and what an art gallery audience taught him about demos.We wrap with a messaging critique of REI Co-op, covering why its content-first blogging builds trust, and the missed opportunity of treating “hobby hoppers” as one-product shoppers. Matt also gives a shout-out to Katie Barnes, who taught him a lot about confidence.CHAPTER MARKERS00:00 Introduction00:36 Building PMM Case Study01:02 One PMM For 100 PMs02:31 Hidden Product Marketing09:48 Stakeholders High And Low13:41 Sales Enablement Early Win16:20 Proactive PMM With AI23:38 Playbook Step One Allies29:50 Tie Work To Goals32:39 Building The Team36:30 Protecting Headcount37:23 Hiring For PMM Skills42:47 Playbook Recap44:23 REI Messaging CritiqueLINKSMessaging Critique (REI Co-op): https://www.rei.com/Connect with Matt:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-agnew-product-marketing/Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/

If you’re anything like most marketers I know, your best work is scattered across Slack threads, half-finished decks, and a Google Doc you’ll never open again. Then when it’s time to update your resume, you try to turn months of thinking into one tidy line, and it somehow reads like you did nothing.In this episode, I’m in the hot seat while Hattie interviews me about why that’s becoming a bigger problem in the AI era. A resume is fine, but it’s not proof, and when everyone can generate “polished” in seconds, the real differentiator becomes the thinking underneath the work.That’s exactly why I built Dusted. As the founder, I describe it as GitHub for marketers, a place to turn your work into proof of your expertize and preserve your career memory so it doesn’t disappear into a folder you’ll never find again.We also get into the line between sharing your experience and respecting your employer, how anonymising case studies can help, and why making your expertize visible can create leverage in your career. If you want one practical next step, we’ll give you a simple way to start (and yes, Dusted is free).LINKSDusted:  https://dusted.io/ Connect with Hattie:Website: https://www.productmarketers.com/   LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/hattiethepmm Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Okay, PMMs. I think most of you are going to agree with this thought.Really great product marketers stand out early in a new role by how they act when they first start.When a PMM joins a new company, the best ones don’t try to prove themselves with a big launch in week one. They listen. They talk to the people in the work, not just the people in the org chart. They pay attention to the problems that keep coming up, then they figure out where those problems are actually affecting the business. And when they find something important, they jump on it. They collect an early win, and their reputation gets a boost for the better.That’s exactly what Jeremy Moskowitz did when he joined Mural as VP of Product Marketing. He spotted a problem he hadn’t been hired specifically to solve, built something surprisingly simple to fix it, and it helped sales win the biggest deal of the year.In this episode, Jeremy shares how that early win turned into a CEO-level innovation narrative, how it got used directly in customer conversations, and how it eventually scaled across the field through enablement and discovery talk tracks.We also break down his playbook for making an impact early in a new PMM role, plus a messaging critique of ServiceNow CRM and why brand halo can make bold claims feel believable.LINKSMessaging Critique (ServiceNow CRM):  https://www.servicenow.com/au/solutions/crm Connect with Jeremy: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremymoskowitz/Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

It’s easy to look at companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, or ServiceNow and assume enterprise PMM must be a dream job because the resources are endless. Then you get inside and realise the resources are real, but they’re spread thin across hundreds of products, thousands of sellers, and a matrix org where your launch is competing for attention from day one.That’s why I brought in Anna Startseva. Anna’s done product marketing across the full spectrum, from startups to mid-size companies to ServiceNow, and she’s lived the “solo PMM in a massive machine” reality. In this episode, she shares what it actually takes to create clarity for the field when you’re launching into a mature, crowded category and you can’t afford vague messaging.We go behind the scenes on how she approached the launch: starting with the internal ecosystem and alignment (yes, the meetings), then building a Messaging House as the foundation that everything else can scale from. Anna also breaks down how ServiceNow uses a grounding layer for AI (Nucleus) so teams can move faster without losing consistency, and where she still insists on doing the human work manually.We wrap with a practical enterprise PMM playbook you can steal, plus a messaging critique of Microsoft Copilot: what’s working, what feels generic, and why distribution matters more than your landing page in an enterprise motion. If you’re new to enterprise PMM, Anna’s final advice is simple and slightly painful: learn where you sit in the company ecosystem first, because it makes everything else easier.LINKSMessaging Critique (Microsoft Pilot): https://copilot.microsoft.com/ AI tool mentioned: Evidenza Connect with Anna:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-startseva-pmm/ Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Product teams are shipping faster than ever, and PMMs everywhere can feel the gap. Product velocity has changed, but a lot of us are still working in old quarterly rhythms, which means you end up reacting to launches and requests instead of driving strategy.In this episode, I’m joined by Steven Schuler, who’s spent his career at the leading edge of major tech shifts, from mobile marketing to customer data infrastructure to AI-powered products. Steven’s focus now is helping PMMs operate in an AI-first world by building systems that scale knowledge, rather than just producing more content faster.We unpack Steven’s 3D product marketing framework, data, decision, delivery, and why most teams get stuck in delivery because it’s visible and endless. Steven shares what an “always on” system can look like, the kind that collects, synthesises, and flags what matters so you can spend more time in the decision layer where strategy actually happens.We also get into how to build the foundations for this, including mapping where truth lives inside your org, getting the right stakeholders involved, and creating “golden docs” that keep AI outputs consistent with your product, market, and voice. To wrap, we do a quick messaging critique of Peacock and talk about why clarity and brand equity matter, plus Steven’s final advice on where PMMs should focus if they want AI to create leverage, not more noise.LINKSMessaging Critique (Peacock): https://www.peacocktv.com/ Connect with Steven:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-schuler/ Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/

If you’ve ever sat in a meeting where sales, marketing, and product all describe the same thing in totally different language, you’ll recognise this one. Leadership keeps asking, “So how is this different from the other offering again?”, and somehow everyone still thinks they’re aligned. The fallout rarely looks like a “messaging problem” either. It shows up as slow sales cycles, confused positioning, weak cross-sell, campaigns that don’t convert, and a website that feels like five companies stitched together.In this episode, I’m joined by Kevin Chan, Head of Product Marketing at Fleetio, who’s known for getting company-wide messaging alignment to actually stick. We talk about what it really takes to fix fragmented messaging, starting with the unsexy part most teams skip: stakeholder readiness, trust, and the history of past “messaging refreshes” that went nowhere. From there, Kevin shares how he anchored the work in voice-of-customer insight and brought the right people into the process so the language could hold up across teams.We also get into why word debates are usually strategy debates in disguise, and how to keep messaging alive through real feedback loops instead of treating it like a one-and-done doc. To wrap, Kevin and I do a quick messaging critique of Brick, the screen-time device, and explore how a sharper framing could shift it from “reclaim your time” into something more behavioural and habit-based.LINKSMessaging Critique (Brick): https://getbrick.com/ Connect with Kevin:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kchan91/ Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Subscription overload is real. You open Netflix, scroll for ages, jump to Hulu, maybe Disney+, and still end up rewatching The Office or Parks and Rec. Then your credit card bill hits and you’re left wondering why you’re paying for all these subscriptions in the first place. That “is this still worth it?” feeling is the loyalty problem, and it’s not just entertainment. SaaS brands are fighting the same battle for habit, relevance, and ongoing value perception.In this episode, we dig into one of the most interesting examples of a PMM stepping straight into that challenge: Disney+ and customer loyalty in a category where churn is constant and attention can shift overnight. Joining us is James Schultz, the PMM who built the program, now at Netflix thinking deeply about customer experience in an increasingly personalised world.James shares the thinking behind Disney+ Perks, including how he approached the problem before anyone started throwing rewards at it. We talk about what he looked at to understand cancellation behaviour, how he thought about different customer groups, and why perceived value is the lever that matters when discounting is the easy trap.We also get into what it takes to execute a loyalty program so it doesn’t fade into the background after launch, plus a quick messaging critique of BODYARMOR’s “Choose Better” and why clarity beats aspiration when you want a line people can actually repeat. James wraps with a simple warning that applies to loyalty and messaging alike: validate first, build second, and make the value obvious.LINKSMessaging Critique (BODYARMOR): https://www.drinkbodyarmor.com/ Connect with James:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jamesjacobschultz Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Landing your first enterprise deal feels like you cracked the code. Then leadership wants ten more, and suddenly “going upmarket” becomes the plan, even if your motion still looks mid market. This episode is about what actually changes when you move into enterprise, and why it is not just selling to bigger companies. It is a different buyer, a different story, and a different way of proving value.Quintin Smith joins me to break it down. He is a two time founding PMM, currently leading go to market at Unify, and previously helped scale CaptivateIQ during a major growth phase. He shares what it took to turn enterprise from a lucky win into a repeatable motion.We get into the enterprise buyer dynamics that most teams underestimate, including the importance of the full buy team and the narrative shift required to win at that level. Quintin also walks through his Four Rs framework for building an upmarket strategy that can actually run, from research and refinement through enablement and reporting.We also do a messaging critique of Profound, a company helping brands improve visibility inside AI platforms like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. We talk about what they are doing well in clarity, and where a more future oriented narrative could help them own the category as search behavior shifts.LINKSMessaging Critique (Profound): tryprofound.comConnect with Quintin:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quintin-smith-35b51582/ Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/ 

Product marketing is split into two camps. One group relies on safe templates, stock imagery, and generic descriptors that blend right into the background. The other group treats creative storytelling as a strategic muscle, pushing past surface-level benefits to build a genuine, emotional connection with buyers. This episode is about how to break out of that first, stuffy camp and start driving real revenue impact with your content.Stefan Gladbach joins me for a deeply practical conversation on transforming content ecosystems from stuffy to unforgettable. Stefan has spent over eight years building product marketing playbooks across multiple industries, and currently leads content innovation at the church tech market leader, Pushpay. He shares how he moved his team away from static talking-head clips into dynamic whiteboards and narrative skits that capture authentic audience sentiment.Stefan breaks down his exact five-step creative playbook. We explore how to unearth real emotional pain points rather than hiding behind surface-level benefits like "saving time and money," how to turn up the creative heat gradually using the "frog in a boiling pot" method, and how to handle status-quo objections from internal leadership using hard empirical data.We also conduct a live homepage messaging critique of Vidyard, analyzing where their hero layout succeeds, how they accidentally trick users with integration logos, and why overloading copy with buzzwords like "AI-powered" dulls your product story. If you take one lesson from this episode, let it be this: creativity is an operational muscle that requires daily practice reps. Stop relying on safe frameworks and start bringing your product stories to life.Key TakeawaysDitch the Boring Benefits: Surface-level claims like "save time and money" fail to trigger emotion. Dig deeper into the daily frustrations of your buyer persona to build a true before-and-after story.Boil the Frog Domestically: Avoid pitching radical creative concepts immediately. Introduce micro-experiments to accumulate early metric wins and secure internal leadership trust.Build a Customer Safety Net: Keep your boldest ideas grounded by testing wacky concepts against a tight, informal loop of trusted customer advisors before going live.Defend Content with Data: Answer brand-guideline objections and executive hesitation by pointing directly to upstream click-through rates and downstream sales-call callouts.Get Creative Reps In: Creativity isn't just innate; it's a muscle. Use side projects, LinkedIn posts, short fiction, or improv classes to keep your storytelling sharp for your day job.LINKSMessaging Critique (Vidyard): vidyard.com Connect with Stefan:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-gladbach/ Connect with Elle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elle3izabeth/ Website: https://www.productmarketingadventures.com/