Matt Anderson’s Post

Marketing and Customer Success ... More in Common Than You Think I've spent the past decade or so in Customer Success partnering with various industries across various geographies. . and it's been an absolute blast. Lately, I've been engaged in the fascinating world of marketing, and you know what? Customer Success and Marketing are more alike than you would think. Both Marketing and Customer Success teams pretty much have similar goals. - They identify customer needs - They show how the product, or service solves those needs - They reduce friction in the journey to value Fundamentally, both translate customer insights into actionable resources that drive success, whatever that may look like. Yes, tactics differ: Marketing tends to focus on scalable campaigns and broad messaging. Customer Success often works hands-on, diving deep with key accounts and individuals. But at the core, what a CSM and a marketer truly care about is exactly the same: helping customers achieve outcomes and making it as easy as possible for them to succeed. When these teams collaborate and share learnings, everyone wins, especially the customer.

Product marketing can influence almost everything. Which is exactly why it’s so easy to get buried in other people’s priorities. When OKRs start looking like a task list, Product Marketing becomes the team that fills every gap. A lot gets produced, but... no outcomes shift. Michele Nieberding 🚀 points out that PMMs shouldn’t be measured on output volume. Instead, the work should be tied to business outcomes: improving win rates, accelerating sales cycles, and driving adoption in the segments that matter. If an initiative can’t connect to one of those outcomes, it’s not an OKR. It’s just activity. Michele breaks down exactly how to reset the role when everything feels urgent, and how to protect focus when the team could theoretically do *everything.* You can check out the full presentation here: https://lnkd.in/eyKFKDqD #ProductMarketing #OKRs #GoToMarket #B2B

If your new feature on your SaaS solution doesn’t solve a problem, it’s just noise. Too often, product teams fall in love with an idea because it’s clever, shiny, or technically impressive. But if it doesn’t address a pain point or remove friction, users won’t adopt it. And if users don’t adopt it, it doesn’t matter how “cool” it is. That’s where product marketing comes in. At every SaaS company I’ve worked for, part of my job has been to channel the voice of the customer into the product roadmap. I listen to what users struggle with. I dig into what they actually need, not just what we think they might want. Then I translate those insights into actionable guidance for product teams. Because the best features aren’t born in a vacuum. They’re shaped by real-world feedback, usage patterns, and customer conversations. They’re designed to solve problems, not just showcase innovation. Product marketing sits at the intersection of product, sales, and customer success. We’re the ones who ask: * Is this feature solving a real pain point? * Will it make the product easier to use or more valuable? * Can we clearly communicate its benefit to the customer? If the answer is no, it’s not ready. Innovation is great. But relevance is what drives adoption. Build what matters. #productmarketing #GTM #B2Bmarketing #saasmarketing #marketing

"How can you train sales effectively if you don't understand what resonates at the top of the funnel?" This question from Jona Youdeem hits hard. Just unpacked why sales/marketing alignment fails in today’s #RevenueEngineNewsletter. 5-minute read. Big impact. https://lnkd.in/eY3P_XDX #ProductMarketing #B2BSaaS

Let’s clear up one of the biggest misconceptions in product strategy: Offering Management isn’t just bundling products or slapping on new labels. It’s much more—and most leaders are missing the point. Offering Management is NOT: ❌ Bundling products together: Yes, offerings can include multiple products, but bundling is just a pricing tactic. Offering Management is about defining market solutions that solve specific customer problems. ❌ Solutioning: Solutioning is what your sales team does for individual customers. Offering Management creates repeatable, scalable go-to-market packages that address the primary problems of your target customer segment. ❌ Just repackaging existing products: Real Offering Management requires understanding market needs, competitive positioning, and value articulation—not just putting new labels on old things. ❌ A marketing exercise: While marketing plays a role, Offering Management is a strategic discipline that bridges product, sales, marketing, and customer success. It's about market strategy and solving specific customer problems, not just messaging. ❌ An inside-out product push: Too many companies start with "what do we have?" instead of "what problems do our customers need solved?" What Offering Management ACTUALLY is: ✅ A customer-first, outside-in discipline: Start with specific customer problems and jobs-to-be-done, then create offerings that directly address them. This isn't about what you want to sell—it's about what customers need to buy. ✅ Crafting compelling, customer-centric value propositions: What problem does this solve? What outcomes will customers achieve? Why does this matter to their business? Every offering should articulate crystal-clear value in dollars, not just words. ✅ Defining how your portfolio goes to market as cohesive solutions ✅ Creating standardized, repeatable packages that sales can confidently sell ✅ Aligning products, services, pricing, and positioning to specific market segments ✅ Managing the full lifecycle of how customers buy, consume, and renew The outside-in perspective permeates everything: positioning, packaging, pricing, enablement, and especially your value story. When you get this right, your offerings resonate because they speak to real customer pain—not your internal org chart. Companies that embrace this customer-first approach stop leaving revenue on the table, reduce sales friction, and create clearer paths to value. #ProductManagement #OfferingManagement #ProductStrategy #GoToMarket #B2BSales #CustomerFirst

I'll cut to the chase...most product marketers are stuck in sales support — not because they lack talent, but because they’ve never been taught how to connect corporate goals to markets that can actually deliver them. It’s time to stop chasing noise and start leading with strategy. 👉 Read: Why Most Product Marketers Never Earn a Seat at the Strategy Table. https://lnkd.in/eZBZxdUj #productmarketing #marketstrategy

📊 One of the most underrated skills in product marketing is the ability to listen before you launch. When teams take the time to gather 🎯 voice-of-customer insights, refine roadmaps, and translate data into action, adoption naturally follows. I’ve seen measurable lifts in efficiency, engagement, and retention simply by putting the customer’s workflow at the center of every decision. It’s not about pushing a product, it’s about clarifying value, enabling sales, and aligning outcomes with real-world needs. As healthcare technology continues to evolve, this mindset becomes even more critical. 💡 Pragmatic marketing paired with analytical storytelling can turn complex solutions into clear, confidence-building narratives for providers and patients alike. 🌿 #ProductMarketing #HealthcareInnovation #PragmaticMarketing #CustomerSuccess #B2BSaaS #SalesEnablement

How do you manage overload as a PMM? Save this advice from Kerry Wheeler, the Director of Product Marketing at Lattice. Try Kerry's 5 step framework to fight back 💪 "PMM Quarterly State of the Union" 1) Market trends Ask yourself: how can you latch onto relevant trends to deliver timely, resonant messaging? What’s happening in the market that your product teams need to be aware of so they can build features to solve new customer pain points? How to streamline market research We use a Slack channel dedicated to industry trends where anyone in the company can share articles or observations. Competitor movements - key areas to evaluate: Product launches and features: Are there gaps in your product compared to theirs? Sales insights: What are your sales reps hearing from prospects about competitors? Positioning and messaging: Does their messaging resonate more than yours? 2) Internal learnings and feedback Another key element of the State of the Union is aggregating internal learnings and feedback from the past quarter. This involves taking stock of all the product launches, campaigns, and initiatives you’ve worked on. We do a retro after every product launch. I copy and paste those learnings into our State of the Union and synthesize them into broader insights Ask yourself: - What went well? - What should we replicate next quarter? - What didn’t work, and how can we adjust? Feedback from product, sales, and customer success teams is key 3) New and existing business performance Include performance metrics for new and existing revenue. Track key indicators like revenue growth, attachment rates (if you have multiple products), retention, and customer LTV     4) Customer research & feedback themes Unpack your trends and synthesize them into actionable takeaways: Product roadmap: Identify big bets and why they matter, backed by customer feedback and performance data Sales strategy: Maybe your findings suggest that you need a tiger team to focus on a specific market segment, or that sales motions need reframing Customer success: Insights might reveal that certain products perform better as upsells for existing customers than as pitches for new business, prompting a shift in focus GTM strategy: Use competitor trends and market insights to refine your messaging, prioritize campaigns, and align everyone around your marketing focus for the next quarter 5) Presenting the State of the Union Once the State of the Union deck is ready, I host a meeting for all department leaders and key stakeholders. Invest here, it helps! -- P.S. What else would you add PMMs? Make sure you give Kerry a follow btw!

Remember when marketing followed a perfect funnel? Awareness → Consideration → Decision → Conversion. That world doesn’t exist anymore. Today, growth isn’t linear, it’s circular. Yet most teams still run on old playbooks designed for a straight line that no longer exists. And that’s where growth silently stalls. The Missing Middle: Where GTM Strategy Dies Between Marketing and Sales Every scale-up reaches the same breaking point: Marketing builds campaigns, stories, and positioning. Sales focuses on deals, conversations, and immediate targets. Product builds what’s next. Somewhere between those motions strategy loses translation. The Most Undervalued Role in Tech: The Bridge Between Message and Motion This is where Enablement comes in, not just Sales Enablement, but Revenue Enablement. It’s the connective tissue between: Product Marketing’s “what we say” Marketing’s “how we tell it” Sales’ “how we use it” Customer Success’ “what we hear back” Enablement transforms content into context, it makes sure that every asset, message, and narrative is actually activated in the field. Why Marketing Should Be in Customer Calls. Nothing accelerates GTM alignment faster than being in the room where friction happens. When marketers sit in customer meetings, they hear: Real objections, not CRM summaries. Emotional triggers that shape deals. Words that truly resonate. That’s where better campaigns are born. The New Playbook: The Future Is Circular Forget funnels. Build loops that constantly feed insight back. The best teams now: Fuse Marketing + Revenue Enablement. Replace handoffs with handshakes. Measure time-to-impact, not impressions. I’ve seen this again and again in scaling tech orgs, growth doesn’t break at strategy, it breaks at translation. Enablement is how we stop that leak. It’s not support. It’s the new demand gen. #GTMStrategy #RevenueEnablement #DemandGen #B2BMarketing #SalesEnablement #GrowthLeadership #MarketingStrategy

Daily Delights → Continuous Wins At HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah shared a great reminder — “Never spend more time debating a product improvement than it would take to actually do it.” That’s the spirit behind their “Daily Delights”: small, noticeable improvements that bring joy to customers and momentum to teams. This truly resonates, We follow a similar approach at BuzzBoard — focusing on small, visible improvements that drive customer delight and internal momentum. Execution speed is the real differentiator