Utilizing Data Insights for Product Marketing Success
Priya Gill shares Momentive.ai’s utilization of data-driven insights allows them to captivate their target audience amidst a sea of competitors.
[MUSIC]
>> Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios.
Today, we are joined by a special guest, Priya.
How are you?
>> I'm doing good. How about you?
>> I'm doing great.
I'm excited to chat with you about
all things momentive.ai,
which is really exciting, big survey monkey fans.
It'll be exciting to chat about that,
chat about product marketing.
As always, this show is brought to you by our friends at Qualified.
Everybody go check out Qualified.com because they're the best.
Priya, let's get into it.
What was your first job in product marketing?
>> My first job in product marketing was actually at HP.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise was the first time that I
actually dipped my feet into marketing prior to that I was actually in
engineering.
I did a small stint in finance,
but really wanted to be more customer facing to really work on the business
side,
but leverage a lot of that technical acumen that I had acquired in
my background in engineering and really apply that on the business side.
So started product marketing at HP,
more on the hardware side,
realized that wasn't quite for me,
wanted to move into SaaS eventually joined box,
and that's where I spent the majority of my product marketing career.
I was there for almost six years before joining Survey Monkey,
which at the time was called Survey Monkey,
which we ended up changing our brand to Momentum and that's where I'm at now.
>> Tell me about a little bit about your role in Momentum.
>> Yes. So I lead our product marketing team.
I actually recently expanded my role to cover web strategy in addition to our
localization team.
So essentially covering go-to-market web strategy,
SEO, growth in website optimization for
SurveyMonkey.com in addition to our Momentum.ai web property,
as well as our global experiences.
So thinking about our international experiences,
both inside the product and outside of the product.
So a lot of different disciplines,
but yeah, at the end of it, my core is product marketing.
>> Awesome. We're going to talk a lot about how product and
demand run together and we always love talking product marketing.
So let's get to our first segment, the Trust Tree.
This is where you go and feel honest and trusted and share
those deepest, darkest marketing secrets.
For listeners who don't know,
tell us more about Momentum and who your customers are.
>> Yeah. So Momentum, who's the Make Rips Survey Monkey,
which I think is what people mostly know us for,
is an agile experience management company.
And what that really means is that we enable businesses to uncover
insights about their market, their brand, employees,
customers, products, really a multitude of areas so that they
can confidently make decisions on those insights and take action.
And we really sell to everyone.
We have over 60 million users on our platform.
So from individuals and small companies to the Fortune 500,
and really leverage a lot of those insights to drive decision-making
within their organizations.
So obviously when you're selling to so many different types of
companies and so many different personas,
the buying committee is different every single time.
How do you think about that?
>> Yeah, I would say that there isn't really like your typical
large buying committee that you may find in most enterprise,
like SaaS organizations because we are both B2B as well as B2C.
We typically sell quite a bit to department heads in marketing HR,
CX, which is customer experience and IT.
Those are the personas that we do typically see both across our
self-serve as well as our enterprise channels.
But really it ends up starting there and growing within the
organization to a point where we do have the opportunity to talk
with the IT department or larger parts of both in an organization
to sell them more broader enterprise deals.
But in many ways our product is very viral in nature.
>> And so we typically don't see these really large buying
committees, these really large sales cycles.
It just doesn't happen within our organization.
>> So are most people buying it then just sort of as a solution
in the moment for that thing that they need in that department then?
>> That is typically what we see is that they'll have a single
use case that they'll leverage it for within their department.
We see that a lot in marketing, CX, and HR.
And then they'll discover that there are more and more use cases.
The reason why it ends up becoming so viral is because you'll send
the survey to let's say 100 recipients.
But now 100 recipients have been exposed to this survey, to the
Survey Monkey Brand and the possibilities.
And that's when you start to see more and more people use it,
more it being used for multiple use cases within that department and
just continues to grow from there.
>> So that is the common type of scenario that we do see.
Our self-serve channel is quite strong in that regard.
>> As the VP of product marketing, how do you think about your
product marketing strategy?
>> Yeah, I would say that there's really four core areas of focus for
my team.
The first is around, well, those four areas are product, demand,
go to market and customer.
So from the product perspective, it's really around driving the market
and the success of our product portfolio, ensuring that we have
strong product market fit that our messaging and positioning is
differentiated in the market and that our pricing and packaging
model really resonates with our customer base.
That's one core area focus.
The second is around demand.
So making sure that we're driving demand for our products by
supporting those strategic marketing plans within the organization
that help to cement industry.
In the third area is around go to market.
So driving revenue and retention by really helping our sellers and
our customer success teams be able to articulate that value through
content narratives in order to support the customer journey and
the sales cycle.
And then the fourth is really around the customer.
So helping to drive expansion and adoption within the customer base
by supporting engagement and growth initiatives for existing
customers.
But all of this is powered by deep knowledge of our core markets,
our customers and our competitors.
And I think that's what's really key.
We're the only team in the company that has that deep understanding
of the market landscape, our target buyers and their pain points,
our products in a way that's really just secondary to the product
org and the competitive landscape.
And when you marry all of those insights together to inform these
types of strategic decisions for the organization,
especially in those four core areas, you end up becoming indispensable
to the organization.
And that's really how I've structured and focused my team.
I think it's really interesting talking about sort of the market
holistically for product marketing that you need to know all
that stuff really well in order to effectively craft that because
it leads to conversations that I think a lot of time and initiatives
a lot of time that are more attuned rather than futures and
benefits.
100% if you are not in tune with what's happening in the market,
why your target buyers care, what they care about, what their
pain points, you have no idea how to effectively speak to them in
such a way that resonates.
So 100% I think that all of those key pieces is what really helps
you differentiate yourselves in a crowded market.
And then the case of SurveyMonkey/Momentive, our market is
incredibly saturated.
There are so many competitors out there.
So it's really, really important and key to really understand how we
differentiate and make sure that that's clear to anyone who comes to
our website or talks to a sales rep.
Yeah.
So how do you go about doing that?
Obviously that's a pretty big mandate.
Yeah.
When it comes to market trends, we talk quite a bit with analysts.
We specifically spend quite a bit of time with both Gartner and
Forrester.
They talk quite a bit to our main core buyers, especially within
marketing, HR and IT.
They have specific research practices in each of those areas.
And so that's been really helpful to talk to them as well
specifically reading through different types of research
reports as it relates to our category in our space and just
keeping up to date with what's happening with various trends
that will have an impact in our category.
So as it pertains to the market piece, that's a good way we do
that.
When it comes to customer feedback, obviously we leverage
SurveyMonkey.
So we utilize our product quite a bit to understand how our
customers are thinking, how they're feeling, obviously talking
to the folks that are on the front line specifically our CS
and our sales orgs.
We get a ton of insights from them in terms of how customers are
thinking and feeling about our products.
And then the last area around competitive insights, it's really
having a good understanding of your competitive landscape.
Where are the specific areas that they're innovating?
How do their products work?
What are the specific core features and functionality that
customers really value?
And how your products differentiate against them?
If you don't understand the competitive products and how they
work and how you differentiate, it's going to be very challenging
to create any sort of messaging and positioning that
differentiates you from the market.
And so I think that's always something that's incredibly
important.
I encourage my entire team to leverage competitive products
and to really understand them deeply in order to be able to
effectively position ourselves against them.
But those are some of the ways in which I encourage my team to
get educated in those three core areas.
Yeah, that's super fascinating.
Any other things that about sort of your product marketing
strategy or what makes it successful?
Nothing else that I can think of.
I mean, I think at the end of the day, product marketing is an
incredibly cross functional team and discipline.
You have to stay connected and align to the product organization,
the sales, CS, demand gen, paid marketing.
I mean, really so many different teams because a lot of this
knowledge that we have can help drive success in so many different
parts of the organization.
And in my mind, if you haven't developed those strong
strategic relationships with a lot of those different functions,
you're not going to be successful.
And so I think as important it is to have all of those insights
and to ensure that the team is leveraging those.
It's also just as important to build those cross functional
relationships and that confidence across the organization so that
you will be constantly tapped into for those insights.
And how do you think demand and product sort of work
cross functionally and cross pollinate?
In my mind, I see product marketing as that core connector
between demand and product.
In many ways, we're taking a lot of the features and functionality
that they're building into the product, translating that into
key messages that resonate with our core buyers and then leveraging
all of that to push that out into the market, into different
campaigns, different ads, webinars, et cetera, what have you.
So really I see our team as a key connection point between demand
and product.
We're just having a conversation with someone on the show about
how they've been working, like testing the names of their
webinars, like ruthlessly and like that made a huge difference.
Things like that where it's like, whose job is that, right?
Is that like a demand thing?
Is it a product thing?
Like, could they inform each other?
So anyways, just thinking about how you cross pollinate ideas there.
Yeah, we actually do stuff like that quite a bit between our brand
strategy team and our product marketing team.
We actually partner quite a bit on what we have a product called
concept testing.
And that's what we actually leverage quite a bit for different
brand campaigns that we put out into the market or different types
of paid ads or headlines on our homepage, things of that nature.
Things that we believe are going to be very prominent and have a big impact.
We will typically partner with our brand strategy team to run these
different types of concepts and test them with our solution so that we can
identify what actually resonates for the specific target audience that
we're looking for because we're allowed to, because we have the ability
to segment across lots of different, like characteristics and demographics
within our products.
And that's how we're actually doing a lot of testing like that.
Drinking your own champagne, as they say.
Yeah, we definitely do that a lot.
Actually chugging it by the bottle.
Yeah, any examples of stuff that, you know, an insight that you got or
or something that stands out?
Yeah, I mean, even when we did our rebrand for Momentive, like that was
something that we tested.
We tested lots of different designs.
We tested a few different name options and how we even
came up with Momentive and that specific design was through
some of our, was through our concept testing solution.
One of the most recent brand campaigns that we launched called
Give the People What They Want.
There were various alternatives to that that we also tested out different
creative mockups that we aligned with different taglines and that was the one
that won by a long shot from, you know, with our target audience.
So a lot of the stuff that we put out into market, especially the ones that
have quite a bit of budget behind them, we always run them through concept
testing just to ensure that we're putting our best foot forward.
But as a product marketer specifically, the fact that you manage a portfolio of
brands and you went through this rebrand, I'm curious, like, just how do you
think about rebrand?
What's your sort of like strategy and sort of tactics to be able to do that
stuff and manage sort of like a brand, brand of brands, as they say?
It is challenging, I will say, especially when you have a brand like SurveyMon
key that is so well known to then do a rebrand and essentially start from scratch
with a brand new name is something that was quite challenging.
A lot of what we've been talking about internally in order to continue to
ensure the success of the Momentive brand is creating a, like what we're
calling
a brand bridge.
So how do you take the success of SurveyMonkey, the brand equity that SurveyMon
key has and translate that over to Momentive?
And so there's a lot of work that we've been doing, especially leveraging our
website because we get hundreds of millions of people that visit our website all the
time.
How do we leverage some of that traffic to introduce them to Momentive to get
them into that experience?
And that's a lot of what we've been trying to do in order to help make the
Momentive brand successful.
But as a whole, as when you think about rebranding, especially in the case of
SurveyMonkey, when you have a brand that has so much brand equity, I think that
became one of the most challenging things that we were faced with.
Let's get to the playbook where you open up that playbook and talk about the
tactics that help you win.
What are your three channels or tactics that are your uncuttle bunch of items?
I would say the first one, which I've already probably talked to at like this
just insights.
So market insights, customer insights, competitive insights, like those are
those are tactics, I would say, that are absolutely uncuttable in my mind.
And in many of those instances, it does require a budget.
The second would be a channel, which is our website.
So as I think about web optimization, SEO, product, like free trials, things of
that nature, I would say that that's something that's also incredibly important.
And then the last thing that I would say maybe is my name would just be
specific
to Momentive slash SurveyMonkey is brand tracking.
So we have a brand tracker solution that we leverage to monitor our brand
health, brand perception, competitive threats in the market.
And I think for us with a brand that has so much brand equity, it's something
that's so significantly important for us to continue to monitor.
You mentioned website.
Website is so complex now.
There's so many moving parts.
It's like more important than ever because of how much cool stuff you can do it
You know, back in the day, they're pretty dumb and they're really smart.
And so I'm curious, like, what are some examples of cool stuff that you've done
with the website?
Yeah, I mean, funny enough, where I just recently took over our website
strategy
earlier this year.
And one of the things that we're doing right now is just a complete overhaul of
the front end of the website,
but also starting to take a hard look at content discoverability on the website
So in terms of like some of the cool stuff that we're doing right now is really
taking a hard look at how we can improve the user experience in the digital
journey.
Because I think if you, you know, as we're starting to, you know, if you look
at what's more important, you know, in the coming years,
I think the digital experience and how you're incorporating personalization and
AI more and more into the experience to make it more and more personalized for
the end user,
I think is going to be incredibly important.
And so trying to become much more oriented around that is something that is
becoming more and more of a focus for us.
So trying to get the, like, our website into the modern age, even as a baseline
so that we can start to build some of those capabilities into the future.
To meet customer expectations is something that's becoming a core area of focus
So that's one area is re rethinking our designs, rethinking content, how we
make that more discoverable for the user, how we, you know, bring our users
more and more deeper into the into our website to ultimately help them feel
confident that, you know, survey monkey is the right choice for them.
I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day and the person was talking, I forget it
was, was talking about how like, when someone comes to your website, like, this
is exactly the, like, four things that they're looking to do there, you know,
they're not looking to do all this other stuff.
They're looking for like one of these four things.
And it's just kind of got me thinking, like down a rabbit hole of like, if I
show person one piece of content.
And then you're like, wow, with personalization, each person wants a different
piece of thing, you know, when I have like a journey that they can opt into
that stuff.
But I was like, but if I was to force myself to think of one thing that they
would consume, what would it be?
And it was just kind of a fun exercise in my mind to be like, you know, like,
if I have one video, one, whatever, and you always think of like, well, it's
your demo or it's like, you know, whatever.
But it kind of makes you think, and it's a good bridge to sort of this idea
that of these like free trials and all this stuff where so much of it now can
be, hey, give this thing a test drive, right?
And like, what a advantageous, you know, place to be as a product marketer
where you're like, hey, we're going to tell you all the cool stuff this thing
can do and how positions against our competitors and all this stuff and like,
hey, take it out for a spin.
That's essentially what we try to do on our website. It's, I mean, every which
way you turn, we're saying, sign up, you can sign up for free.
Just give us a try.
Because right when you get into the product, that's when you start to see how
simple and easy it is to you, how we guide you through the process, the, you
know, the core methodology and all of that that's been built into the product
over 20 years.
You know, getting them into the product and getting them to try it is really
what sticks.
And that's what ends up building this viral loop for us because once they send
out that survey that's success for us because now they've introduced our
product to 20, 100, 1000 different people who may not have heard of us before.
You know, the sign up stuff is great and it's so cool to hear that. And then
the other side of you thinks you're like, what if this person isn't ready for
that like, what do they need.
You got to think about all the journeys. Yeah.
And then you end up with these like wild and crazy different like journey maps.
I mean, it's 100% true we're constantly thinking about how do we optimize
multiple journeys on the site from, you know, the buyer who knows exactly what
they want, but they just want to see whether or not we have feature x y and z
like here's the path that we need to take them down
here's someone who you know is like still a little bit iffy and maybe needs to
learn a bit a little bit more about, you know, what it is that we really have
to offer like let's take them down this path or here's the person who is like,
you know, trying out a bunch of different options
and just wants to kind of get into the product let's leave them down there
anyway.
Yeah, there's there's so many different options and journeys and trying to
figure out how to optimize but really, yeah, for us, again, it comes down to
who do we believe is our, you know, target audience and our target fire.
And how do we at least optimize the site for their journeys and then think
about a general one for everyone else.
Well, I wanted to shout out your website so for listeners you can go to survey
monkey.com and check this out. So, y'all do a really cool thing, which you say,
who is your survey audience and it's a little, I don't know what you'd call it,
but it's a little, little buttons that you can click
and then it gives you basically like the solutions and some like customer case
study information everything you can kind of just click on it right there and I
thought that was such a cool, such a cool, you know, journey there to say, you
know, to think of it as sort of like what is your end state, you know, trying
to be and just get
them, get them in right there rather than having it be in nav. It's like nav is
kind of like crazy, right? It's like everybody's nav is like super crazy.
You know, it's like you can search around and get there but it's not like
nothing jumps off off the page to you in a nav. You're just like, it's just all
the words that I gotta go read, whereas like this little sort of click over
thingy is pretty cool.
Awesome. Thank you. We're still, we're still continuing to iterate on the site
so you will likely see even more changes in the next couple of weeks.
Yeah, I'm sure. Well, we always are. But it just, it made me think of that sort
of like idea of how do you, how do you do multiple journeys at once, and
especially with momentum where you have multiple products, multiple personas,
multiple, you know, all that stuff.
It's it's it's truly like exponentially challenging.
It is and it's why we have a growth team that is continuously thinking about
optimization and experimentation on our website so that we can continuously,
you know, see different types of journeys that we want to test and what is
going to resonate more versus the other.
In addition, in addition to doing user testing on the site to see how people
are moving through the site, what is of interest to them, what isn't
continuously continuously optimizing I think that that's something that's
incredibly important to do because things are just constantly changing.
You can't stay static. You mentioned brand and I'm curious like what's an
example of something that you're looking for and how you're looking at that
because that's that's something we don't we don't hear a ton but
it's so important. One of the things that I like to look at is just the other
brand health so in relative to the competition so there's something called
aided and unaided awareness, aided means if you ask someone, Hey, have you
heard of survey monkey, you know, they'll say yes or no, or if you ask them the
question, Hey, what, what companies come to mind when you think about survey,
you know, software or survey platforms that your name comes up.
And those are two things that I think, you know, when we're thinking about our
brand health and perception in the market.
You know, how well known is our brand over time compared to competitors in the
market. I think that's something that, especially for a company that has such
strong brand equity is something that's quite critical for us to look at, look
at, in conjunction with comparison so
with with, sorry with perception so if you're asking someone how they perceive
survey monkey relative to competitor x y and z.
How do we then fare against the competition is something that we also look very
closely at I think that those are two core areas, especially as it relates to
brand that you need to be constantly monitoring, especially if it's something
that you are heavily dependent on to drive traffic
and aware to drive traffic to your website, which is the case for survey monkey
And he, what about something that like you aren't going to be investing in or
maybe is like a somewhat credible budget.
I don't know if it's a specific budget item but one of the things that I have
noticed not just at, you know, survey monkey but even elsewhere is this, you
know, this notion of almost over experimenting or over monetizing your website
to the point where
you're nickel and diving your customer.
I would say that that's something that I don't necessarily see as working
because I think, you know, you could have a baseline on your website that you
're continuously experimenting on and it gets to a point where you've
experimented, you've experimented on it so much to the point that it's almost
useful as it once was.
And many times it just, you just need to almost start over from scratch and
rethink the entire experience and how you can really make it better.
That's something that I've noticed is happening more and more often.
You've had a lot of companies that have created these growth teams, they really
over optimize the website and then it gets to a point where you may have
impacted the user experience along the way and just taking a step back to just
rethink the entire experience altogether.
Let's get to the desktop where we talk about healthy tension, whether that's
with your board, your show senior competitor or anyone else. Have you had a
memorable dust up in your career.
I have the one that comes up and it was a little bit early on in my career when
I first started at box I think it was like three months into my job as a PMM at
box.
I had this meeting with the CEO who's Erin Levy and a few other people we had
made some sort of updates if I can recall correctly was quite a while ago.
We had made some significant updates to our recommendations for our homepage
for our website and we were running it through running it by Aaron and he just
completely annihilated, like everything that we did to this page, the content
that designed everything.
I just remember thinking, Oh my God, I'm going to get fired. He hates me like
this is terrible. What am I going to do?
This isn't like your typical dust up it in that sense, but the reason why I
bring it up is because after that meeting, he was like, Hey Priya, I just want
to take a few minutes to just talk to you really quickly.
I was like, Oh my God, what's what's happening here? What's going to go? What's
going down? And he just sat me down and say, Hey, you know, I could tell you,
you know, like you took my feedback a bit roughly. And, you know, I just want to talk through with you why like where the feedback
was coming from. I want you to understand my perspective and just to make sure
that we're aligned.
And he literally spent 20 minutes talking me through everything, you know,
debating things with me, and it just, it really changed my like it was really
career defining in a way because if forever changed the way that I thought
about leadership.
And how, you know, number one, you know, having a CEO, you know, take that time
to sit me down to make sure that I was aligned I think was just something
special but the fact that, you know, wanting to ensure that your people are
aligned that they're brought into your
vision that that's something that's significantly important to you. I know as
someone who was so junior, that was very important to me to see that in a
leader for the company.
And it's something that even to this day is as a core tenant of what I think is
important in leadership and something that I continue to carry forward.
So it may not have been, you know, a typical dust up but it's something that I
find to be very memorable that happened in my career with a leader and
something that I still carry to to this day.
That is awesome. Great story.
All right, let's get to our final question for final segment. Quick hits, where
it's quick questions and quick answers, just like how qualified.com helps
companies generate pipeline quickly.
Tap into your greatest website to identify your most valuable visitors and
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We love qualified, check them out, qualified.com. They're the best. Quick hits.
Pre are you ready.
I'm ready. Let's do it.
Number one, do you have a hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?
I do. It's cooking. So I actually went to culinary school back in the day.
My, my wife went to the court on blue in Pasadena.
Oh, nice.
She also has a different career.
It's a tough line of work.
It is absolutely, absolutely a brutal line of work. Shout out to all the chefs
out there.
I do a favorite book podcast TV show that you'd recommend.
I feel like this is a book that everyone's read, but how to win friends and
influence people. It's like one of the first books that I read when I went to
MBA school. And I think it's just a great, it's just a great bug.
It really teaches people the basic tenets of leadership. I think it's a must
read for anybody.
If we talk to you one year from now, what's the biggest thing that has changed
in marketing?
Oh, I think there's going to be a ton of investment in AI. I think chat GPT has
really kicked started a lot of things in the industry. It's all that I hear
about now. And I think it's, I think it's still going to be a huge topic of
conversation in a year from now.
What is your best advice for a first time VP of product marketing?
I would say two things. I mean, one, if you've made it as a VP of product
marketing, you probably already know this, but cross functional. When you get
to the VP level or any sort of senior level, like those cross functional
relationships continue to be of utmost importance.
So continuing to build strong relationships at the leadership level with those
core partners and product, CS sales and across marketing really is going to be
strategically important for you.
I think the other thing that folks tend to forget about is really, you know,
really showcasing the value that your team delivers. So uplifting the wins
across your team and really showcasing that across your across the organization
, giving your team
a chance for the opportunity to present on various on various wins for the team
, I think is something that a lot of people forget to do. And I think it's so
important that people understand what it is that your team is doing and why it
's important and the impact that it's happening
across that it's having across the business.
And it's something that every VP of PMM should never forget about and should
continue to do in addition to all of the other strategic initiatives that are
happening within product marketing.
Awesome. I think on the show today, it's been wonderful for listeners check out
momentum.ai any final thoughts anything to plug.
I'm obviously been a big proponent of insights. I'm a strong believer that
feedback is fuel. So if that is something that you believe could be a value to
your organization, I think you should definitely check out either survey monkey
.com or momentum.ai
to help.
Priya, thanks again. Thank you. Thank you for having me.