Hugh McFall

This guide by Michael Applebaum is one of the best product marketing guides that I've seen written. Concise and practical. Thanks to Stage 2 Capital as well. #ProductMarketing #PMM

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So very cool to see how BlackRock has streamlined product operations with Airtable: more than 80 hrs/week saved in productivity for PM and PMM! https://lnkd.in/gW-fb62V #productmarketing #productmanagement

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Did you know that 53% of gamers play for longer because they get rewards?💡To help you boost retention and revenue, Adjust's guide covers everything you need to know about rewarded video ads. Pause to read!

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CMOs: what is keeping you up at night right now? I asked a group of the CMOs and marketing leaders in our CMO Club this question last week. Here were some of the responses: 1. Going up market. We see MQLs drop off a cliff from search once companies are around the 200+ employee size bracket 2. Managing change. We've had a ton of change over the last two years at our company. We were acquired by a new, very hands on PE Firm. How do I manage the team’s morale and mental health through all this change and ambiguity? 3. Balancing short term and long term. How do we balance short-term gains right now with long-term impact for 2025. 4. Positioning. We have a new brand and identity. How do we position the company’s new identity to both our existing customers and the market? While not disrupting everything else in the "always on" side of the business. 5. Sales restructuring. We just pivoted to a new GTM approach. We're sprinting to ensure we have the right support in place and holding the tough conversations over what tradeoffs are necessary to pull it all together. 6. Team morale. We just had a massive RIF... How can we maintain team morale and still get things done heading into Q4? 7. AI. My CEO is pushing us to AI everything. What does that actually mean? How do we measure impact and effectiveness vs efficiency? I've been fortunate to interview hundreds of CMOs over my ~10 years in B2B marketing and what's interesting is that although time changes and new technology comes in, the majority of these questions could have been asked 2-5-10 years ago. That's why there is so much value in community, and being able to tap into your peers who have been there, done that before (and you've probably done a thing that they are trying to do and can share your POV). Over the last few weeks at Exit Five we secretly launched our CMO Club - a private space for B2B CMOs and Marketing Leaders to spend time sharing ideas, asking for feedback, and getting recommendations. We're also going to be doing smaller events, matchmaking, and bringing in top tier CMOs for group therapy sessions. If you want to join a peer group of B2B marketing leaders, our CMO Club could something to add to your toolkit for 2025. If you're reading this and want to learn more and be involved in Exit Five's CMO Club, drop us a note at hi @ exitfive . com More to come soon.. PS. We're doing a meetup TONIGHT in Austin with ~100 B2B marketers and I'm hosting a panel discussion with three of Austin's Top B2B CMOs. Writing this from my hotel room. But first we're spending half of the day planning and doing an Exit Five team offsite.

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We're stuck in a catch-22. Consumers expect true personalization along the lines of Netflix and Amazon. But they also want increased privacy and tighter data controls. This is the personalization-and-privacy paradox, and it’s a delicate tightrope for marketers to manage. But why can’t customers have both? Businesses that still rely on speculative, third-party data to power their personalization strategies simply can’t deliver this. However those prepared to collect and use data sourced directly from their customers have an opportunity to create deeper and more enduring customer relationships. This isn’t just a competitive advantage against the former—it’s a long-term investment that will increase loyalty and engagement in a way we haven’t seen yet as marketers.

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Great article by Jon Miller on the importance to resist short-term activity instead of long-term effectiveness. This quote below is great. "When we bombard buyers with unwanted emails, gate content that should be freely available, and sic SDRs on anyone who dares to download an eBook, we're not building relationships — we're burning them. It's not the gating itself that's the problem, it's the terrible experience buyers have after they fill out that form. Think about it: how eager are you to buy from a company that's been calling and emailing you repeatedly just because you registered for a webinar? How likely are you to continue engaging with their content or recommending them to your peers? Short-term, these tactics might boost meetings, but long-term, they erode trust, damage our reputations, and make it harder to engage buyers in meaningful ways." https://lnkd.in/g7dDUQCY

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Free resource for those wondering "do I really need to rearchitect my GTM?" Hopefully it helps some folks reorient around the LinkedIn GTM hype. I have had so many conversations about the pressure revops/GTM/founder leaders feel to completely reimagine their GTM process in light of a recent wave of tools such as... - Signal-based selling - Intent and scoring - Clay - AI for GTM And in our recent outreach for our SDR Relief Fund, so many replies indicate how often SDR/BDR teams get laid off. Let's take a first principles approach to this instead, and talk about the problem. And if you can go through this, get to the end, and say you've taken these steps, I think you'll either find: A) Product does not have PMF. It's back to the drawing board *like the drawing board of the founders back when it was just an idea in their heads* B) Experimentation reveals TAM is smaller than imagined but there is profitability to be had within a couple niche sectors - that's great, as long as you didn't raise too much you can plan to reach profitability with those sectors while building for other sectors or launching something new... or (crazy idea) enjoying your life C) There is a real need for automating manual work. Great, there are tons of excellent tools for this now. Get help from 🤖 Jacob Tuwiner and Joe Rhew and Brigitta ☀️ Ruha. Ocean.io, Keyplay are worth testing here. D) There is a need to better manage, enable, and use AI/Clay/etc to supercharge SDR/BDR teams so that they can all succeed, not just have a small subset succeed. Sit down with Scott Martinis, Jordan Crawford, Alex Boyd and feel way better about the work in front of you. Another title for this could be "don't get drawn too deeply into the hype; figure out what you need and evaluate from there." I know this doesn't answer the questions out there like "what is Clay?" but it's really a tool for solving some (not all) of the problems mentioned here. So you'll get there.

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New From Exit Five: Introducing Our 8 Week Marketing Leadership Accelerator On the heels of Drive, our first annual in-person event that brought 200 B2B marketers to Vermont and whole lot of FOMO to LinkedIn... Today we announced the launch of our first online learning program designed for B2B marketing leaders. I know only 200 of you could come to Vermont, so we wanted to do something that was more widely accessible leading into Q4. The Accelerator is a new 8-week live program designed to help you become a better marketing leader alongside a group of peers. We’ll cover marketing strategy, team management, and provide tactics and templates to help you grow revenue, and grow your career. We have heard strong feedback from our community members that the tactical content is great, but you need more guidance around the path to Marketing Leadership and that's what we'll deliver with this. Each week one of our Exit Five team members will host a live session (virtually) with an expert instructor. You’ll have the opportunity to learn and ask questions about your business and your specific challenges. After each session, there will be online discussion in our private community exclusively for Accelerator members, a place for you to network, plus access to the video recordings, templates, and takeaways from each session. You’ll also get a Certification to take back to your company and post on LinkedIn after completing the Accelerator Program. The 8 week program starts October 3 and will run through November and we'll cover: 1. How To Build Your 2025 Marketing Plan 2. How To Create and Manage a Marketing Budget 3. Building Alignment Between Sales and Marketing 4. Positioning: How To Differentiate Your Product in a Crowded Market 5. How To Use Social Media To Build Brand and Drive Pipeline 6. How To Build a Team and Hire (And When To Hire In-House vs. Agency) 7. How To Work With Other Execs, Sales, and Manage The CEO 8. Marketing Metrics You Should Know (And How To Report On Them) 9. Bonus: How to Make Great Memes The CEO Loves (just kidding, not sure if we'll do this one for this program but LMK if you want ...) We have nearly 1,000 people on the waiting list for this, and I'm excited to tell you that registration is now open. This program is open to everyone, even if you're not an Exit Five member (but there's a $200 discount if you're already an E5 member). Learn more about our Marketing Leadership Accelerator Program here: https://lnkd.in/esEjsmsQ

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Is true PLG motion really possible to scale? Few PLG companies are going back to Sales-led Which raises the question How can product marketing teams balance PLG and SLG? In my latest episode, Jeanne Ford shared an interesting take PMM function is evolving and the balance will remain important. Want to listen to the complete episode? link in the comments 👇 #productledgrowth #salesledgrowth #plgvsslg

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⚡️DATA ALERT⚡️ The banking & CU industries are different than they were a decade ago. I've been waiting for an updated take on what it means to be someone's primary financial institution. The wait is OVER! 🥳 In 2023, Neobanks won nearly half of all checking accounts. Consumers now manage relationships with dozens of financial providers, and everyone is glued to their phones. What does it take to win PFI status in a mobile-first era? Download the report to find out. https://lnkd.in/gTJ8Hs2z

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🚀 Product Marketers: Strategy or Reaction—Which Drives Us? The Reactivity Trap: Product marketing often reacts swiftly to immediate demands, risking strategic depth for quick fixes. This might seem flexible, but it often dilutes our long-term goals. A few questions to ask ourselves: 1) Are we integrating strategy from the start, or are we getting caught up only at the end? 2) How well do we really understand the needs and inputs from all departments, not just our own? 3) In our efforts to innovate, are we genuinely listening to the market and our consumers, or are we confined by our historical data and past successes? Inviting all product marketing folks to join this conversation: How can we ensure that our strategies are not just responsive but truly visionary and proactive? #ProductMarketing #StrategicThinking #Innovation

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For those of you starting in a marketing leadership role or have been in it for a hot second, here are my five tips on not getting fired as a marketing leader. 1. Support a top and bottom number: Start with bookings and pipeline. Work with finance, revops, and sales to build a model and forecast for 12 months out. Not enough data? Give an educated guess and adjust over time. Not enough data is NOT a good excuse. 2. Understand the Efficiency of the GTM Channels: This is a harder one because there are many different ways to measure a channel's efficiency. Be sure to align with finance to get the right number for your board meetings. Build the model across the entire GTM team, not just marketing. 3. Lead Alignment Efforts: positive alignment between sales, CS, and marketing as foundational in high-growth SaaS. If you are joining a company, start with sales and the CEO. Move on from there. 4. Over-Prepare for Board Meetings: Add additional time to red-team your slides with your peers and the CEO (the boss). Be sure to reintroduce challenges from last quarter and how you solved them. Must have slides = Quarterly Wins & Challenges, Pipeline/Bookings/Funnel Conversion, Special Topic, Quarterly Look Ahead 5. Be a little irrational: Best version is a quote from Rory Sutherland. “It is much easier to be fired for being illogical than it is for being unimaginative. The fatal issue is that logic always gets you to exactly the same place as your competitors.” Go forth and prosper.

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"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘔𝘖 𝘪𝘴 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵," says Scott Galloway on his Prof G Pod. As much as I respect Scott—and I do—he’s off here. Sure, the 𝗠𝗮𝗱 𝗠𝗲𝗻-𝗲𝗿𝗮 𝗖𝗠𝗢, who built brands through TV ads alone, is long gone. I'll give you that. But today’s best CMOs? They’re more like 𝗟𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗼 𝗱𝗮 𝗩𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶: masters of art, science, and engineering. They’re growth drivers, fluent in data and technology (hello, GenAI!), exceptional storytellers, and, most importantly, they’re obsessed with business metrics. Steve Jobs once said a brand is like a bank account: every customer interaction is either a deposit or a withdrawal. Today’s CMOs work hand-in-hand with product, sales, and service teams, crafting an end-to-end customer experience that builds lasting brand equity. Spending millions on TV ads? That’s no longer the play. It’s about creating experiences that deposit value into that brand bank account. So no, Scott, the CMO isn’t dead. They’ve 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱. #cmo #marketing #management

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this Parketing Collective knowledge-sharing sesh on product marketing was so practical, granular, and actionable – and a perfect intro for beginners, too! i'm stoked that TPC is off to such a strong start with pro parketers like Hope Burns & Jamison Moore giving their time to share insights if you haven't joined TPC, what are you waiting for?! 2-min form to tell us about yourself and score an invite to the slack & event invite list: https://lnkd.in/eqCW2ePV parketers and the parketing curious all welcome 🗣 we meet monthly with deep dives into marketing functions and surface questions and ideas as a collective so proud of our thriving community and excited to see it grow! #unparalleledparketing #parketing #parking #parkingindustry #marketing #marketingleaders

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If you want to drive impact and influence with your buyers, you want to surround them with the voices they already trust. That’s the simple explanation for the power of nearbound marketing. Including your partners in your GTM motion is a huge unlock for all parties involved. The power of ecosystem at work. At Vena Solutions, we’re focused on growth through this model and the future is bright. Orchestration for greater impact and scale through a combination of partner specialization and account based engagement, will leave you better prepared to withstand whatever comes in the future. Companies and GTM leaders leveraging these ecosystems at scale are driving: 1️⃣ More revenue 2️⃣ More customer delight 3️⃣ Happier sellers 4️⃣ More productive partners 5️⃣ Stronger bonds, both internally and in the market If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it basically is 😉 If you’re interested in getting into the details, the team at Reveal just released an awesome resource. It’s a blueprint that can help you overlay your account-based segmentation and partner marketing strategy across all GTM teams AND the entire customer journey. Talk about a game changer… You can get a copy (for free!) at the link in the comments. #Nearbound #NearboundMarketing #Partnerships Isaac Morehouse Jessica Fewless Shawnie Hamer

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More and more CMOs are taking 100% ownership of qualified pipeline. In a great SaaStr panel, it was exciting to hear Sydney Sloan, Katrina Wong, and Claire Darling (with some great content from Lisa Horner) talk about owning the full pipeline number and doing away with the ridiculous sales vs marketing attribution battles. Here’s what I loved: Their slides were outdated/out of order and in front of a full room of marketing leaders, they just laughed, shrugged and proceeded to have a fantastic conversation, sifting through the slides to find what they needed. No one attends these looking for perfection. This was genuine, less staged, much better. They talked about pipeline pacing, tight sales and marketing alignment, and the nitty gritty of the internal orchestration needed to hit meeting booking and qualified pipeline goals at the right point in the month/quarter to allow time for sales to work their magic. They showed examples of spreadsheets, meeting cadences and attendees. This wasn’t just talk — they got into the how. They talked about tracking MQLs and program performance as leading indicators, but agreed on reporting qualified pipeline through to closed won at the board level. Couldn’t agree with this more. We don’t do enough real talk about the behind the scenes of the organization change, cross-functional alignment and collaboration a CMO needs to drive in order to successfully own and deliver on qualified pipeline goals. I’d love to see more of this!

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Completely agree. "Instead of relying on outdated lead generation tactics like cold-calling, heavy digital advertising, gated content and hidden pricing, firms must focus on engaging potential customers through genuine educational content, transparency and strategic nurturing that aligns with the buyers’ actual journey and creates a better experience. Such engagement is more likely to cultivate interest and trust in a company, reflecting an understanding of the B2B buyer’s challenges and how the solution can address them. And it is more likely to lead to meaningful conversions, faster sales cycles and higher win rates."

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💫 Great product marketing makes it easier for buyers to buy. ➡️ messaging and positioning that resonates ➡️ packaging that aligns to expected buying motion ➡️ simple pricing (admittedly this can be harder as you move into enterprise 🙈 )

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