AMA: ServiceNow Senior Manager, Global Partner Marketing, Andy Yen on Competitive Messaging

One of the most exciting opportunities in partner marketing is to scale messaging across different channels. Some of these channels may be new to your company and your core marketing team, and you'll learn a ton by collaborating with other marketers across these channels. But it's also critical to make sure you select the right channels that are aligned with your brand. To start, you've got to get the basics right and ensure your core positioning and messaging is landing in-market through your core campaigns, brand, demand gen, and content marketing teams. You'll actually see a pull effect where partners and other marketing teams will proactively reach out to you and ask to place your content and positioning through their channels. But don't just take what's offered to you, be proactive and identify the channels that you want to launch through as well. As people, we read and learn from a variety of sources, your customers are learning about your product/solution the same way - so this is always something you should be thining about. 1. Outside of impressions and click through rates, how does launching messaging through a new channel impact our business KPIs (revenue, pipeline, opportunities?) Launching through a new channel takes time - there's likely a lot of education that needs to happen on what your product/solution/offering is about; and then you have to work with other marketers to tailor and create content for that specific channel. Make sure you're aligned with your internal GTM teams on what the expected results are, before you go down this path. 2. One of the main factors that drives my decision to say "yes" to messaging through a new channel is when it expands the awareness of our brand and solution/offering to a new geography or persona, where we already have GTM resources. It's not about growth and awareness at all costs, there needs to be a clear call to action for your local GTM teams. What I've found most helpful here is collaborating with in-country and regional marketing teams, and leveraging their expertise to maximize the impact of your campaign. 3. As you work your positioning and messaging through additional channels (ads, whitepapers, podcasts, blogs, thought leadership articles) you'll start seeing some patterns around which channels actually deliver better value across the sales cycle. Some channels will be better for awareness, and some will be better for lead gen. If you're doing things right, you'll usually end up 'pushing the envelope' around what's possible, meaning that you'll pushing your stakeholders within your own marketing team to uplevel what they're doing, and define what's possible. 

I've taken two professional development courses on messaging (Pragmatic Marketing, Magnetic Speaking Messaging Course), and several marketing courses online and through school. My major takeaway from all of these courses is that marketing is about influence, and as a marketer you need to be the strongest advocate of your own work because everyone thinks they can do marketing. The best way to differentiate yourself as a marketer is to have a point of view of your industry and to create messaging that is authentic to you. Then find creative ways to show your wins to both internal and external audiences. That will take you a long way. 

The frameworks that I use for positioning and messaging have changed over time, as I've advanced in my marketing career in enterprise tech. Earlier in my career (when I was in product marketing), we would approach positioning and messaging for a major product launch. There were a few frameworks that worked well for me here: * Elevator Pitch - tell me what your product does in (25 words, 50 words, 100 words) * 9-box messaging framework - call out three benefits that your customers experience from your product/solution and provide proofpoints for how your product supports those benefits. I've found that this internal document is best socialized for buy-in across larger marketing and product teams. * Draft press release - forces you to take a more outside-in approach when you're coming up with new positioning and messaging. While each of these items/assets will help you build stronger positioning and messaging; what's most important is to align and set expectations with your cross-functional stakeholders and broader marketing team. As I've advanced in my career in marketing, I've had the privilege to partner with third party agencies and brand teams to refine the core positioning assets above. You'll be amazed at how much perspective these teams will provide you in overall positioning and messaging. I'd highly recommend early-in-career product marketers who are handling a major launch to proactively take this approach. The other major component of positioning and messaging is around internal comms. It's up to you to show your work to cross-functional stakeholders, and inform people that good marketing doesn't just come out of thin air. Once you're done with all of your net deliverables I'd make sure to inform a broad cross-functional team of what you've brought to the table. You will get more visiblity and feedback from this; which will ultimately make you a better marketer. 

I've worked in enterprise tech for most of my career (SAP, Oracle, ServiceNow). To be honest, I think the biggest competitor that I've always come across is the status quo (doing nothing) since there are so many influencers and decision-makers in an enterprise tech sales cycle. Here are the main sources I use to keep informed on what's going on in the market. * Stratechery - great podcast on all things tech * WSJ + Bloomberg - I pay for both of these to stay informed on what's going on in the world * LinkedIn - I follow relevant/interesting people to stay informed of what's top of mind for them * The Information - great resource and newsletters to stay informed on what's going on in tech * Earnings calls - listen to your competitors' earnings calls. I consider these marketing events where the CEO and CFO are positioning their company to institutional investors. * Community - most companies have both internal and external communities/teams - have found this to be the best way to get a quick answer about a specific feature/function I don't work as closely on competitive intelligence since I moved into partner marketing a couple of years ago. Even if you aren't comfortable doing the work, there are likely other people in your company with product strategy/bizops titles who likely have some additional info on win/loss analysis, that can help inform positioning and messaging. There are also many third-party firms that also do a great job of sharing competitive intelligence through customer interviews as well.