Department: Polarin Location: Gurugram Job Type: On Role Posted On: 18-12-2023 |
Job Purpose
- A product marketing manager with deep understanding of markets and buyers with ability to devise and lead a product’s go-to-market strategy and execution.
- Work cross-functionally, unify and motivate peers from different teams (e.g., product management, digital marketing, communications, channel marketing, field marketing, sales, etc.).
- Be an expert of the product’s buying audiences and their needs and often acts as a subject matter expert (SME) who transfers knowledge about markets, buyers, and product across marketing and sales functions
Duties & Accountability
- Refine and improve the market opportunity for the platform: This includes conducting market research, identifying target personas, and understanding the purchasing decision process for the product using industry-standard tools and methodologies, such as SWOT analysis, Porter's Five Forces, and PESTEL analysis, etc.
- Influence product development through well-defined market requirements: This means working with product managers to ensure that the product meets the needs of the target market and target audience.
- Write and socialize product-level documents: This includes creation of diverse types of content to be used across various stage of the buyer journey. These contents can be technical and no technical in nature such as long form, short form, video, visual, etc. These contents will also have diverse types of packaging for targeting across types of ICP, different industries, markets, segments, use case etc.
- Develop product positioning, value propositions, and messaging: This means continuously innovating and improving core ICP and product messaging that resonates with the target audience and tells the story our platform.
- Collaborate with marketing peers and resources to produce relevant content for target buyers: This includes creating blog posts, white papers, case studies, and other content that helps to educate and inform the target audience.
- Develop the competitive comparison guide: This means comparing the product to similar offerings from other organizations and update it quarterly, ensuring a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Collaborate with a sales enablement and/or sales operations manager to produce a sales enablement plan: This means creating content and targeted marketing activities that help customer facing roles to sell our services better.
- Enable sales and coordinate the development of sales content and activities for direct, channel sales, and digital motions: This means working with various stake holders to ensure that they have the resources they need to be successful.
- Manage launch planning and orchestrate execution of the commercial release of a product: This means working with cross-functional teams to ensure that the various product release and launches are successful and every customer and channel facing function are equipped, trained, and enabled to be successful.
- Provide market and buyer insights to drive the development of campaign strategies including demand creation and reputation building: This means using market research and customer data to develop marketing campaigns that are effective and targeted across various stages of the buyer journey and marketing funnel.
- Serve as market-facing SME/thought leader for the product and interface with industry analysts as company representative: This means being a spokesperson for the product and sharing insights with industry analysts.
- Develop customer references, testimonials, and case studies for external and internal use: This means collecting and sharing stories from customers about how the product has helped them.
- Drive product retention and upsell/cross-sell strategies: This means developing strategies to keep customers engaged and buying more from the company.
- Conduct win/loss interviews and perform ongoing analysis to determine the level of customer product adoption and provide feedback to the product team: This means understanding why customers buy the product and why they do not.
- Monitor and report on the performance of products in the market and communicate the results of related sales and marketing efforts: This means tracking the performance of products and sharing insights with the sales and marketing teams.
Personal Attributes
What it takes to be successful in the role
1. Product Success
- Progressive content creation that delivers higher audience engagement rate across multiple GTM modes.
- Healthy funnel of intent driven content topics that capture audience early in their buying journey.
- Tech stack optimization and full utilization for enhanced buyer and platform touch point optimisation
2. Funnel health
- Deliver 3x to 5x ROI on campaigns by comparing revenue to costs.
- Target a CPL between $100 and $200 by evaluating lead revenue against acquisition cost.
- Enhance customer acquisition efficiency aiming for an LTV/CAC of 3-5 times.
- Strive for an annual churn lower than the industry average, targeting 5-10%.
- Aim for a 20-30% lead-to-MQL conversion rate by comparing MQLs to total leads.
- Achieve a 20-30% MQL-to-SQL conversion rate by comparing SQLs to MQLs.
- Target a 20-30% SQL-to-SQA conversion rate by comparing SQAs to SQLs.
- Aim for a 20-30% SQA-to-opportunity conversion rate.
- Strive for a 20-30% opportunity-to-order conversion rate.
3. Platform usage and engagement
- Achieve up to 30% platform adoption in the first year through strategic initiatives.
- Achieve CSAT score of between 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 to 5, or between 8 and 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 by collecting and analyzing customer feedback.
- Achieve a product usage frequency of between 50% and 80% in year 1 of the role by developing and implementing strategies to keep customers engaged with the product.
- Measure customer engagement with the product with a benchmark of 60-90% being highly engaged by using various methods, such as the HEART framework (Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, Task Success), the RARR framework (Reach, Acquisition, Retention, Revenue), or the Pirate Metrics framework (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue).
Skills and abilities:
- Strong analytical, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking with excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Possess in-depth knowledge of the product, its technical specifications, and its application in real-world scenarios. Stay updated with industry trends and advancements to effectively market the product. Ability to conduct market, competitor, and customer research to gather insights and assess market opportunities.
- Ability to create value propositions, messaging strategies, and develop strategies for creating pipeline for new offerings as well as upsell, cross-sell, and account-based marketing programs to grow existing relationships.
- Ability to analyze information collected from win/loss interviews and pipeline behavior (conversion rates and velocity) to detect breakdowns in the marketing and sales process.
- Experienced and informed user of CRM and marketing platforms such as Salesforce and HubSpot etc.
Personal qualities:
- Behavioral Competence: Exhibit traits such as adaptability, resilience, and a growth mindset. Ability to thrive in a dynamic startup environment and demonstrate a frugal mindset. Initiative-taker who can work independently and as part of a team.
- Creative and has a passion for marketing.
- Product-Led Growth mindset keeping users at the center of everything. Set clear, achievable goals for the product marketing, ensuring alignment with the company's overall objectives. Monitor, analyze, and optimize performance metrics, ensuring consistent progress towards set goals.
- Comfort in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, start-up environment
Key Stakeholders
Internal
- Various team linked to the platform and its continuous improvement, example, product managers, tech team, solution architects, etc.
- Various customer facing teams such as channel team, direct sales team, solution architects, etc.
- Corporate function such as corporate marketing, legal, compliance, supply chain, finance, etc.
External
- Various partner across our ecosystem, such as channel sales, CSP, etc.
- Suppliers who provide goods or services to the organization.
- Analysts, influencers, and consultants who are experts in their domain and have direct impact on our success in the marketplace.
- Customers and competitors
Qualifications & Experience
- MBA in Business, Marketing.
- 5+ years of product marketing experience or in similar roles, preferably in the SaaS industry. Proven history in technical product marketing, demonstrable experience in content creation, market research, and competitive analysis.
- Strong knowledge of cloud networking services, including WAN networking like SD WAN, Ethernet, and others.
- Good knowledge of working/partnering with Technology/Software/Hyperscale partners to jointly offer differentiated solutions in the market.
About the Company
Lightstorm is building infrastructure for hyperscale networking in South Asia and Southeast Asia to accelerate the region's growth and spur innovation in the digital economy. We are a pioneer in building a first-of-its-kind utility-grade resilient fiber network, SmartNet, in several countries in the region. A trusted partner of several Fortune 500 companies, Lightstorm is creating a robust foundation of digital infrastructure to create new sources of value and differentiation for businesses.
Lightstorm is backed by I Squared Capital, a global infrastructure- focused private equity fund.