Dan Galante

I covered the Product Marketing Community event in New York. Product Marketing Community was founded by Product Marketers for Product Marketers.

Attendees of Product Marketing Community events take interactive workshops led by product marketing leaders and network with their peers.

The event covered how to: build and execute: go-to-market strategy, buyer insights, messaging, content, and sales enablement.

Product Marketing Community founder Rowan Noronha kicked off the event.

Currently VP of Product Marketing for Zix, Rowan has led product marketing for North America (Office of the CFO) at SAP and Cognizant. He also serves as an Advisor to SAAS startups.

Here are takeaways on go-to-market strategy, developing buyer insights, and sales enablement.

Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy.

It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.

Businesses should identify their ideal audience for their offering. Data from this analysis can be used to target better prospects and improve go-to-market results.

Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.

To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.

Product Marketing involves more than just supporting the Marketing and Product Management teams. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all play a role in growing the business and serving customers.

Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.

What is Product Marketing?

Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragmatic Framework.

Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities.

Product Marketing needs a separate brief.

Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.

The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyers types.

Product Marketing Community New York was a great event.

I covered the Product Marketing Community event in New York. Product Marketing Community was founded by Product Marketers for Product Marketers.

Attendees of Product Marketing Community events take interactive workshops led by product marketing leaders and network with their peers.

The event covered how to: build and execute: go-to-market strategy, buyer insights, messaging and content and sales enablement.

Product Marketing Community founder Rowan Noronha kicked off the event. 

Currently VP of Product Marketing for Zix, Rowan has led product marketing for North America (Office of the CFO) at SAP and Cognizant. He also serves as an Advisor to SAAS startups.

Here are takeaways on go-to-market strategy, developing buyer insights, and sales enablement.

Marketers need to develop and deploy a buyer-centric go-to-market strategy.

It is time for marketers to ask better questions about buyers.

Businesses should identify their ideal audience for their offering. Data from this analysis can be used to target better prospects and improve go-to-market results.

Only certain target customers will buy due to internal and external factors.

To grow revenue, businesses need to develop and use better competitive insights. Developing these insights entails examining everything about the competition to identify: strengths, weaknesses, competitor priorities, growing, and under-served markets.

Product Marketing involves more than just supporting the Marketing and Product Management teams. Product Marketers serve Marketing, Sales and Product teams. Each team has different needs and responsibilities. However, they all play a role in growing the business and serving customers.

Product Marketers serve as market experts and translators for teams from across the organization.

What is Product Marketing?

Product Marketing is the discipline of bringing a product to market and nurturing its success. Businesses need to create and market products people want to buy. To do that, they need to use the Pragamtic Framework.

Product Marketers are taking on some Product Manager responsibilities.

Product Marketing needs a separate brief.

Johnathan Hinz of Seismeic shares his insights on sales enablement and its role in marketing.

The lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is due in part to the inadequate amount of customer value mapping relating to the number of buyers types.

Product Marketing Community New York was a great event.

Last week, I covered the Search Marketing Expo in New York City. Search Marketing Expo has is a great event for SEO, SEM, and Digital Marketing professionals. SMX provides attendees with an opportunity to learn actionable techniques in conference sessions and training workshops. Google and Microsoft provided seminars on various SEM topics.

Here is a video of the event.

I enjoyed Moz founder Rand Fishkin’s keynote.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. Organic traffic has reached its peak and will decline.
2. To keep traffic coming to their sites, Marketers will need to find ways to nudge consumers as Zero click queries continue to grow.
3. Organizations need to shift their investments in product, content, and brand. Decisions on how to redeploy these resources need to be a company-wide effort. 

Here is the link to the presentation.

Google in 2020: From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor | SparkToro
I’ve written a lot this year about the shifts we’re seeing from Google — moving from search engine to answer to engine…sparktoro.com

At the end of the keynote, I met Rand and received a signed copy of his new book entitled Lost and Found.

In Google’s Keynote, I learned how businesses can get an edge during the holidays. I also learned of Google’s plan to use Google Images and YouTube for eCommerce. Google is also allowing businesses to use location-based Ads in Google Maps.

The key insights of the presentation were:

1. According to Google most shopping visits start online.

2.When diners search for a great place to eat the searches are probably happening on a smartphone.

3.  When people are online in cars, more than half of them are searching for information on a mobile device making localization and targeting important.

4. . 2/3′s of shoppers say that online video has given them insight and inspiration to make purchases.

5. Shoppers use at least 3 channels or more when shopping.

6. Brands need to provide an omnichannel channel experience all year, especially during the holidays.

7. Sales are happening online and offline. As a result of this shift, Brands need to serve customers on the channels of their choice.

A LinkedIn profile is a great opportunity to showcase who you are and what you can do for others. To effectively showcase yourself with your LinkedIn profile, you need to be able to tell a story that is credible and engaging. How do you tell a story on LinkedIn with your profile? There are 8 steps you need to take to optimize your profile for storytelling.

1. Creating a Great Headline

A headline is equivalent to the title of a book, essay, or story. The headline should be engaging. Like a story, the reader decides if they want to read more or move on. Using the automatic headline that lists your job title is a mistake. It is boring and makes you just like everyone else. It demonstrates that you lack creativity.

Your headline should be a short introduction showing how you help others in your current role. This is key if you are happily employed or if you are looking to advance in your current field. If you are looking to change careers, the title should demonstrate how you can take the skills and insights that you have developed and apply them to the career that you aspire to obtain. In other words, the headline should be able to answer the question “What are you looking to do or what do you want in your next role?” 

2 Uploading a Photo

LinkedIn profiles include large amounts of text. Similar to a story, text alone is not visually appealing. This is where a photo can help. When you upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile, your profile comes to life; similar to cover art on the front cover of an autobiography. Remember your profile is your story and brief career autobiography.

When you chose a picture, make sure that it is clear and makes you look professional.

3. Recording an introduction

LinkedIn also lets you record a 30-second introduction to your audience.

4. Crafting and Creating a Summary/Presentation

Your summary should reflect and expand on the headline. This is the place where you provide a brief overview that supports the headline, thesis, and title of your story. Your summary is a place to introduce yourself to your audience. It is important to keep your audience in mind. Put yourself in the place of the reader. Would you want to read your profile if the roles were reversed?

Once you introduce yourself, tell your story. Explain your background, where you are today, and where you want to be in the future. Make sure to include how your current skill set and experience have helped others and how these skills can be applied to a new role. When you list your work experience, make sure to back up your headline and summary. Think of this as your body paragraphs.

You can also share links to a digital portfolio, website, or whatever boosts your profile appearance.

5. Describing your work experience

As I mentioned above, the work experience section of your profile is the body paragraphs of your essay and story. It should be listed in chronological order. Each position that you describe should have specific examples of how you helped others in the role. LinkedIn also allows users to upload presentations and videos of their work. This can serve as a digital portfolio of your work that people can view. The next thing that I would do is obtain recommendations. You can also share your presentations from Slideshare on LinkedIn as well.

6. Obtaining Recommendations and Endorsements

A LinkedIn recommendation serves as proof that you have done excellent work in your position. These recommendations should be from coworkers, supervisors, and customers that you have served. They should serve as the conclusion to your story and essay where your claims are verified and validated. Recommendations should not be given away freely; doing that will undermine your credibility.

Endorsements are a quick way for someone to say that you are good at a particular skill without needing to write a recommendation. LinkedIn allows users to list up to 50 skills that connections can endorse.

7. Open to Work/Open to Hire

LinkedIn allows users to share if they are open to working or looking to hire. This is a nice addition to their job seeker and job posting experience. I am currently looking for work. 

As you can see, LinkedIn allows you to list 5 job titles along with your desired work type location, etc. While I chose to make my job search public, LinkedIn allows users to make their open-to-work status visible to only recruiters to protect the anonymity of job seekers. 

Recruiters and hiring managers can also share that they are hiring for roles by using the Open to Hire frame. 

8. Creator Mode

LinkedIn allows you to display 5 topics on your LinkedIn profile to show potential followers when you turn on creator mode. Creator mode also allows you to reach your audience in new ways with tools such as LinkedIn Live, Audio Event, Newsletters, and follow on LinkedIn.

Putting it all Together

Using these 8 steps will allow you to create a LinkedIn profile that can help you tell a credible and engaging story to potential customers and employers.

How have you used your LinkedIn profile to tell your story?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in:

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.