[Interview Series] Zylo’s Director of Product Marketing, Nick Blanchette
By: Julie Brown
Tags: Marketing, Product, Product Marketing, Tech, SaaS

Do you currently work in product marketing or thinking of entering the field? Look below and soak in the fabulous advice and perspectives of Nick Blanchette, Director of Product Marketing at Zylo. Nick is also one of the fantastic speakers at Project Product: Uniting Product Marketing & Management.

What do you love most about working in product marketing?

“I love being able to touch all different parts of the business. Product marketing by definition sits between product and marketing, but also has a large involvement in enabling other business functions — i.e., sales and customer success — on product knowledge, messaging, positioning, and value. It’s fun to have an impact on other parts of the business. I also enjoy speaking with customers about their challenges and figuring out ways to solve them.”

2. What have you found to be the most challenging?

“Prioritization is always a challenge. But mostly, I find keeping up with the competitive landscape a challenge. It is tough to stand out in any market, and there is always new competition popping up overnight often leading to market confusion. It’s too much to dive into the weeds and start comparing features with other companies, but often that is what sales is asking for. Providing what sales reps need to win while not diving into deep feature comparisons is the balance I try to achieve.”

“I’m reminded of Pragmatic Marketing’s saying: NIHITO — Nothing Important Happens in the Office. It’s a good reminder that not everything can be solved sitting at your desk. I also find it challenging to stay connected with the market. This includes going to industry events, meeting with customers and partners, and sitting in on sales calls. This can help you gain more of an understanding of who’s playing in your market and how to stand out from the crowd.”

3. What has been the most rewarding?

“Some of the most rewarding projects I’ve worked on have been complete overhauls of product messaging and positioning (how you communicate your value to the market). These are generally long processes that include many internal stakeholders as well as talking with customers, analysts, and doing market research. Since they take so long, it is rewarding to see everything come together in a nicely packaged way.”

4. What has been your favorite feature/product you’ve ever worked on?

“At a previous company, we released a highly-anticipated feature set that was a completely new and friendlier way for users to interact with our product without having to login. The industry was meeting room and unified communications with a combined hardware and software solution. We competed with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Cisco, so it was fun to make noise in a market with those large players. It was also one of the more complete product launches I helped drive — including blogs, videos, enablement sessions, trade show demos, and a press release. Competing in that market with those companies meant there was always activity bubbling that people paid attention to, so we had to be nimble and deliberate with our product launches.”

5. How do you think product marketing has evolved over the years?

“It is still evolving quite a bit. It can be different at different companies. In the past, I’ve reported into marketing, whereas I currently report into product. I believe that is due to business priorities when product marketing is brought in. When in marketing, you are generally in need of buttoning up messaging, positioning, and general market awareness. When a part of the product organization, the need is more around product knowledge, awareness, and enablement. Product marketing has shifted from being completely owned by the CEO/founder of early-stage startups to marketing to a split between product management and marketing, to eventually evolving into a discipline on its own. I believe it will continue to evolve into its own, distinct discipline and we’ll likely start to see colleges offer programs (undergrad/MBA) specifically around product marketing.”

6. How do you think product marketing will be in the future? Will it be different?

“I think more software businesses will continue to see the strategic value and invest in product marketing as their companies scale. I believe it will align under product more, and create its own area within businesses once they reach a certain threshold. It is difficult to measure the impact of product marketing, so I believe in the future, it will be closely tied to sales goals and revenue targets. We (people in product marketing) must continue to drive strategic value that is directly tied to revenue targets — whether that is specific to certain growth numbers or increasing sales velocity — this will continue to be vital.”

7. Where do you envision yourself five years from now?

“I see myself continually aligning closer to sales and customers — as to where that takes me professionally, I’m not quite sure yet. The experience and comfort level you gain when speaking with customers to find out their biggest challenges is immensely impactful no matter your position. I believe my path will continue to be in the product world — whether that is product marketing or on the other side in product management.”

8. If you could give someone new to product marketing advice, what would it be?

“Start speaking in front of people more so it becomes easier over time. Button up your elevator pitch so it’s as succinct and complete as possible. Get comfortable talking to your customers and prospects. There is no shortage of gold that can come from direct interactions with customers and prospects. Hearing the pains that businesses face directly from the source is the best sanity check your product can have from a product and marketing perspective. If you’re continually hearing a certain pain that you know your product solves but you’re not communicating it well enough, that is the best way to enhance your product messaging.”

What are your thoughts on these questions? Feel free to share in the comments. And if you want to meet Nick and other leaders, reserve your spot at Project Product. (And use the discount code, CRAFTED, and save on the registration price!)

This post originally appeared in the 56th Street Productions blog.