Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 565 | How AI is collapsing traditional GTM funnels and reshaping product marketing

Transcript

Ep. 565 | How AI is collapsing traditional GTM funnels and reshaping product marketing · The Prompt

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This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
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pressing B2B go to market challenges.
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Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
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marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
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strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Based podcast.
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I'm your host Chris Moody and today I'm very excited to be
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joined by Madoop Mishra to talk about driving go to market
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strategy in the age of AI. Thanks for joining us today.
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Welcome to the show. Thank you, Chris.
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Thanks for inviting me to the podcast.
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I appreciate it. I'm really excited.
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This is another episode. I appreciate your time, first of
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all, but this is another one where before we even hit record,
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you and I had four or five topics we could have spent the
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entire hour talking about. Before we do that, tell everyone
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a little bit about your journey and what led you to what you're
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doing today. Sure.
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Yeah, I am Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at a
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company called Smart Bear. We're based in Boston and we're
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delivering software, API and QA products to development software
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engineers and QA test teams. I've been in B2B tech for over
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20 years. You know, I really just stumbled
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into product management really early on in my career and at
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that time it wasn't a well defined discipline at all,
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right? It almost felt like a wild, Wild
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West where you had to sort of figure things out as you went
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along. And actually, I loved it.
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I grew up in an environment where you're learning how to
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build things and solve real problems.
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You know, often sitting shoulder to shoulder your engineer, your
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pre sales engineer and a customer really mattered, right?
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Over time, I found myself moving more towards a go to market
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function. You know, my product management
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buddies claimed that I went to the dark side.
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I, I didn't care. It always loved storytelling
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when I was a kid, I used to tell, you know, all these sort
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of stories. I think it naturally evolved
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into product marketing. You know, funny enough, product
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marketing feels like what product management used to be 15
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years ago. Misunderstood, not defined.
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There's this tension. There needs to be clarity, but
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there's confusion, right? You need to sort of that sort of
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bringing, bringing that clarity to confusion has been a constant
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theme in my career. And at the core, I said between,
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you know, product and market, you know, technology and what it
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really means to the business, whether it's, you know,
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positioning technical products in crowded markets, helping
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sales cut through the noise. You know, I've always thrived in
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those intersections, right? And this is a very, you know,
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passionate topic of mine, right? AI is rewriting the rules.
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I think, you know, some people would say that even the rules
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are out the window, right? So some of the core tenets of,
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you know, the depth of your product you'll go to market
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strategies will feel even more important now than ever.
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Yeah, I, I love that. I love the storytelling point.
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I'm the same way. My mom used to always say I
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would argue with a brick wall, but to me, I'm just a great
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storyteller. That's where my brain goes.
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You and I hit on this before we hit record, but we'll bring
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everyone else up to speed. There are so many AI use cases
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that are talked about today and AI features.
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It's really difficult to match what we should be using to our
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strategy and what's vaporware, what's real.
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I'd love to understand from your opinion what are the most
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significant ways that AI is rewriting the rules and it's
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fine if it's throwing them away to your point, but how is AI
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changing the go to market strategy today?
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Yeah, it's a very important question.
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I think, you know, one that one has to acknowledge that we don't
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know the answer to. You don't know one person does.
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In my opinion, AI is completely collapsing your traditional
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marketing funnel, right? Buyer journeys are no longer
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linear, right? They're getting compressed,
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they're becoming non linear. And you can almost sort of
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intuitively get to it that buyers expecting instant
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validation and proof, right? Hands on, you know, time to
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value is, you know, those that have good faster time to value
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can use that as a competitive differentiator, right?
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One of the things I would sort of talk about here would be
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product LED growth. So gone are the days where only
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sales and only sales would be you know, what really explain
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what the product really means to the customer.
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The products need to do that themselves.
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And AI, you know, surfaces these signals right through your web
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be website behavior, right of traffic through your trial flows
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through the in product usage of data within within your product
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and the intention behind the prediction on what the customer
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really wants to buy. So for some buyers, sales
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engagement almost becomes optional, right?
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I remember when I bought my car, which was at the end of this
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last year, I did most of my research before I even got to,
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you know, a dealership software and B to B is no different.
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And the other thing I'd say is there is all this data that AI
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can help unlock for us, right? So AI can potentially help
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redefine your ideal customer profiles.
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It can actually power a really powerful lead scoring engine,
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right? It can optimize your channel mix
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on how you talk about your product and with channels.
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And then it can take your very static sort of playbook or go to
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market playbook into something that's much, much more dynamic.
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We talked about personalization of message.
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Well, this is about hyper personalization and do it at
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scale, right? Deliver the right message in the
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right channel at the right time. That's table sticks, right?
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It's moving away from, you know, this funnel construct, which I
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said what's going to get collapsed to more of a flywheel,
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right? It's about you're always on,
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you're being customer centric. It's about optimizing
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continuously. But I'm going to throw a caution
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in there, right? Let's not over automate either.
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AI is about helping us humans get the right decision done.
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It's not about replacing people. So some people may still want to
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buy from people, right? And it's, you know, people say
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that people don't buy technology, they buy from other
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people they like. Well, that that doesn't go out
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the door. But AI is definitely helping
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rewrite the rules to go to market for sure.
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Totally. I love your point about people.
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I think you know four of those of us in roles that may be
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betting our jobs on the decisions we make and the
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vendors we use. You want a person that you trust
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that's going to look out for you and fight for you and work
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together to solve your problem. So I, I think that's an
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important point. We recently purchased a vehicle
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as well and AI guided almost everything in the process for
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me. I want to ask you about the
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changing buyer behaviors, but before I do just on the car
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point, we did something very similar.
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My wife and I have 4 kids, 14109 and two.
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That creates a very strict criteria that have to be met
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because we also pick up two children in our neighborhood.
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So carpool is 6 children in the car.
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My 14 year old's already 6 foot tall, right?
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Third row has to have space, but we knew that gives us five
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options. Let's just say five options for
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what would actually work for our use cases.
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And I didn't even care to drive the car, honestly.
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It wasn't the traditional car buying experience.
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I had gone through Gemini, ChatGPT, multiple other sources,
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built comparison tables. I knew the dimensions of all the
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rows and how much headroom and leg room.
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And then I could compare that to what we currently had and which
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is the most reliable engine. And then it became a function of
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price and honestly, the, the customer service, the person.
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So did the person cut to the chase and just say, OK, I, I
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even put rules in there. So this tells you how much
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prompting I've been doing lately.
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I said, don't call me. You can text me or e-mail.
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I'm in meetings. I might be recording a podcast,
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don't call. And I sent that out to 8
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different dealerships with exactly what I wanted. 5 of the
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8 called immediately. And I did learn later maybe
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their lead routing system didn't put the message forward.
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But still to me that was unacceptable.
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So they, they were off my list. And then it was narrowing down
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to three. And that was much easier to do
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with AI because I essentially I was automating and personalizing
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and fighting for the best deal. I had a lot of research that I'd
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already done that was assisted by AI.
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What are the shifts in buyer behavior that you're seeing that
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change the way we all need to plan and execute our product
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launches? So if we reverse engineer the
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product launch based on how you and I probably just went through
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the carbine experience. Yeah, yeah, No, I think you hit
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a lot of those points, Chris. By the way, I did the same.
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And one of these days I got to tell you about, you know, I
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bought a gaming PC for my teenager and how I built an
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agent to to do that. Yeah, we got to hear that.
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But the the biggest shifts in, you know, buyers are becoming
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more skeptical, right? They're less patient.
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You know, they don't want like your six month e-mail nurture
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campaign to tell you about the company's differentiation,
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right? That expectation that 30 needs
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to happen upfront and almost at the very first touch, right?
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They're not forming opinions only through your marketing
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channels. Let's let's just, you know,
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agree on that, right? They're listening to their
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peers, they're reading up on communities.
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They're, you know, in my trade, I sell to developers, but
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they're all these forms, right? Reddit and and others that
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developers go to understand, right?
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So by the time they engage with you as a business, they've
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already built a perception of your product very similar to
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your car buying experience, your positioning and likely even your
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pricing, right. So launch is no longer about
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controlling the narrative and you know, it's more about Co
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creating it with what already happens in the market right now.
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Bring in AIAI is accelerating that change.
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AI will accelerate that change even more.
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Buyers walk into conversation with a full Wrike research
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dossier for their, you know, AI powered search results, your
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tape comparison tables, your sentiment analysis.
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You know that already. You know, tell them how you
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stack up ease of your competition, right, That shifts
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go to market from persuasion to enablement, right?
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We need to sort of change your mindset to sort of not talk
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about I'm going to convince this guy with the most clever
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message. Here's here's going to tell you
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my story. No, right.
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It's about how can I enable the buyer to make the right decision
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for them, right, for whatever the criteria they have.
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So how quickly can I help you as a buyer experience the value on
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your terms? The other big changes around
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engaging in the engagement with the buyer, right,
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Personalization. I mentioned that a little while
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ago, right? You know, hyper personalization
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is no longer optional. AI can tailor messages, content
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flows down to the role industry pinpoint to a specific buyer,
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right? So nobody is interested in
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getting this generic marketing. A message that you know don't
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even apply, doesn't even apply to you as an individual, let
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alone a group or a cohort. It's about personalizing it,
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that message. It's about automating the
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outreach. It's about current
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conversational AI. I mean, I remember I got my
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washer fixed. Sears is not paying me.
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But I talked to a Sears agent online and they diagnosed my
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problem and you know, sent to tech to my place, right?
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So that automation, that conversational AI is already
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happening, right? So as you're talking about
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launches, you know, you need to bring in AI to help you get that
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product into the hand of your customers.
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You need to raise the bar for every launch.
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Your buyers expect that level of immediacy.
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You don't need to. You'll go slowly to build your
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story and, you know, deliver that crafted message, show
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differentiation really fast. You'll be ready to, you know,
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meet the buyer wherever they are and then use AI to deliver a
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highly personalized, you know, message and campaign at scale,
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yet keeping your human touch with you, right?
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Don't sound robotic either. So I hope that answers your
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question. Yeah, that was really helpful.
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And your point about meeting the buyer where they are, you hit on
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that earlier too, saying that that you're between the product
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in the market and markets are changing and we say this every
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five years. You and I have been in tech the
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same amount of time every five years.
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I feel like we say the the market's changing faster than
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ever, but with AII believe it more now than I did any five
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year segment in the last 20 with the market changing so quickly
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and the buyer changing so quickly.
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If you're thinking from the pure product marketing, product
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development, product launch type of approach, if you're bringing
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an AI product into a market that may not fully exist yet or the
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market may not even understand the use case, honestly, how do
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you decide where to start and what to prioritize?
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I'm sure that's a question on top of, you know, lots of
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marketers mind, right? Because let's admit it, since AI
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is, you know, come into being, every C level executive is
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hammering, you know, get launching an AI product to
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market as we speak, right? So as product people, as
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marketers, we need to ask the tough questions.
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And the answer is similar to what you and I talked about
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earlier. I think it was before the
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recording. The answer lies in the use
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cases, right? It's not about sort of, you
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know, I've, I've built this AI thing and I'm going to launch
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it, right? What are the use cases, you
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know, where does this AI create undeniable value for your
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customers today? What are those high friction
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workflows, high value workflows that are slow today that the AI
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can sort of Reese the skids on and you know, help deliver on?
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That's where you're going to find the real sort of, you know,
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early proof points, your customers who need, you know,
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who validate this need those ROI case studies that you can build
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on and those entry points that open the doors for you as a
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business to larger markets. Right?
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And before the launch, you need to ask this key question, is
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this a product or is it a feature?
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Because a lot of times what we think is, you know, big
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internally internal thinking group think within the company
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is likely a small feature from a customer standpoint, right?
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It's very tempting to slap an AI on something and call it like
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groundbreaking, right? Unless it's solving a real
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problem, it's product like, it'll come across as very
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gimmicky, right? I've seen it first hand.
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We built an AI tool that automated parts of a project
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management workflow. We thought it was game changing.
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Well, guess what customer said was So what?
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Like who cares for like, you know, two out of the 50 things
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that you automated with AI, right?
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We still have to manually do the remaining 48 things.
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It's not solving the core of the problem, right?
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So stop calling your product AI enabled when when it really
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isn't that lessons, you know, stuck with me.
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AI is only important if it's purposeful.
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So the best AI launches don't feel like your AI is bolted on
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to whatever, whatever it is that your company's narrative is.
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It feels like it sort of rides with it, right?
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It rides with whatever your company's sort of position in
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the market is, be it about, you know, around empowering your
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customers. It could be around transparency
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that AI can bring in. And some companies even sort of
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go with messages like AI for the good, right?
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Unbiased AI, right? So buyers can feel, you know,
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can smell the hype from, you know, mile away, you know,
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winning companies are the ones that will integrate this AI in a
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very authentic fashion with the use case that's very believable
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to start, solves true problems and brings the customer along to
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feel like they're part of something big and meaningful.
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That's great. And I think it's important to
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know that you're referring to what currently a a more
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technical and developer audience, which I've been in
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those spaces before too. I think it's safe to say they
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are even better than average at detecting what is BS and
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marketing speak then some audiences.
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So you can't pull a fast one on them, not that we would ever
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endorse pulling a fast one. I have a question that it's kind
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of a combination of a few things that we had put in our notes and
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if we're trying to build advocacy and trust.
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So let's think about both. We don't just want cookie cutter
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engagement. We want someone to believe in
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what we're doing, to trust us and adopt and hopefully be an
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influencer and helping to drive those communities forward.
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What are some of the tips you would give someone to move into
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that advocacy type of state for a more technical audience to
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which I think are more discerning than most?
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That's right. I think you hit the nail on the
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head. You know, developers are very
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nitpicky and they're very sort of logical thinkers, right?
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So it needs to sort of be very no fluff way of communicating
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with them. And which is why, you know, my
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mantra is not to sell them, but to enable them and help them try
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to get to the value that they're trying to seek.
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So I think this advocacy, by the way, is for developers and even
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in general is, is more critical today than ever, ever before.
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And the reason why I say that is people are, you know, as much as
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everybody likes Google, there are things like perplexity and
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ChatGPT and all of these other places where people are trying
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to search for those answers, more codified answers before
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they go for a generic Google search, right?
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Google Intelligence has Google's answer to the same problem.
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And a lot of the data that fuels the responses that these LLMS
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and these applications have are based on, are rooted in the
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voice of the community, right? They're training those AI models
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in Reddit, from Reddit and all those open communities, you
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know, even Wikipedia for, for in, in some cases.
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And therefore this advocacy, while it was important before,
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it's even more important now. Why is, if you don't do it, your
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perplexity or ChatGPT will recommend your, your competitors
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product over yours because they're being advocated by all
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kinds of their users in, in a variety of different places,
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right. So advocacy is becoming an
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essential part of your search strategy.
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And in my mind, there is like the the key mantra to to do real
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advocacy is, you know, three things, ownership, you know,
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ability to share and celebrate, right?
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So what do I mean by that? You know, advocacy happens when
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you bring in the developers into helping you create something
19:19
together. You know, give them the AP is
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give them ways to extend your product, give them opportunities
19:26
and projects to extend your product in different ways and
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the ideas that they bring to the table for your road map, you
19:33
know, incorporated in and how you're evolving the product and
19:37
capabilities, right? Then they will start to feel
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that they, they have a sense of ownership.
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They have a sense of, you know, a skin in their skin is in the
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game for them to be your, your natural champions, right?
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So that's your ownership is your step number one.
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Step number 2 is you need to lower the barriers to share.
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If a customer of yours or a developer in this example, it
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has to go through 15 hoops. To say something about you,
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right, to create content, to share your code snippet.
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And if you're, if you're selling your marketing to developers or
20:11
publish an integration that they've built, well, you've
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lost, you know, all hope, right? The idea here should be for them
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to be able to come up with a piece of content and put it out
20:23
in the community very, very easily, right?
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Enable that authentic share of voice amplifying, you know, that
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it reinforces and amplifies your story as fast as you can come up
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with those starter kits that that open documentation, those
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community forums right there, you know, you know, engagement
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can become possible and become easier.
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And when they do share, make sure you shine a spotlight on
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them. You know, if they're building
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cool things, cool applications with their product, cool
20:50
integrations, highlight them, get them to swag, recognize them
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for what they're doing, invite them into conferences and you
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know, Co present with you, in some cases, present on your
21:02
behalf, showcase their blogs on your website.
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Recognition is a very powerful tool, right?
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When developers feel seen, they lean in deeper and and their
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advocacy, you know, becomes contagious.
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And as all of this start to happen, guess what it's going to
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get out there in those public forums and those AI search
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engines will pick that up and we'll provide you as the
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response to all those queries that you were currently left out
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of. That's perfect.
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I, I think you may have answered some of this question too.
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You were just sitting on it. But if we gave you your own new
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startup and you could put kind of the, the Madupe verified
21:41
badge on any go to market approach that's truly AI driven.
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Now you and I talked before we hit record.
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We know that lots of folks have put AI powered AI enabled AIX
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like blank with AI, you know, Uber for AI, all the things
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we've seen it. But if you were going through to
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detect who is delivering a real sustainable business impact with
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AI, what are some of the most telling indicators for you?
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Those KPIs can you know, of course everyone jumps to
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pipeline, right? Pipeline is, is a solution to
22:16
all problems. Well, in my view, pipeline is of
22:18
course important for AI enabled your startup or AI enabled go to
22:23
market, AI enabled businesses. But I think the real signal for
22:27
me is the depth of engagement, right?
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The depth of engagement, you know, are the customers
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expanding beyond the use cases, the first use case that bought
22:37
you for, right? Are developers actually
22:39
integrating your tool into their work flows?
22:42
Our community is talking about you, right?
22:44
So these are all the things that I feel like will talk to the
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depth of engagement, right? So I would sort of look at the
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engagement metrics. The few areas that you're I can
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think of are leading indicators. How many people are asking for a
22:58
demo for you of your tool? How many conversations are sales
23:02
happening on the back of those demos?
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Are customers coming back as they're expanding, you know,
23:07
from an expansion perspective? And then of course advocacy, are
23:11
they saying good things on your behalf?
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Are they giving you higher ratings in those public
23:15
marketplaces etcetera? So to me, to me these are all
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the ways that you can sort of gauge the depth of engagement.
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And to me that tells me a a much stronger, you know your
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foundation is a lot stronger for in this sort of AI enabled to go
23:29
to market approach. Great advice, great advice.
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We should all do that. We should all follow those and I
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mean the benefit you hit on that too when we're getting
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recommended in all the AI searches.
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I think that's the ultimate pay off that we'll start to measure
23:42
track and see. So I love everything you said
23:45
there. We have a few questions left and
23:47
I call this the lightning round. I don't have fancy music.
23:50
Those who listen regularly know that I'm always like, you know,
23:53
in my head, there's some pyrotechnic event that happens
23:57
right here. But most of these are quick
24:00
hitters, so you can answer them as fast as you want.
24:03
The first The challenge in answering this question is you
24:05
can only pick one thing. What is the single biggest
24:09
challenge in B2B marketing today?
24:11
The single biggest challenge is confusing activity with impact.
24:16
To me, it's everybody does a lot of stuff and if you ask them,
24:20
they all feel like they're contributing and adding value to
24:23
me. We should never confuse what it
24:27
is that you're doing to what it actually truly means and what
24:29
the impact of the outcome of the business is.
24:32
So I would always start with, if anyone in my team brings me a
24:35
launch plan, I would start with what is the outcome that you're
24:38
looking to do and then sort of back into what the activity
24:41
needs to be. Perfect.
24:43
That's the wrong ABM activity based marketing, which we've
24:46
we've we've all been there too. What about your favorite tools
24:50
or technology? You've shouted a few out, but
24:52
what are some of the tools or tech that you're using that you
24:54
really like today? Yeah, yeah, a couple of things.
24:57
I mean, there's all kinds of interesting tools.
24:59
A lot of them have become AI enabled, so that's also fun.
25:02
One of my favorite tools is, you know, Gong.
25:05
Like I really like Gong because, you know, we have lots and lots
25:08
of sellers and I'm very interested in, you know, are we
25:12
able to communicate the right things to the customer and, you
25:16
know, the types of questions that are coming from the
25:19
customer standpoint. It gives you, you know, it
25:21
allows you to listen to individual conversations, but
25:24
more importantly, it can allow you to sort of get into the
25:27
analytics behind it and sort of see, see what's actually
25:30
resonating in the market. So I, I, to me, that's one of
25:34
the, one of the salesy tools that I like.
25:36
Another tool I like is more around in product analytics,
25:40
right? Some people like Pendo, I like
25:42
Amplitude. And this is about are you able
25:45
to map that customer journey, you know, from the website into
25:49
your product trial into monetization for you?
25:54
Are the users going in? Are they seeing the aha moment?
25:56
Are they feeling compelled enough to go buyer tool or not,
26:00
right? Are they getting lost in there
26:02
somewhere, right? Are you trying to appease to
26:04
lots of different Icps, which is usually the, you know, the
26:08
problem with lots of companies. So to me, both of them are
26:10
data-driven. 1. Is there a more sales LED motion
26:13
for us to sort of see how that happens?
26:15
And the other is more product LED motion where you're trying
26:17
to sort of see the right behavior in the product and near
26:20
try to see if you can guide the customer through to the brand
26:24
buying process. Great.
26:26
Awesome. We love going to actually have a
26:28
conversation with Udi this week at our Leadership Off site, so
26:31
we're pumped for that one. What about Goodreads?
26:34
We're generous with this one. To Madhuba, it could be book,
26:37
blog, newsletter, podcast, video, any type of content
26:41
consumption means. But what are some of your
26:43
favorite standouts? Yeah, I'll give you 1.
26:46
You know, there's of course so many that you can do and I think
26:49
in B2B tech, I've always enjoyed those that can unpack
26:54
positioning for your product for your company.
26:57
And this lady, April Dunford wrote this book, obviously
27:00
awesome, which I thought was like, you know, boil it down to
27:03
just the basics of what what positioning needs to be.
27:06
I highly recommend. She actually wrote like the the
27:09
sales pitch and a couple others. But to me, the obviously awesome
27:13
was the was her, you know, best piece of work, right, bringing
27:16
clear, practical framework to help companies define, you know,
27:19
what's value value for their for their market, for their
27:22
customers. Perfect.
27:24
Yeah, that's a great one and a good transition too, because we
27:27
like to ask about good people, which April fits that category
27:30
as well. But who are some of your most
27:32
inspirational folks in the B2B space?
27:35
A couple of people. I mean, I'm a big believer of
27:37
Simon Sinek. I follow his principles for, you
27:41
know, from a leadership perspective as well.
27:43
And we always get into a conversation with, you know, the
27:48
what or the how and we rarely get to the why, right?
27:52
So Simon about, you know, imbibed by the, you know, start
27:55
with the why, right? Get to the root of what
27:58
motivates a person and then you'd be able to communicate
28:01
really, really effectively with them, right?
28:04
You know, with that purpose driven leadership within the
28:06
company, but also to your customers, right?
28:08
To me, your customers also, you know, they're real people, they
28:11
have real needs. If you could sort of tap into
28:14
their inner why, I feel like you can really have a relatable
28:18
point of view in what you're sort of communicating out to the
28:20
market, right? So Simon is definitely a great
28:23
one. I mean, we're in the topic of
28:25
AI, so you'll be remiss if I don't mention an AI guy, Ethan
28:30
Moloch. He is, he's a professor at
28:32
Wharton School of Business. He's written a few books on AI.
28:37
He's AB school professor. But he's like, he's writing
28:39
code, you know, he's wipe coding.
28:41
He's creating these agents. I find it super fat, you know,
28:44
fascinating in terms of your AI, you know, and how AI can help B
28:49
to B companies more effectively. There's all this concept around
28:53
AGI and things like that, which is like we can dedicate a whole
28:57
podcast too, but go check Ethan out.
28:59
He's he's very active on LinkedIn and other social
29:02
places. Talk about practical tips on
29:05
using generative AI for for B to B.Tech.
29:08
Outstanding. We will do that.
29:09
Great recommendations there. And then you have made it to the
29:12
most important question of all, How can everyone get in touch
29:15
with you after this episode? The best way to do that is via
29:19
my LinkedIn profile. So I'm sure what we're going to
29:21
make that link available to your audience.
29:23
But yeah, please drop me a note. Happy to have a conversation.
29:26
If you're wrestling with how to bring AI into your environment,
29:30
I can offer a tip or two. Awesome.
29:33
Well, Madhu, thank you so much for your time.
29:34
It was a pleasure. Thank you, Chris, Thanks for
29:36
having me on the podcast. Thanks for joining us for On
29:40
Base. If you enjoyed this episode,
29:42
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29:55
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