This article is based on Andrew’s talk at Product Marketing Misunderstood in February 2022.
Hey there! I'm Andrew Keating, and I’m here to share my thoughts and ideas about industry marketing strategies.
We'll explore how you can construct an industry-vertical go-to-market motion within your enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) product marketing organization.
I'll share with you:
- My background in enterprise SaaS product marketing
- How to build an industry-specific go-to-market motion
- Pitfalls to avoid
My background in enterprise SaaS product marketing
To begin with, let's touch on my background. I've taken on a variety of roles related to industry verticals over my career. I view the industry go-to-market approach as critical to success – it's certainly been a major contributor to my own achievements in product marketing – so that’s what we’re going to focus on today.
I kicked off my career in the higher education vertical at an organization called Internet2. Then, at Box, I managed go-to-market strategies for the healthcare and education industries.
From there, I moved to Splunk, where I led the industry marketing organization. More recently, I've been working with startups like Qumulo and now Beamery, leading their product marketing and industry marketing initiatives.
How to build an industry-specific go-to-market motion
When we talk about enterprise software, particularly cloud-based SaaS, we tend to think about use cases and user stories. We focus on how we can make our products appeal to the widest possible variety of customers, with the organizing principle being the use case – how the customer will be using our software.
In contrast, customers usually think about revenue, lines of business, and types of business activity. They're oriented around what they need to secure revenue, which is often linked to an industry classification.
So, the big question is, how can we align these two perspectives to build a go-to-market motion? That's what we'll delve into today.
