Best of Inside Olivine 2022
From time-sensitive posts on how to grow during a recession to nuanced pieces covering the difference between positioning, messaging, and copywriting—this year we published 30 blog posts and 12 newsletters on product marketing.
Here are our top 10 best posts from Inside Olivine:
Most Pageviews: Your 30-60-90 day plan as a new product marketing manager
Most Conversations: First startup marketing hire: growth marketing or product marketing?
Most Insightful: How Product Marketing changes at every company stage
Most Nuanced: The difference between positioning, messaging, and copywriting (and how to do them well)
Most Innovative: How to win in crowded markets–using story-first product development
Most Proactive: Product launches: when should product marketing get involved?
Most Timely: How to grow during a downturn: marketing strategy for lean startups
Most Tactical: Inside Olivine #7 - Positioning: Just Do It (or at least try) with Jadon Thomas
Most Shares: Do you know what your product is hired for? Jobs to be Done can help
Most Newsletter Opens: Inside Olivine #6 - Product Marketing red flags and how to fix them with Michael Greene
Bonus: A castle, a concert, and a music video
#1 MOST PAGEVIEWS
Your 30-60-90 day plan as a new product marketing manager
Written By: Angelea Ennamorato, product marketing manager at Olivine
Artwork By: Filipa Paiva
What it’s about: It’s a fact—product marketing is cross-functional. How do you approach a new role knowing you’re going to work with and rely on a lot of teams in your organization? We’ve created a plan for your first 30, 60, and 90 days as a new Product Marketing Manager so you can kick things off successfully.
Why it’s good: When Saahil accepted a Product Marketing role at LinkedIn, he asked the Olivine team for help. Everyone jumped into a doc and wrote down their best advice for him, and then we decided to make it a blog post! We had no idea it would end up being our most-viewed article. Stay tuned for a cookbook we’re producing to expand this topic!
Read it
#2 MOST CONVERSATIONS
First startup marketing hire: growth marketing or product marketing?
Written By: Raechel Lambert, co-founder of Olivine
Artwork By: Madalena Carneiro from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: In recent years growth marketers have been the golden child of marketing, but doubling down on reach without positioning & messaging that resonates can burn a lot of cash. But great product landing pages won’t matter if no one discovers your brand…classic chicken/egg problem. 🐣
Why it’s good: This is the question founders grapple with most when it comes to making their first marketing hire, and sadly there’s no easy answer. This article dives into the difference between the two key roles and will help you identify which gaps that need to be filled most.
Read it
#3 MOST INSIGHTFUL
How Product Marketing changes at every company stage
Written By: Raechel Lambert, co-founder of Olivine
Artwork By: Joana Gonçalves from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: Leaders from our team met with Ambika Nigam, CEO & Founder of Zeit, a career pivot platform, to discuss the different styles of product marketing and how the role changes depending on the company stage.
Why it’s good: Since Olivine works with so many companies across industries and stages, we are uniquely positioned to share what PMM looks like across the board.
Read it
#4 MOST NUANCED
The difference between positioning, messaging, and copywriting (and how to do them well)
Written By: Arielle Shnaidman, director of product marketing at Olivine
Artwork By: Madalena Carneiro from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: Product positioning and messaging is both a science and an art. Analyzing your competitors and opportunities for where your product fits into the market is more of a science, whereas figuring out how to communicate that positioning is an art. Arielle breaks down the difference between positioning, messaging, and copywriting and also shows you how to create winning positioning and messaging that propels growth.
Why it’s good: These three concepts are all tightly intertwined, but many people don’t know the specific differences between them, and therefore struggle to do them well.
Read it
#5 MOST INNOVATIVE
How to win in crowded markets–using story-first product development
Written by: Daniela Cardona, product marketer at ConsenSys
Artwork by: Joana Gonçalves from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: Olivine co-founder Raechel Lambert was a guest speaker at Wynter Games 11: Competing and Winning (in saturated markets). Raechel gave a talk titled “Launching MVPs is dead. Enter the Minimum Marketable Product — laser-focused positioning and story-first product development.”
Why it’s good: In this talk, Raechel takes us behind the scenes during her time at Intercom where she brought Articles to market despite facing a strong established player: Zendesk.
Watch it
#6 MOST PROACTIVE
Product launches: when should product marketing get involved?
Written By: Michael Greene, product marketing lead at Olivine
Artwork By: Lilit Martirosyan
What it’s about: The tricky part about establishing when product marketing should be involved in product launches is that too often product marketing is either misunderstood or not understood at all. If the product team or the company at-large doesn’t understand product marketing, then you can’t really blame them for not asking for their help in a product launch - what would they even ask for?
Why it’s good: Every PMM has heard some version of “this is almost ready to ship, can you launch it?” This goes into the value proactive product marketing brings to the table, which ultimately results in more of the things product managers want: more customers, more revenue, and more feature usage.
Read it
#7 MOST TIMELY
How to grow during a downturn: marketing strategy for lean startups
Written By: Raechel Lambert, co-founder of Olivine
Artwork By: Joana Gonçalves from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: VCs and advisors are recommending drastic cuts in spending to extend cash runway and be default alive for the next 2 years. You’ll need to work smarter than ever in marketing in sales to get more customers. So what should your lean marketing strategy be to keep acquiring customers?
Why it’s good: In June when all signs pointed to a loom recession, Raechel wrote this as a quick resource to help startups cut the fat and get focused on growth despite having fewer resources for marketing. The advice in here is timeless, but especially going into 2023 with a weak economy.
Read it
#8 MOST TACTICAL
Positioning: Just Do It (or at least try)
Written By: Jadon Thomas, product marketing at Olivine
Artwork By: Madalena Carneiro from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: The theory of positioning says, to be successful you should pick one person to go after for your one product. That seems like it makes sense. What stops you from following through is your mind often takes that to mean: less people = less money. So to combat that, we try to rope in as many people as possible in an attempt to get more revenue. If you don’t take a stand with your positioning, no one will join you. Making a choice is more important than making the right choice.
Why it’s good: Jadon breaks down what positioning actually is and challenges you to stop shadowboxing with it.
Read it
#9 MOST SHARED
Do you know what your product is hired for? Jobs to be Done can help
Written By: Raechel Lambert, co-founder of Olivine
Artwork By: Madalena Carneiro from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: Raechel shares 3 real-world examples that will help you understand JTBD and start thinking differently about how you build and market products:
Innovating on an existing mature product: McDonald’s
Entering a crowded market: The Infatuation
Building a worse product to do a better job: Intercom
Why it’s good: Jobs To Be Done is a well-respected product innovation framework that most marketers aren’t familiar with. But it can completely change the game on how you position your product and value props so it’s worth getting a handle on.
Read it
#10 MOST NEWSLETTER OPENS
Product Marketing red flags and how to fix them
Written By: Michael Greene, product marketing lead at Olivine
Artwork By: Joana Gonçalves from the Olivine Design team
What it’s about: As you look for any new role with a new company, you should look for warning signs in the job description. In this post, I set out to identify the biggest red flags for product marketing teams and strategies to overcome them.
Why it’s good: Since product marketing is often misunderstood and the role is very cross-functional, it can be hard to find a role that’s both exciting and set up for success. This post will help you identify issues and fix them.
Read it
BONUS MUSIC VIDEO
Our cover of “Feel It Still” filmed live from our AirBnB in Portugal
What it’s about: In August 2022 we brought the Olivine team together for a co-working week in Portugal. Many of us have been working together for 2 years but had never met in person (we're a completely remote company). We laughed, we learned, and we made a music video!
Why it’s good: We have vastly different music experience levels, had never played together before our trip, and only had time for 2 quick practices, but we think it has a little bit of magic.
