Write Your Product Narrative Like a Zapier PMM

0:02Hi friends, welcome to Product Marketing Adventures, the only show that takes you beyond theory and into the real execution of product marketing. My name is Elle Grossenbacher, your trusted guide and host of this show. In each episode, I bring in expert product marketers to co-host two segments of this show. First, a case study example of their work, followed by a messaging critique for companies we admire. So if you're a PMM looking for practical guidance and inspiration, you're in the right place. Are you ready? Let's go.

0:42You know that moment when a company outgrows the thing that it's known for, but the market hasn't quite caught up yet? Like when you still think of them for that one product. And there are a ton of examples of this. Amazon is more than an online retailer. Apple offers more than iPhones. Well, first they started with laptops or computers. So what I'm saying is it's very natural for brands to expand product offerings. And chances are, as a PMM, you're going to be part of that initiative. But sometimes launching something new can feel more like an add-on, not like the next chapter. Today's episode is about how to make your brand known for more than the flagship product you started with.

1:23And we're unpacking it through a case study that did exactly that. I'm so excited to welcome Wade Burrell to the show. Wade has spent the last 15 years at the intersection of product, go-to-market, and growth with stops at WorldPay, Square, and Intuit MailChimp, where he led SMS expansion across 37 countries. But what makes his story so interesting is this. He helped take a company known for one thing, and start to redefine what it could become, turning SMS from a standalone feature into a company-wide strategic priority. And now today, he's at Zapier leading product marketing for some of the most important infrastructure in the AI era.

2:10Wade, welcome to the show. Hey, Elle. I'm so excited to be here and thanks so much for having me, truly. Yes, I know we've been looking forward to this chat for a while. At least I have. Me too. Absolutely. No question about it. So let's dive right in. So you're currently at Zapier today, and we'll come back to that in a bit. But today's case study is really about your time from MailChimp. So give us a quick summary of what MailChimp offers. I feel like I remember the first time I used it a very, very, very long time ago at the start of my marketing career, but it's so much more than that now.

2:49So help get me and the listeners up to speed. Absolutely. And I think that's the biggest thing. And then I think a big opportunity for us to dig in here as we're talking through this, because I think most people know MailChimp for email, right? It's where a lot of marketers got their start, right? And that reputation was well-earned. When I started in... Actually, I should say by the time I started in In 2017, it was already the largest email marketing platform in the world. 12 million plus businesses were customers already. And then over the next eight plus years of my time there, there was this broader vision that came to light, really becoming this all-in-one marketing platform.

3:32Intuit acquired Mailchimp in 2021, and that only accelerated that push. And I think the market still had this fixed idea on what Mailchimp was. it was an email company. And that gap between what the company was building towards and how the market still saw it, that was the tension that we were always, always working against. So now, however, and we'll get into this, but MailChimp offers SMS and messaging services and features and functionality. And it's this product, that specific product feature set that helped bridge the gap between what MailChimp was and what MailChimp wanted to become. Got it.

4:06Okay. That's a really helpful history of MailChimp. And it's a nice segue into where we're going with this conversation for the case study. So the first segment of the show is the case study segment. And we're talking all about how you helped the company make that big change in its narrative. So tell me more about what was going on at MailChimp when all of this got started. Well, at the time, MailChimp, and I mentioned this just a second ago, but MailChimp dominated email. They had 12 million plus businesses. They were the name in email marketing. And I think what we saw was while email marketing is not in any way, shape or form dead or anything like that, they understood that the market and individuals and companies and businesses and their customers explicitly were engaging or needed additional ways to engage with those businesses or those businesses need additional ways to engage with those customers.

5:08And so this is when SMS came into light. It launched in early 2023 as a next growth channel for MailChimp. But what we did was we launched it as a standalone MVP. It truly was this... You could say it's an add-on, I would say, wasn't even baked into the product to the way it should have been. But it's allowed us to really learn into things. And that positioning when we first got started was, it's the number one email marketing platform, which was a verified claim that we were able to get. And then now with SMS, right? So it got the idea across that we are expanding from a brand perspective into more features and functionality and more channels.

5:50But it really, if you look at that and read that tagline back or that positioning statement, the number one email marketing platform now with SMS, it's simply a tack on, right? You're just tacking it on to what everyone knows you for now. So it was an interesting time to say the least. Yeah. And that sounds like a very reasonable change, right? And I could totally see the rationale behind, hey, we're noticing something different in what our customers are doing and what our customers need. So let's try to offer that as soon as possible. And then we can figure out the story later. Exactly. I think it's a super common situation that marketers, particularly product marketers, are stuck in.

6:34So I guess, what was the real challenge that you were facing when you decided that, okay, this is sounding like an add-on. Let's try to make it not an add-on. It's such a good point. It was a really defining moment from a product marketing perspective, but also from like our product team's perspective and also the company itself, I'll say not to like boast myself up too much, but it was truly a defining moment of we had this product SMS, right. But we, we, we needed to position it in a way that could actually compete against any other type of, of tool, whether it be, you know, Twilio or attentive or any other kind of SMS native tools.

7:19We know we knew we couldn't outright win against those based on just like straight up features because we were a couple of years behind, just to be completely honest with you. But the idea came to mind of how do we actually win, right? What can we do? What can we actually hang our hat on from a product perspective, but also a brand perspective that we could in the market differentiate ourselves a little bit, right? So we had to, there was a lot of back and forth with our product teams, with our internal leadership, with our engineering teams on like, what do we need to do? And what do we need to figure out in order to actually like resolve this debate around what's happening and what where the product should go explicitly.

8:02So it was very, very kind of like a defining time of it's like, you could go any way, right? You could go this way, you go this way, we had to really kind of nail down what we needed to do for sure. Yeah, it's so smart. You said this, but I'm gonna just repeat it back, focusing on, okay, well, what is our true differentiator here so that we can position ourselves well in this market where there already are maybe category leaders specifically for SMS, but here you are with... You're a leader in a different channel, but now you're offering more capabilities for your customers. Yeah. One thing there is we really had to think about what gave us the right to even offer SMS?

8:49Like what was it like, okay, you're known for email. Sure, this is another way to engage with customers or prospects, but what was MailChimp's right to win? Or why were you even engaging in this channel? Why were you dipping your toes into something else? It was such an interesting problem to solve for sure. Yeah, the why are we here? Why did we do this? I love that. I think a lot of PMMs, frankly, miss that. They just take the, okay, here's the product. What can it do? What are the benefits? Done, out the door. And you leave so much opportunity on the table when you don't take the time to investigate the why.

9:30So leaning into that a bit, talk more about what did you do and how did you start to uncover that? For sure. So I saw this internal debate going on. Obviously, product marketing is involved in that because we at MailChimp, the product marketing team and the product teams are very, very close. And the product management teams, I should say explicitly are very close in terms of understanding the customers explicitly. But I think what's expected of product marketing is to really bring that customer insight, that market insight to table. So what I did was I went into customer research with basically a hypothesis.

10:08Right. No, not even like because we didn't know where we wanted to go. Like I had to go in with just kind of leaving it open to see what where our customers would lead us. Right. Where they're taking us, what they need explicitly. So I when I interviewed customers from our beta, I basically asked about workflows, asked about what they needed when it comes to engaging with their customers or what they needed from SMS tool. Well, not explicitly like product features, but like what was the thing that would actually kind of move the needle for them as a business? And the one thing I heard that was honestly still sticks with me these days is this key quote.

10:49It was, I don't need more tools. I need tools to talk to each other. So it was this idea that having multiple tools like an email platform or an SMS platform or a social platform, whatever it was, are all great and you need that and you have to have it. But if they're not speaking to each other, it's actually triple, double, triple the work of an individual, right? So we found, or I found in my research, that about 86 % of our customer base were already using SMS in some other platform, in some other way, whether it be transactional SMS or marketing SMS or anything like that. It was very, very fragmented based on their needs.

11:33And I think this allowed me to reframe the MailChimp differentiation away from like strictly features. And this is what we have. And you can do this in MailChimp. But it was more towards the platform, right? So we were able to say, you know, not only can you do email and SMS and MailChimp, but it's connected to your automations, connected to your contact profiles. It's connected to all your existing data that you've had before, right? So I was able to understand and listen to our customers and bring that voice of the customer directly into those roadmap conversations. And what it did was allow us to actually shift the priorities of our product roadmap away from that standalone integration or standalone add-on of SMS, but actually integrate SMS into the platform, right?

12:24So unified data, unified automations, which MailChimp was huge on, and customer journeys. And then even the thing that I think is the kicker and that we heard so much about in those interviews was the unified reporting. So being able to see, based on your spend, especially from email and SMS perspective, what is actually working and what's not working. And if you had two disparate systems, you're going to have to do the same work twice and not really see how they overlap with each other. So that was the big, big thing that I was able to bring to the table and actually push the product and the company narrative towards.

13:00It was a very interesting time, for sure. I love that. And I have to just pause for a second and go back to something, just the process that you just outlaid and the action that you and the team that you're working with took. And you mentioned that you did customer research and you were interviewing customers. And I think it's really important to note that what you ask customers, the literal questions you ask are so important. And this is where you can't just copy and paste from an AI tool. You need to be so thoughtful about what you ask and why you're asking it. Because that's how you got that meaningful quote that completely changed the trajectory of this entire initiative.

13:46So I think that's just so important. It's truly a... Knowing what to ask or knowing how to frame questions when you're talking to customers is a big thing. I don't necessarily like leading customers in the way that I think that they should go. And you can do that by asking questions that you think that they would like or that you think the answer will be good for what you want. But it's really about kind of opening up the floor. And I think what I found is when you ask people to talk about themselves, their business, whatever it is, they like to speak and they will just give you exactly what you need and exactly what works for them.

14:28And that is such a huge, impactful and insightful data points that you as a PMM can bring to the table because no one else is really asking those questions. You know, UX research, sure. But like, it's really how someone is using the product for their business or how the business would be better with the product that you're working with. It's such an interesting thing and super, super important to really nail down those questions, but also leave it open to let them talk to you explicitly. Yeah, so smart. Okay, so take us to the end. You had this really strong narrative that you developed after doing all this wonderful research.

15:10How did the results turn out for the company? It was truly amazing, I think, for a variety of reasons. One, in the first year or 18 months, I would say we launched SMS in 12 countries. And those are like 12 major countries, US, Australia, UK, Canada, all these major countries worldwide. And then by the time I left, we had launched in 37 countries, which I mentioned, which is honestly, in about two and a half to three years time was an amazing feat because there are a lot of specific things that require regulation and compliance issues within each country. So doing it in 37 countries was an amazing feat.

15:51That led to about 300 % growth in revenue in year two. And then in year three, which was my last year at MailChimp. We were looking at 200 % growth in revenue year over year, which is exciting. And at that point, it had become the fastest growing product at MailChimp. I think by the time that I started in 2017, MailChimp had been around for 17 years. So coming in and being able to launch a product such as SMS and messaging explicitly at MailChimp and to see it grow was super gratifying, but also just indicative of what the market needed. So that progression and that actual growth of the product changed MailChimp's trajectory as a company.

16:38And the idea of multi-channel, so email and SMS, became a company-wide priority. They saw the value, they being leadership, they being the company, saw the value in incorporating SMS in the way that email was with MailChimp, right? So if you think about MailChimp, you should be able to think about SMS and email in the same light, and they should be able to do the same things, right? So not only that, from a product standpoint, did it influence that, it actually influenced the broader company narrative and strategy as a whole on how we should go to market going forward, how we should evolve the company narrative and the brand narrative, both from a product perspective, but also outside with our customers and prospects.

17:21So anytime we showed up in front of customers now, it was email and SMS. It was not just email. So very, I'd say lucky and successful for sure. But it was a fun ride, to say the least. Yeah. What a fantastic story. I have so many things that I want to focus on. But the biggest thing is... I don't even know if this is the biggest thing. But one of the things that stuck out to me was you turned something that was initially an add-on. I mean, you said it at the beginning, like the first or the number one email tool. Now with SMS, like literally an add-on. And it took time. This took time. But you were able to completely change how the company saw itself and influence the entire company narrative.

18:13And you have the results to prove that this was the right move for the company. Even though you were not the first mover in the SMS space, you didn't come in... Well, maybe initially you came in looking like, hey, here's our add-on. Now you are a more serious player. And you came in super differentiated. So this is such a great case study, such a great story. So let's put it together in a playbook. Let's say that I'm a PMM, I'm listening to this case study right now. And I'm like, hey, I'm experiencing something similar where I'm a PMM responsible for essentially an add-on to my company's marquee flagship product.

18:54But I think there's something bigger here. How do I try to follow in your footsteps and make a big impact for my company in the same way, or at least aspiring to in the same way that you did? What's the first step? Yeah, absolutely. This is going to be fun. So step one, I think for my case, and I think something that is super necessary and easy to do for a lot of PMMs out there is audit what your platform already owns. So this is, I think, a move that most people don't necessarily do before really going to market or they miss when they're launching a new product because they're in a hurry. They want to get something out.

19:36They need to. They got to write the positioning. got to get the messaging out there. But before you do anything else, you need to take stock of what your company already has at that point, like that a solution or a point solution provider cannot compete with. You really need to understand your moat as a platform or as a business. And so for us at MailChimp, it was the contact list. It was your audience list. It was the automation logic and the actual tools to be able to automate your marketing efforts. And then the customer relationship, right? It was all already built, already trusted by 12 million businesses.

20:14SMS didn't need to win on its own. It just needed to plug into what we already owned. And that's a completely different competitive conversation when it comes down to it. That's even a completely different narrative exercise. Because initially, what most PMMs would do, which is not wrong. It's what we've all been trained to do as PMMs is, okay, go build the positioning. Okay, go build the narrative. And then later, which I guess is what MailChimp did as well, but later, okay, now what's our platform story? But somebody else is owning that and you still own your single lane product. But I love the way that you're explaining this is to as part of that initial positioning and work is to audit what you own and figure out how this product fits into that.

21:10It never occurred to me to do that. I think that's... The idea here is hindsight is 20-20, right? For me, right? And so I think that is 100 % something that I learned doing this and have to remember all the time, right? I think that we can, PMMs can be in such a reactive spot that we not knowingly or not willingly forget to do X, Y, or Z, but we need to get something done. And I think being able to take a second, this doesn't take long to do. It's really like just understanding what you have already. And I think doing that, yeah, like you said, MailChimp didn't do that first. And I think this is where what I learned and what was a great opportunity for anyone listening is a base level thing to do.

22:04Step one, just take that audit and understand it. Because if you do, it'll help your narrative in the future. It'll help you fold in your products narrative into the other narratives that are going around or the umbrella a narrative of your brand, but also allow you to ladder up to that, but then maybe shift it, right? Based on how you're seeing it and how you're going to market or how you're seeing your customers engage with this or how they're not engaging with it too, right? I think that is also just a great opportunity to really lean in and just get that base level understanding of how everything is and take that audit so that you can ultimately influence things going forward for sure.

22:45You know what else I really love about this step is that it's part of that context gathering that I think is so important, but it's the context that most PMMs, I mean, I didn't, admittedly. I never did that. Most PMMs don't do that. I don't need to gather the context of my own company because I'm going to have that as part of my messaging and positioning, but it's kind of like an app really because your messaging positioning becomes more about that single lane product that you own. And the why us part is always an afterthought on a slide. You know what I mean? It's very rarely part of the broader narrative.

23:20When I think of the context gathering, I think of more like, what's happening in the market? What's happening with my customers? I don't think about doing this audit. No, that's 100 % correct. And I think the thing that I'm seeing is a lot of companies these days and a lot of PMMs are very siloed in what they do and what they own. And so honestly, doing this audit like this honestly just opens you up to do more of what your product marketing function can do internally too. You are a visionary in that you are seeing that it's not just your product. Obviously, product marketers, we love our products, that's for sure.

23:58But it's not just your product in the whole story. And being able to audit it and take a look at the whole picture is such an important thing to do. And honestly, just sets you up for so much success going forward and such like more internal kind of like trust building opportunities too. I know that's like, seems very random, but it is a great chance to like expound on your thinking that you as a product marketer are doing this, that or the other to support not only your product, but how the company itself and the brand itself shows up. So super important. Yeah, such a great reminder. Okay. So step one is to do that audit.

24:36What's step two? So it is to understand that a little bit, right? So have that mindset going into this step two is the best thing here. I think step two is then going into research with that open hypothesis, right? And the word open is doing a lot of work here explicitly, but I didn't go in to my research with a deck to validate. Or I didn't go in at the beginning with, here's some messaging. Can you tell me what resonates or what doesn't resonate? I went in genuinely not knowing what I'd find. So the question that I kept asking wasn't, would you use SMS if we built it? Or would you use SMS more if we built these features?

25:20It was walk me through how you reach customers today when something is time sensitive or when you have a deal, depending on the type of customer. When you have a Mother's Day deal coming up, how do you get your product in front of your customers and how do you engage with them? And then I just shut up. I've learned that that insight that you can get from those opportunities or those types of questions, actually, that's when actual useful information comes out is when a customer is just describing their day. They're explicitly just talking about how they do their job. That's when you hear the true frustrations.

26:01That's when you hear, I have to go to three different tools just to do one thing or just to look at all of my metrics. right? Like that's some key insight that we were able to take, but also for anything that you're working with from a product marketing perspective, that's when the real like tangible nuggets come out for sure. So this like open hypothesis that you're describing, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. Is there a formula for like writing what that looks like or like framing the question. And I guess if you were to remove the context of MailChimp, how would you build that open hypothesis of walk me through?

26:43Is it kind of like a day in a life type of question for a customer? I think that open, and I mean open really as a, I'm not asking really pointed questions about whatever it is I'm asking about. It is like those answers to those questions. like for instance, again, for SMS, it's like an opportunity to dig in on where there are gaps. Right. And I think that's, that's something you're not explicitly asking where a gap is in your day to day, because if somebody asked me that, I would be like, I have no idea. Like, I really can't tell you, but here's my day. And then you as that product marketer, if you leave it open enough and have that mindset of I'm listening for gaps too, like that is where the good nuggets come out is because you're not explicitly asking someone what the problem is or what can we do to help you do this.

27:39But it is tell me where you have problems now or tell me about your day and we'll identify some problems together. It is really about just honestly creating a space for people to open up a little bit about whatever it is that they need to talk about. And that alone just gives people just like, oh, you know what? That actually sucks on a day basis. And that's like key insight. So really trying to go in there and give people this platform or the stage to actually talk versus just answering questions, yes or no, or whatever. That's really when it comes into play. And I think that's what I mean by open is allowing these people to just speak and talk normally versus I'm being interviewed by some tech company about how I use FMS, right?

28:27Yeah. I'm going to come back to something that came up in the first step, and that was still this context gathering that I'm seeing. And I want to be very explicit and say context gathering, because what you're saying is not to give them context of, for example, here's my message and give me a reaction. You're not doing that. You're still gathering that information in step two, like gathering this context from them about their day-to-day so that you can go through and identify the gaps. Absolutely. I think that's such a key point. And we'll get into this, I think. But coming up, it's like, those are the things that you as a product marketer, if you can get that context, if you can get that insight, that just preserves and expands your place at the table from a product development, product roadmap, product strategy perspective.