2215 - Standing Out in a Crowded Market: Product Marketing Strategies with BoldPMM’s Gal Ko

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments.

0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:05With us right now, it's Gal Ko. Gal, you are the founder and CEO of Bold PMM. You're found on the web at boldpmm.com. Gal, it's great to have you. Thank you, Josh. It's good to be here. I'm kind of chuckling to myself because sometimes I start the podcast coming in a little hot. And I noticed you just turning down your headphones a little bit. No, no, actually. I don't blame you. And that is the standard listener activity when they start playing the thoughtful entrepreneur, I think. Oh, here comes Josh. His volume is a little bit higher than most. Hey, Gal, before we get going, tell me about what have you been doing lately for fun?

1:53Or what have you been watching or gaming, listening to? What have you been geeking out on lately? so lately and it goes way back because it's not only lately yeah i'm a surfer that's how i met my wife actually between the waves um i just saw a lady pretty lady with a surfboard um trying to get some waves and went to her and asked her if she does need any help and since then we're nine years together we've been living in the gold coast in surfers paradise and we've been surfing since then but nowadays I'm in Tel Aviv for a holiday and a vacation and they actually opened up a big wave garden now I don't know if you know wave garden it is the Kelly Slater who is like the poor surfer he's invested in this technology of like a train thing that runs in the water and create epic waves and they have like 32 different levels of waves that you can order so while being here, they only opened.

2:58So I've decided to hop on it and just go there with my wife. And it was incredible. I never served anything like this before. You know, when you're surfing, it must be difficult to think about anything else, like stresses of the world, you know, maybe an argument you may have had, something that you're stressing out about work. My guess is that when you're up on a board you're not thinking about any of that stuff no nothing it's a total focus um at that wave garden it was a bit different because it's a wave garden in the middle of the city um but usually it's out in nature you're disconnected the only thing that you do is you chase the thrill you go up you catch a wave you fall eventually you fall you will always fall you know that's the way it is.

3:49But the thrill of catching the wave and having it and surfing all the length of the wave. You get a good ride. Oh, God, it's intoxicating when you get a good long ride. It is. You know, we don't get near the waves here in Florida. But, you know, on a small scale, you know, every once in a while you can catch a good, but it is, it's just such a joy. So Gal, let's talk about your work. Your website is boldpmm.com, which stands for product marketing. Share just a little bit about the work you do. Sure, no worries. So what am I doing? What I do is I've actually created a one-man business of doing product marketing.

4:39The situation was this. I was out of job for more than six months trying to apply. I actually applied for 300 different jobs and got six to the final level after all their home assignment and all of those kind of things that they make you do when you're trying to apply for a high-tech company or a startup company. And eventually didn't get a job. So I've decided to flip the coin and flip the ball or flip the table and decided to go alone on writing solo and trying to attract the clients, which are the companies, to come work with me. So I've created some sort of a productized service, which is product marketing.

5:23the whole role, the whole, everything that a product marketer does for the company, just on a subscription level, one task at a time. So that is actually how I started. Yeah. Well, give us, for those of us who are not in the product marketing world, do you mind giving us just a little bit? Listen, I can only speak for being in the United States right now. there's a lot of uncertainty. And I don't want to say a whole lot more than that. That's my take on it. And again, by the time this publishes, who knows? But that said, from a global perspective, Gal, would you mind maybe just giving us a state of the union of where we are in product marketing?

6:11Okay, so to sum it up, because that's not the only thing I do. Actually, from there, I've, you know, working with clients, I figured out some other pain points to address as well. But to sum it up, product marketing is PMM. They tell the story of the company to the market and they've decided where market should it be? What is the go to market strategy? How would we launch this product? What are the values that are going to attract the client? All of those kind of things. And also, obviously, visual storytelling, you know, showing rather than just telling. So that is the main focus of Product Marketing Manager.

7:03Now, it varies because different companies have different amount of product marketers. and some can work in a guild of product marketers and some may work in small teams with only product manager, sales, SDR, for example, sales development representative and customer success, for example, just to feel the pain, feel the audience, feel the clients and pick up on that. So, yeah. Yeah. And Gal, what would you say are the biggest things that are stressing out your clients right now? So, working in the industry here, the startup industry in Israel, because that is where I'm actually from. I live now in Portugal, but I'm from Israel.

7:56We got a cold reality now for the B2B marketing. now you know your buyers are overwhelmed and ads are ignored and the linkedin post because it works on a certain algorithm that not allowing you to get and spread so if you create an organic content it will not go to your right clients your icp for example so i've actually developed a method for my clients to reach the audience in the USA because most Israeli startups are trying obviously to go to the US market because that's the biggest market. That's where you want to be. Investors want you to be there. That's where you'll get the most amount of businesses, leads, clients, all of those kinds of things that you want because obviously Israel is a small country.

8:55always want to penetrate the USA. So I've decided to go ahead and tackle this. And how did I tackle this? I've decided to go ahead and create some offer for my client to go and speak on five different podcasts of their industry for the American audience to listen. And why podcasts?

9:27so the thing is if we go by stats um in terms of c-suite penetration in terms of how many um you know people that make the call and actually are the ones that drive the business how many of them actually listen to podcasts it some some resources actually say that 83 percent of executives allocate four hours a week to listen to podcasts. Now, out of those people that actually listen to podcasts, more than 60 % of the people are going to apply some strategies and things that they've learned on the podcast with their strategy, with their company, with their role. So it is an incredible way to actually deliver a message for a company and get, you know, get the leader, get the founder and speak about the story of the company.

10:25Speak about the pain points, speak about all of the solution that you've created and how you help people and how other people can tackle the same pain points that you solve. And I think that it is priceless to actually be there and speak in front of an audience. but it's not an audience because people can actually opt in and listen anytime they want and do it on shows that already have the right listeners, the right industry, the right, let's say, executives that are listening to them. So it is crazy. And obviously, you can also repurpose that and create posts on LinkedIn and, you know, even promote it.

11:07and um for our friends that are listening right now um uh i guess in terms of the future like if if you're and a lot of this may be going to what you've been talking about already but if we're thinking about what lies ahead what do you think like looking in your crystal ball what do you think 2026 is going to be like what do you think 2027 is going to be like so 2026 and 2027 i know that good luck uh but here you go good luck 2026 and 2027 so actually i do have some predictions oh um and those predictions are based on um some information that i might have um from big companies and stuff like that i would say that that some companies will change actually their main purpose.

12:03I would say, so for example, if we'll take some platform that are doing short form video and only like some sort of reels stuff, they would actually implement some sort of a search engine monetization platform as well within their platform. So they will take some chunk out of Google, for example. That is something that is going to happen and it's going to happen soon. So, yeah, I would say that companies, big companies, big tech companies would try to compete with each other on the same values and on the same use cases for the users. That is going to be hectic. and we will see that obviously entering GPT to the conversation, you know, it just changed everything in terms of organic content, organic also traffic to your website, all of the search engine optimization ways and all of those kinds of things are actually going to be disrupted.

13:14So, yeah, I would say that eventually stories go on and if you have a good story and you know how to actually deliver it in any place, it could be E-X, it could be Twitter, it could be LinkedIn, it could be any platform that you choose. If you have a good story, you're still going to get the audience and the engagement and whatever it is that you desire. How do you, Gal, how do you work with folks? I know you've been talking a little bit about directly, but I'm looking at your website. It's boldpmm.com. And, you know, I really enjoying looking just at your recent work and a lot of your, you know, just your examples of the work that you've done.

14:02But do you mind maybe just talking very specifically about what engagement looks like with you? How do you kind of scope your work out? And, you know, what are kind of those initial steps to get started? To get started with what? Or with potentially working, like if you have a client. So a lot of folks, I was just saying, here's why a lot of folks find this podcast because they're searching for you. Like we generally rank pretty well, you know, because we've been around for a while. So a lot of people searching for Galco find this podcast, listen, they're already in the consideration stage. So now they're kind of thinking, okay, what could this look like?

14:43Amazing. So let me tell you what, I actually came prepared for this question. And I do have a step-by-step playbook on how to get as a guest on your right show. And that is like the most impactful thing that I can give to your audience and listeners, because actually I came here the same way. So that is the case, to get and deliver the value. So the first thing that I would suggest our listeners is to create a professional speaker profile. Now, using this profile, it helps you to position you as an expert. Obviously, if you'll have some sort of a landing page, maybe a Canva page that you've designed with your biography, with your latest achievements, with your latest appearance on social media, for example.

15:40you know to get to get the vibes delivered and to get the podcasters listen to you as well and maybe judge if you're good fit for the show and also to include topics that you can discuss on so that is the first step to create a professional speaker profile the second step is actually finding the perfect podcast now I know that you Josh have a lot of experience in finding the right match between podcasts and guests. So obviously going to Josh, maybe also help you out with it. Well, maybe, maybe I'm more on the other side. We've launched a couple of hundred podcasts. I can tell you what we love, but we'll save that for another conversation.

16:30Yeah, so I would say that finding the perfect podcast, all you have to do nowadays, and it is totally free, is to go on listennotes.com and search for the podcast of your industry and look for past guest episodes, see if the show actually do include guests because some shows aren't. And some shows actually can charge money for being a guest and just keep that in mind. I don't like that. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of that. I mean, listen, you can do what you want, podcasters. As long as you're up front on that stuff. So, hey, Gal, your website, boldpmm.com, someone goes to your website, what would you recommend they do?

17:16Well, they got an image down there with me saying hi. So if you click it and write something, it would go straight to my mobile phone. And I can actually speak with you live. And if I'm not available, maybe I'm surfing. You can just type down your mail there and I can come back to you quite shortly. And yeah, that would be the best recommendation because I can help you out for sure. Excellent. All right. Galco, founder, CEO, Bold PMM. Again, Bold Product Marketing found on the web at boldpmm.com. Gal, it's been a great conversation. Thank you for joining us. Amazing. Thank you, Josh.

18:06Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

18:47I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

19:29I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening. And thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.