Braze VP of Product Marketing, Kelsey Nelson on Growth Product Marketing

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome back to season six of the Product Marketing Experts podcast. I am really excited today to have Kelsey Nelson, the VP of Product Marketing at Braze, with me. Welcome to the podcast, Kelsey. Can you share a little bit more about yourself and your journey into product marketing?

Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I had an interesting journey, actually, into product marketing, which I think kind of tells you a little bit more about me in general. I actually started my career as a teacher, so I was a classroom teacher, taught seventh and eighth grade, and then moved into startup pr, which was kind of a fun transition. You get to go to the bathroom whenever you want when you work in corporate America, which is pretty exciting. Not, uh, true when you're a classroom teacher, but it was an interesting reflection on when I taught English to middle schoolers. Not everyone loved English class, but it was a lot about my thesis for my class is you can have the best ideas in the world. If you can't explain them to anyone, no one's going to know. And it was a really interesting then, um, journey to go work with startups and do PR for them, because it was the same idea, right? You're helping startup founders tell their ideas to the world. But I got very excited getting to understand why they built things and having a point of view on the market. And what I love about product marketing is it takes the magic of that storytelling and being able to take those great ideas, but marries it with business strategy and product strategy. And so you get kind of to sit at that intersection of how am I articulating this great story, but also how am I helping to shape the story from the beginning? And so I, uh, had the privilege of getting to make that transition while I was at Okta and now get to spread my wings in a totally different market. So cybersecurity to Martech with Braze and it's been amazing and I feel very fortunate to have had that opportunity.

Speaker B: That's amazing. And Braze is truly an incredible platform. We were chatting just before hitting record here how we come from very similar spaces at least. And there's a lot to love about Braze and everything that you and the product marketing team at Braze are doing. And speaking of kind of your answer just now, and storytelling and strategy and the intersection of some of those components, Braze itself helps empower growth teams and product teams and companies at large to power their growth. And so how do you think about that from a, uh, product marketing perspective? How do you define kind of growth product marketing and how is that maybe different in some ways than traditional, quote unquote, product marketing?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of the fun parts of product marketing is that there isn't. I was actually just on a call with my leads. We were talking about, you know, what makes a great PMM at different levels of seniority. And one of the beauties of it is that it can vary so much. And also that's really exciting because we can have such diverse talent within your teams. We have some folks who lean more technically and some folks who are really strong, even stronger storytellers and creatives. And having that group come together to really bring to life the product and the go to market is the magic of our jobs. And so I think of growth product marketing as sort of maybe a new muscle or an uh, expanded muscle that PMMs are building. Less a net new function and more kind of what, you know. You know, you're chatting a little bit beforehand around Martech, but it's, there's a lot of change happening in marketing right now. And it's a lot more unsurprising that there's a lot more data available than ever before that informs marketing programs and that, you know, it's not just us, uh, putting out assets into the world or driving enablement. We get a lot more feedback, which is great, and we get a lot more data that informs our messaging and that informs our strategies. And growth is really just a muscle within that context that says, hey, if you're trying to drive a really specific goal, whether it's driving net new acquisitions, a lot of times growth is tied to a product LED growth or a PLG motion. It absolutely can be. But that same muscle and that same idea of being able to say, hey, what new data do I have that informs where customers are in their journey and how do I help progress them through that funnel can apply anywhere, can apply to any product at any stage of maturity. It's just, how can you apply that in a way that makes sense for where your product is in its journey?

Speaker B: Absolutely couldn't agree more. And I mean, you mentioned marketing at uh, large is changing quite a bit now. Product marketing is certainly changing a lot as well. The amount of data as you mentioned we have has grown tremendously curious how you like, sort through some of the signal to the noise there to find the right stories to tell to the market, to identify the important points for your audience and that the product marketing team needs to kind of hone in on.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, that's a big question. With great data comes great responsibility There's a lot more. I just coined that right now. I'm going to roll with it, Jeff. But, uh, yes, we sit at that intersection right between the go to market organization, the product, and then the market itself. And so I try to look at it through those diverse lenses. And so what do we know about, for example, heading into our annual planning this year? We've done this in years past. What do we know about trends that we're seeing in our own go to market? Where are their friction points with certain products? If it's a product that's really one that drives a lot of stickiness and, uh, opportunities for upsell, where are folks getting stuck in adoption? Where are they seeing more usage that we should be lean in more, that might be an indicator of a new use case or a new Persona that we can start to go investigate. Where are we seeing challenges from a competitive standpoint or from maybe there's product gaps that we need to go identify. So that's kind of within your own go to market and your own product maturity. I think there's a lot you can tell based on how customers are using your products and maybe where they're running into challenges. So that's one big bucket. I also, again, I came originally from a PR background, so I'd love to see what's, uh, out there. There's certainly doing research on your ICP and what do your particular customers care and what are they talking about in the market? So going to their watering holes, I can make help you synthesize these insights a lot faster and a lot more efficiently, which is helpful. But you still have to go do the work and figure out where the watering holes are. Right. And what they're saying and why they're saying it and ask a lot of questions. And I also encourage folks to look at totally different industries. What are they doing? What are they doing that could apply to your space? Actually, I think really fun about our unique space in Martech is that I get to be on the forefront of amazing marketing programs. What are they doing? And whether it's controversial or not, there's a learning there and there's a lot that's happening recently that's controversial. You know, everything from. I'm sure you've seen the recent rebrand this week of a major car manufacturer that's been a little more contentious. Love it or hate it, there's so much that's interesting that's happening in the market and also in technology or business in general that I think we can and should be bringing into our point of view because that's so it drives that true thought leadership and that true where the market could be going.

Speaker B: I completely agree. And that open anonymous conversation about where marketing is today, where setting what's working, what whatever others are trying is so valuable even outside of just the space you in are in, whether it's for uh, those listening, whether it's Martech or something totally different. It's so useful to look across, you know, industries and verticals so to speak to see what's working and what's not across spaces.

Speaker A: And I think the beauty of it right now is because there's more data, we have a lot more opportunity to try something weird and see what happens. Maybe it'll work and get that feedback loop going and saying hey, this might have surprised you. Certainly don't go, you know, I would make informed bets on some of these tests. Maybe don't totally go crazy. Well I don't know you could see but I think the beauty of this feedback loop on the more data that we have is that you can start to see, hey, I'm getting signal. But this is actually driving more traction than maybe even we anticipated. Let's go chase this down a little bit more. This idea of a hallucination being a bad thing with AI is actually maybe it's good for us. Uh, let's see what else we can come up with. I think there's a lot more there and a lot of opportunity regardless of which industry you are to take some of these trends and really put them into practice and bring that feedback loop because you now have it on a more real time than we've ever had before.

Speaker B: Poor. How do you think about empowering your team to make some of those informed leaps, so to speak and to test things or maybe outside of the box I guess. Like how do you build space for them to do it and how do you empower them to do it? Because I for a lot of product marketing teams that is a little uncomfortable to step out and try something totally net new or totally different than what the rest of the team or the rest of the company for that matter might be doing.

Speaker A: I mean you add that kind of discomfort plus the never ending list of asks that a great premium gets and prioritization is hard, right? Like how do I build space into my day to set, Hey, I need to have an hour to be weird and think about, I don't know, what else is Coca Cola doing with their Gen AI holiday ads? What can I learn from that? What can I learn from the crazy Things happening in certain industry here. And so, uh, one we do just make it a part of our like about we were just actually reviewing our career ladder for the next year and thinking about how do we want to make sure we're supporting the team and amplifying qualities that we think are really valuable as they're progressing their careers and making sure that they have that one as a dedicated. Part of. This is your charter. This is a part of if you are going to be successful, you're going to need to be driving more and more and that means asking more and more questions and that's naturally going to unlock more and more creativity. So we do make it a part of the career ladder here. That's something that we're going to ask for if you're going to become a more senior pmm. And then also that I think especially for folks who are earlier in their careers in pmm, that prioritization part is really hard. And so helping them get that space to prioritize some time to be thinking creatively, whether it's specifically with a particular launch. You have a playbook, but where is the right place to break the play or where's the right place to stretch it out a little bit and really push them on some of these places to coach them on. Where are places that you can start to think differently? That way they have that muscle and then as they get further along that they have that space that is just naturally built into some of their work cycles.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I love how you're thinking about that for your team and yourself for that matter, to build in space to allow that time to be a little weird, to try something out of the box, but while maintaining that kind of growth path and building it into the infrastructure. Because it's so easy to get a million priorities, you know, uh, an ask from sales or a net new launch coming from product or whatever the case may be, and then to deprioritize that. But to build it into the kind of infrastructure, so to speak, means that it will always be there.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's no shortage of things we can be doing. But I think that's the fun part is when you can start to see and unlock those ways of doing it differently. Those are often the more impactful ways. But it is hard to sometimes just get your head above water so that you can have that capacity to think. It's really important.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. How do you think about taking some of those opportunities and collaborating, uh, cross functionally effectively with the rest of the marketing team and the product team? And so forth. How do you think about taking some of those experimentation opportunities, some of those regular opportunities for that matter and leveraging the data to power some of that cross functional.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is where some of that growth muscle we talked about at the beginning can really help set you up for success. So if you were to go into a cross functional endeavor or initiative being really clear on what are we trying to achieve, what is the specific outcome? I would say it's an outcome and it's not uh, necessarily an activity. So a launch is a moment in time for a product. It is not an outcome. Right. An outcome is I'm trying to drive more customer acquisition, I'm trying to improve retention rates, I'm trying to drive adoption. And if you can have a specific, this is what we're trying to see that the impact that we're trying to drive, then we can start to meet with the cross functional teams and say, hey, adoption is here. This is where we're seeing the current roadblocks. It might be a pretty straightforward, hey, there's a product gap that's going to help us unlock this. It could be that there's an awareness challenge. If there's an awareness challenge, yeah, let's get creative. Like obviously what we're doing is it working because it's, we have an awareness challenge. So what can we do that's different? How can I work with my demand gen partners to maybe a b test some new strategy to bring in more idea, to bring in more awareness or to bring in more pipeline or can I help equip sellers with a different way to talk through this? That's where you can start to have some fun with it. And so that's where I think that growth muscle becomes really, really important. It's what unlocks that ability to be more creative for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And the foundational market knowledge and product knowledge and company level knowledge is so important to doing that. And you talked a little bit about getting creative there and working with cross functional partners and maybe I just want to double click on that one step further. How do you think about iterating on that strategy over time and maybe leveraging some of those insights, seeing something you know is on or off track and kind of adjusting as the trains are in motion, so to speak.

Speaker A: Yeah, this is actually we're chatting about this in context of goal setting and about okrs or KPI, whatever language you put to this, which is, let's say you set a big goal to improve adoption but you're not hitting it or you're not on track to hit it. Is there a fear there? Oh my gosh, what do I have to do? Or is there a hey, we set a big target, how are we going to. Rather than having this like shut down fear to. I think that is where collaboration starts to erode and then it becomes a more of an urgent, hey, oh my gosh, what else can I do? And so I think that's where collaboration, the difference of how the team comes together to solve that challenge and to achieve that goal is. That's where I think the importance of how we bring together these teams to iterate. And so having that one really clear, hey, we're going to go after this big goal, let's have some check ins along the way. And if we're not achieving what we want to achieve, how can you keep that attitude of experimentation and a culture of experimentation? That's where I think it's easier said than done. But as a leader especially, it's your responsibility and your opportunity to say, hey, we're going to set a big goal and I want to see experimentation. And just because it's working well, it could work better. If it's not working, then certainly let's change course. But having that constant culture of let's make some change and making sure that everyone is comfortable with that, it's easier said than done. But if you can, that's what really drives those big results.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. What about for product marketers that are, you know, potentially looking to join your team or that you've worked with in the past? What are some skills or mindset shifts that you've helped empower, whether it's at an individual level or team level that you'd say are important to ensuring your team thrives in that mode to like test things out to empower growth, to, you know, take that leap, like, so to speak?

Speaker A: Yeah. One thing I look for when I'm hiring is someone who's a great storyteller. I think that's a foundation. It doesn't matter what industry you come from. I mean, I've worked in cyber security in the past. I now work in marketing. You could come from manufacturing or consumer package. Good. But if you have really excellent storytelling skills, that's gonna give you a great foundation. Agnostic, if you have industry expertise on top of that cherry. But this is like baseline, what I'd love to see. But I also think demonstrating a hunger for learning is really important because that's that culture of experimentation. If you're constantly someone who's going out and learning and who wants to try new things. I know I mentioned AI once or twice. We had to do it at least once. Right. So it's a tech.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: But, uh, someone on my team, he was telling us there's a new gen AI background on Google Meet, he actually had like a unicorn on there. I hope he listens to this later. And then. But anyway, it was like a dystopian unicorn. And we're like, what is. But they're just constantly trying new things. They want to see what's out there, they want to explore people who want to try and learn. Those are the people who have a more natural affinity to experimentation and also that have a more natural affinity. I think this is something that will help carry you to more senior levels for accountability. I guess maybe it's not accountability, but just wanting to see something through that someone who has that drive to say, hey, my product is doing well, but this is where it can do better. And uh, that's because I've seen something over here that's really interesting. So those are probably two of the foundational things that I look for, is that great storytelling and that ability demonstrated hunger to learn. The rest. You can. You'll figure it out.

Speaker B: Absolutely. That's amazing. One question I ask of all my guests and would love to get your take on is for product marketers looking or listening to this podcast who maybe are aspiring to get into the function or who are aspiring to grow or take that next step in their career, whatever the case may be, whatever you, uh, know, step, step of the journey everyone is on. Are there any, like, books or podcasts or blogs that you recommend to folks that maybe have helped you out in your career or that you've just recommended a lot or really enjoyed?

Speaker A: Oh gosh. We were talking about this before we hit record and I was admitting that because I spend a lot of my day reading things to just learn and explore. I read mostly fantasy, uh, and sci fi in my spare time. So I'll say most of the books that I read that are business related are more about collaboration and careers. So things like Unapologetically Ambitious by Shelley Archambeau is a really interesting one. I found one that's the Patrick Lencioni books around different styles of collaboration. I will also admit that I love all of those workplace surveys that they do or personality assessments that help you inform where you are, but also then say, hey, this is how we might collaborate better. 1. I just think they're fun because I think I'm a millennial and I like buzzfeed quizzes, but also I think they're informative on how we can build our roles are so collaborative and cross functional. You have to figure out the. You've asked a bunch of questions on collaboration today and I think the crux of this work is being able to rally folks and get people unified behind. This is going to be a great idea, I promise. Or well, at least if it's not, we'll go figure out. We'll iterate on it. Right. And so a lot of the books that I spend time on are ones on how do I improve collaboration and make sure that I'm setting up a great culture and a great team for experimentation and for growth.

Speaker B: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Kelsey for being with me today. Any final words or anything you want to plug for where folks can maybe find anything you're publishing?

Speaker A: Oh, gosh, I don't know that I have a place where I'm publishing things. Find me on LinkedIn or on Sharebird. I have lots of responses there. Yeah. In all seriousness though, this has been really great. Thank you so much for the time and um, really enjoyed the conversation.

Speaker B: Me too. Thank you. This show is produced by sharebird, a, uh, site where leaders from top companies share their expertise. Our mission is to make the best product marketing content knowledge accessible to all. Get the latest tips and best practices@sharebird.com.