Tell Engaging Stories Like a PushPay PMM
There are two types of product marking. With one, you have conventional PMMs executing safe, formulaic campaigns. They lean on standard corporate templates, sterile product descriptions, and stock photography that blends into the background. With the second, you find strategic PMMs who view creative storytelling as an operational muscle. They push past boring, surface-level benefits to create genuine, emotionally resonant connections with their audience. Most marketers start out in the comfortable, stuffy camp. The most impactful ones aggressively outgrow it.
Today’s episode delivers a practical breakdown on breaking away from typical B2B monotony. We dive deep into how a market leader injected highly creative storytelling, skit-style videos, and humor into a traditionally risk-averse industry. He did this all without sacrificing buyer trust or crossing regulatory boundaries.
I could not ask for a better guest to walk us through this transformation than Stefan Gladbach. Stefan is a veteran product marketer with over eight years of experience spanning multiple industries. Currently, he drives product marketing at Pushpay, the dominant player in the church tech space. When Stefan arrived, he was confronted with an industry landscape defined by safe cliches and indistinguishable messaging. By systematically shifting their strategy toward bold, humanized content, he unlocked spikes in digital engagement and conversion rates. Stefan is also widely recognized on LinkedIn for his uniquely entertaining, slightly unhinged videos that prove B2B marketing can be genuinely fun.
Rebuilding B2B Content Strategies From Safe to Bold
Stefan walked through his systematic approach to transforming Pushpay's content ecosystem. It didn't involve an immediate, chaotic overhaul. He started by conducting rigorous competitive research, noting that switching logos between market rivals revealed zero true differentiation. He then aligned his early strategic roadmap around securing quick, low-risk wins to establish baseline internal credibility.
His core advice is deeply practical. Avoid shocking your audience or your internal executive stakeholders all at once. Instead, deploy micro-experiments to gradually increase the creative temperature. This is a tactic he compares to the "frog in a boiling pot" analogy.
A major pillar of this turnaround was evolving simple, stagnant talking-head videos into kinetic whiteboard drawings and narrative skits. Stefan also heavily prioritized building an informal feedback loop with a core group of trusted customers. This customer council serves as a built-in message-testing playground, ensuring their boldest creative campaigns remain respectful and highly accurate.
Steps to Crafting Impactful Content Playbooks
Throughout our conversation, Stefan outlined five repeatable steps any product marketer can take to move their content from boring to bold:
Deeply Understand Your Customer: Go beyond basic demographic charts. Spend time on sales calls, attend live events, and run wacky ideas by a select group of close customers to build a localized message-testing system.
Turn Up the Heat Gradually: Never force a radical creative shift overnight. Start small with modest format tweaks, rack up clear metric successes, and build internal "street cred" before pitching advanced concepts.
Prepare to Handle Objections: Anticipate pushback regarding brand guidelines and status-quo resistance. Confidently stand your ground by backing up your creative direction with empirical performance metrics gathered during initial tests.
Collaborate Closely Across Marketing Teams: Take time to find a cohesive workflow groove with technical creators like videographers. Mesh differing stylistic approaches through iterative, hands-on video collaboration.
Commit to Never-Ending Refinement: Continuously evaluate your ideal customer profiles as the broader business expands. Treat positioning updates as a fluid, continuous evolution rather than a static project.
Messaging Critique: Vidyard
We also conducted a live messaging critique, and Stefan brought the popular video hosting platform Vidyard to the dissecting table. Vidyard acts essentially as video infrastructure paired with a robust CRM analytics layer, targeted directly at B2B sales and marketing revenue teams.
Stefan's evaluation noted that Vidyard's hero positioning, "Video for every customer moment", is exceptionally strong, clear, and intriguing. The page effectively leverages crisp UI screenshots, giving visitors immediate clarity on product functionality.
However, Stefan highlighted a notable user experience trick. The corporate logos displayed directly beneath the hero copy mimic social proof, misleading users into thinking companies like Salesforce are customers when they are actually just software integrations. Furthermore, the supporting copy falls back into uninspired B2B jargon like "built for modern teams" and repeats the phrase "AI-powered" five times on a single page, prioritizing buzzwords over deep pain-point exploration.
The primary recommendation for improvement is to trade perfectly polished, generic corporate walkthrough videos for authentic, customer-centric storytelling.
If you take one thing away from Stefan’s playbook, let it be this: creativity is not an innate gift, it is an operational muscle. You do not need an executive mandate to stop shipping boring content. Start with micro-experiments, stack up your metric wins, and systematically prove that human storytelling out-performs safe cliches every single time.
LINKS
Messaging Critique (Vidyard): vidyard.com
Connect with Stefan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-gladbach/
Connect with Elle:
-
[00:00:42] Elle: I want to paint a familiar picture for most of you. Imagine you're walking a trade show floor, and booth after booth, everything sounds the same. Same buzzwords, same safe messaging, same, "We help you drive efficiency and unlock value." It all just blends together. This is what happens in B2B.
[00:01:02] We're trying to speak to so many stakeholders that everything we do gets watered down. We play it safe, and we lose what actually makes someone care. So how do you break out of that? How do you go from sounding like everyone else to actually connecting? Today, we're getting into one of the hardest and arguably the most underrated skills in product marketing: how to take something, well, boring and make people actually care.
[00:01:30] And we're doing it with someone who has built a reputation for doing exactly that. With that, I'm so excited to welcome Stefan Goldbach to the show. Stefan is a product marketer at Pushpay, but you guys, that's just the baseline. He's known for his viral, unhinged, and genuinely hilarious satirical videos that have taken over product marketing on LinkedIn.
[00:01:52] What makes Stefan so perfect for this episode is that he isn't just creative, but he also knows how to bring organizations [00:02:00] along for that ride. He helped Pushpay transform their approach of storytelling in a pretty cautious market, that, you know, nonprofit donations kind of market, and he did it inside the company with stakeholders, brand guidelines, all the risk aversion, and if you haven't been there before, take my word for it, that's where it gets really hard.
[00:02:20] But Stefan makes it look easy, and he's here with us today to share his playbook. Stefan, welcome to the show.
[00:02:26] Stefan: Thank you very much. Those are very kind words. I never know if, like, having unhinged content is a, is a good or a bad thing, but I'm gonna take it as a compliment. And, uh, yeah, I've, I've listened to the show a couple times. It's, it's really good, so I'm happy to be here
[00:02:38] Elle: Yay. Yeah, I know. Bringing in all of the, the great minds who do take the bold risks. it's all good. Okay, so first and foremost, just help me and any listeners out there who may not know, like bring us up to speed a little bit. What is Pushpay exactly?
[00:02:53] Stefan: Yeah. Pushpay is in the church tech industry, and I best describe that as a CRM mixed with payment processing for donations, you know, And uh, this is all for churches and nonprofits. So if you think about churches, they basically act as like an entire small community, right? They have schools, they have groups, they have events.
[00:03:12] Some have thousands of congregants. So to run an organization as complex as that, you need a lot of software, and that's basically where Pushpay comes in.
[00:03:19] Elle: And I would imagine, like, having software that you feel like you can trust, and once it's super integrated into so many aspects of that community, it's probably really important. So the content that you put out probably plays a really big role in building that trust. So it kind of makes your, the case study that we're about to dig in here a little bit more interesting and relevant, um, with this aspect of building trust with your audience and internally with your stakeholders.
[00:03:47] So I don't wanna give too much away. So again, for the first, um, segment of our show, we're doing a case study, and today we're talking all about how you introduced, more creative storytelling through the various types [00:04:00] of content that you put out. So tell us more about what was going on at Pushpay when you realized something needed to change.
[00:04:07] Stefan: Sure. You know, and I, I've been a product marketer for over eight years. I worked across multiple industries, but I started at Pushpay a little bit over a year ago, and this was my first time working at Church Tech. Never been anything, you know, in close to Church Tech before. And I took a look at a lot of our content outputs from product marketing, and a lot of it was safe to the point of, you know, kind of making me fall asleep, right?
[00:04:29] Which is never really a, a good sign in marketing. Uh, it was a lot of stock photos or, or stock videos of people hugging in churches, a lot of cliches, a lot of those terms that we all love, the transforms, the revolutionize, some of the generic benefits of, of save time and money. And as a part of my competitive research, I looked at our competitors, and a lot of them were doing the same thing.
[00:04:48] Honestly, to the point that if you just switched out the logos between different content and ours, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, which in marketing is really the last thing you wanna do. Uh, if you wanna be anything in marketing, it's, it's to be different
[00:05:01] Elle: Absolutely. And I feel like I personally have been here before, probably multiple times, to be honest, where you feel like you're ... That, that stock content that, that you're referring to. I would bet every B2B marketer out there listening right now has experienced that with their own brand and cannot resist the urge to purge it as soon as possible.
[00:05:24] Um, so how did you approach that situation? Like, you're looking around, you're seeing all this, like, stock stuff, and you're realizing, like, "This isn't making us stand out in a good way." Like, what was your task at hand as you evaluated all of this?
[00:05:37] Stefan: Yeah, really the task was to make the content more interesting. You know, how do we make customers care about our marketing? How do we make customers feel something when they see a piece of our content? How do we get them to start, you know, engaging on social media? And kind of most importantly, you know, what can we actually get away with?
[00:05:52] We are marketing to churches after all, so there's some lines that you just can't cross, right? I think there is a misconception out there that, that churches are more [00:06:00] uptight and maybe wouldn't like funny, but I promise you, you know, your average church administrator is spending their free time on TikTok and looking at memes just like the rest of us.
[00:06:07] You know, everybody likes funny, but for this group, we need to be respectful of certain things, so part of the challenge is kind of finding where that line was
[00:06:14] Elle: Right. So I would bet, uh, I would guess a lot of experimentation, and again, I can't help but thinking just as you're talking, that trust aspect to me just would keep popping up, and you're ta- e- even as you're explaining, like, you're trying to find where the line is because you don't wanna lose their trust.
[00:06:30] You wanna keep their trust, but you wanna, um, also ignite some emotional connection. And a lot of this is, um, from a content perspective and with marketing, it's all empirical, right? Like, you can see it and believe it. Like, we know ... I can look at stock photos and know that this isn't genuine. This isn't authentic.
[00:06:48] Like, you saw that when you went in and, you know, started evaluating this stuff. So I'm curious, as you were seeing all the empirical evidence of all of this, were there any metrics or measures that kind of signaled to you that, like, "Okay, I can see that we have all these stock photos. I know that that's off just because that is one of my guiding principles as a marketer" But was there anything else from, like, a metrics or, um, you know, was it revenue?
[00:07:16] Was it pipeline? Was it engagement? Like, was there anything else that was kind of slipping or just, like, not hitting where you needed to, needed it to hit?
[00:07:23] Stefan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, engagement on our launches probably wasn't the best, you know, on both like Pendo guide notifications and email open rates and things of that nature. Um, we had product videos that maybe get, you know, one to two likes on social. So these situations, I like to look at who in the industry is actually making noise.
[00:07:38] You know, what are they actually giving our target audience that we, you know, probably aren't? Uh, Pushpay, you know, is the market leader in the industry, but we have a crazy amount of competitors. And one competitor in particular, they weren't taking a lot of business or anything like, like that, but they were generating a lot of buzz and, and getting more attention.
[00:07:54] And I was looking at the product, and the product itself, like, really wasn't half as good as ours. So that situation, I'm [00:08:00] asking myself, "Okay, so what are they doing to actually get that attention?" And a lot of it was because they had this, you know, young, good-looking founder, and he was, you know, very brash and, and sold a vision very well.
[00:08:11] So while the product may have not been as good, he made customers feel like they were part of this, this big, you know, movement to reinvent church tech. And that kind of marketing of a brand centered around like a charming founder really broke through the noise of the kind of the endless competition out there.
[00:08:25] So in that situation, I'd ask myself, "Okay, so how can we also get prospects to care? How do we make ourselves stand out? How do we tap into appealing to those same human elements that was making our own competitor appealing?"
[00:08:36] Elle: Yeah. I like that you didn't immediately jump into, like, a copycat strategy, which does happen a lot with marketers, right? Like, "Let's put our founder out there," and you know, because I, I, my gosh, I've been there with another company where they were so obsessed with the competition, it just started looking like a me too rather than something that's authentic, different, connected.
[00:09:01] so how did you do it? Like, how did you inspire the company to make a really big, bold move that was differentiated, but didn't cross the line?
[00:09:12] Stefan: Yeah. I think anytime you wanna make any kind of changes, you know, you have to establish credibility first. So, you know, I was walking into Pushpay, the first thing I wanted to do was, you know, kind of crush it with some easy wins across departments, you know, such as updating some sales enabling pieces, improving communication in a few areas.
[00:09:26] And then about, you know, one to two months into the company, I talked to a few stakeholders, my boss, a few others, and just kinda like, uh, outlined what I learned so far by analyzing our market and our competitor efforts, and offered a couple ideas for making our product videos just a little bit more fun.
[00:09:41] And after getting that buy-in, I kinda slowly turned up the heat. I'm a, I'm a big fan of the frog and the boil- bo- boiling pot analogy. If you really try to go crazy, you know, all, all at once with your content, you're gonna get kinda shut down probably by the stakeholders. You know, it's better to start small and keep pushing a little bit each time and kind of [00:10:00] prove your strategy and your credibility.
[00:10:02] And then once you can do that, you kinda dial it up more. So I worked with our videographer, and we started slowly kinda gradually moving away from the street kinda talking head videos and some of the stock footage and just adding a little bit more movement, being a little bit more playful. I started using like a whiteboard and using kind of fun drawings to kind of explain concepts, just to kinda make it a little bit more, you know, appealing.
[00:10:21] And then after that, we actually have been graduating to more, I don't know, more complex skits recently, uh, kind of putting ourselves in the customer's shoes and tell s- tell stories in more of a more fun and engaging way
[00:10:30] Elle: Yeah. Yeah. sounds like a very similar style to some of the videos that you put out on product marketing, that skit style, which, and not very many brands do. And the ones that do, it can either go, like, really cheesy, and maybe that's okay. Maybe it's okay to be cheesy. s- I'm ch- I'm cheesy sometimes. But, um, it's hard to, to nail that and get it right.
[00:10:52] So, um, I guess just real quick, like, before we jump into a playbook, tell us what happened at the end. Like, after, I mean, not, it's probably still ongoing, but once you started to do some of the m- the more bolder pieces of content, what was the result of some of that?
[00:11:09] Stefan: Yeah. And first of all, I think, I think cheesy can be good. I think, I think cheesy, especially now in the days of AI and content saturation and all of those things, uh, cheesy's and adding a little human element can actually be a good thing, actually kind of be a bonding experience with your customers. So I, I, I would push back on the element that maybe cheesy is always bad.
[00:11:26] Uh, so it can actually be a, a pretty, a pretty powerful marketing agent. Uh, but, you know, in this situation, uh, you know, the first good sign was that, you know, people were just kind of talking about our c- our content, right? I was just getting those little things like, "Oh, that?
[00:11:38] whiteboard was actually, you know, pretty cool.
[00:11:40] I l- love the way that you kind of explained that complicated concept. That was, uh, that was pretty interesting." And then for metrics, we saw increases in, you know, email click-through rates, average time spent on our in-app guides went up, and our launches actually started, you know, increasing our leads as well.
[00:11:52] So I was looking at those different aspects. Uh, and even recently, a prospect actually messaged me on LinkedIn saying that that, you know, a recent Skiff video was actually hilarious. "I [00:12:00] like Pushpay so much more now." So it's even those, like those small things, like even when a prospect like, like tells you that they're gonna, I don't know, consider Pushpay in a more positive light, I think that's something that, that I was really proud of to hear.
[00:12:09] Elle: Yeah. It's all validation that you are building trust with the customer, with the community that, that surrounds your product. so yeah, I feel like every B2B marketer out there right now has dreamt about, you know, doing something like this, like taking their bor- the boring B2B content, and making it more bold and more creative and having a stronger connection.
[00:12:32] And what a huge compliment to actually have a customer reach out to you saying that they liked your content. Like, customers don't do that. Like, they don't pay a marketer a compliment like that, at least not very often. So that's really cool. okay, so now I wanna jump into turning this into a playbook.
[00:12:50] So if someone is sitting out here thinking like, "Okay, my content is really boring, but my company would never go for bold," or, "It would be really hard to do that. Where do I start?" Like, what would step one be for the marketer who's kind of stuck in that situation?
[00:13:04] Stefan: Yeah. Step one is definitely, you know, deeply understand your customer, you know? And like, like my aspect, I probably use a lot of humor, and humor is really one of the more, like, powerful marketing tools that you can use. But what people find funny varies across different demographics and industries, right?
[00:13:19] So I would strongly recommend to get to know your customers, interview them, hop on sales calls, attend events, you know, et cetera. And for me, I have a few customers now that I'm kinda close with, close with. So if I have a little bit more of a wacky idea, I'll just ask them and run it by them first. Like, "Hey, would you find this funny?
[00:13:37] Does this, does this speak to you?" You know? And I'll, I'll kinda take
[00:13:40] Elle: like you're a little built-in message testing. Like
[00:13:42] Stefan: Yeah. And I will build something else to touch it, and, and then I'll kinda take their feedback and kind of adjust from there. And they, they've stopped me from making bad decisions before, so I, I always appreciate their feedback.
[00:13:49] Elle: That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, so assuming that, you know, most creative content has that emotional connection, and, like, I guess how do you actually get [00:14:00] closer to that emotional layer of your customer? How do you find it? I mean, you mentioned kind of doing a little bit of the message testing. Like, is there anything more in that understanding your customer step that you do to make sure you are emotionally connecting?
[00:14:16] Stefan: So what I'll, what I'll say here is go beyond the basics, right? So everyone defaults the values of their products to just a few cliches of, of save time and money. But those benefits don't actually elicit emotion, so try to go a little bit deeper, and I'll use an example here.
[00:14:30] So let's say you're marketing a sales coaching software to sales managers, and I know this audience well. I, I was a former seller, so I can, I can speak to it a, a little bit. A surface level pain would be using that sales coaching software to hit your pipeline numbers, right? That's what, that's, that's how the generic output of what most marketers would use.
[00:14:47] But that's really the, the boring story here. So let's go a little bit deeper. What actually bothers a sales manager on an emotional level? It's probably being stuck in meetings seven hours a day, doing endless forecasting, and basically not having enough time to coach their reps, which is why they probably became a sales manager in the first place, is actually to do that coaching.
[00:15:06] So if you're telling the story of this sales coaching software, appeal to that negative emotion of a before state of really being stuck in meetings, not being there for your reps when they're struggling and they need you, and then tell the after state story of using that coaching software to regain time back, create structure, and becoming the caring manager that really they always wanted to be.
[00:15:25] So that's really just one example, but just always dig deeper than that surface level and think about what actually bothers your customers on that emotional level.
[00:15:33] Elle: Yeah. I love that you called out, and I'm gonna steal this from you, don't worry, I'll give you credit in the future, the boring benefits. That's why you j- you, like, you just uncovered it. That's why B2B is boring, 'cause it is, like. But
[00:15:51] Stefan: There are some shining examples, But yes, uh, by, by and large it is, is boring. Which, which makes standing out fun actually, and actually makes It a little easier, so it's,
[00:15:57] uh, It does. It does make it easier. It's like [00:16:00] counterintuitive because it's hard once you ... It's hard to get there, but then once you get there, it's, it's way more fun. okay, so step one was understanding, understand your customers. Um, what's step two? What's the next step?
[00:16:10] Yeah, so back to boiling the frog like I talked about a little bit earlier. So don't turn the heat up all at once, and this is both for internal and external purposes. So internally, if you go crazy and you haven't built credibility first, you're gonna get shut down fast. I've, I, I've been there before. You gotta have that, that street cred first before you can have that, that trust.
[00:16:31] And externally, you know, you may not know your target, target audience as well as you think, and you could face major blowback if you haven't tested some smaller things first. So I always advocate for dialing up the heat, testing it, getting metrics, establishing yourself, and then to continue to kind of keep pushing a little bit further each time
[00:16:48] Elle: Got it. Okay, so what you're sounding, what you're explaining, um, is sounding like mini experiments, right? Like going a little bit further, seeing what works. Was that really deliberate for you, or was it kind of just, is that just kind of how you operate? Or like, like I'm, like I'm imagining, do you have like a strategy, like with a content, you uh, you know, calendar?
[00:17:08] Like talk me through what that looks like for you.
[00:17:11] Stefan: I mean, at Pushpay, I always knew our end goal was to make entertaining content. Um, I'm a little more wacky and fun in my personality, so I knew that's always like the end goal, but there's different types of wacky and fun, like I'm talking about and knowing your audience, you know, especially when you're marketing to a more, you know, conservative audience like, like we are.
[00:17:30] So for me, it's, it's kinda have a plan on how to escalate that boldness, right? It's, it's, it's the speed. It's how we're gonna be bold exactly determined by those testing metrics. So I always wanna get bold but how I'm getting there and, and the speed of it and everything like that is gonna vary by the situation and, and what the tests are telling us at the time
[00:17:49] Elle: Got it. Okay. But you had these little experiments to gradually turn up the heat, so to speak, on boldness, and you said you, that was intentional both [00:18:00] internally and externally, which I think is so smart because you don't want to, especially in, in the type of market that may be a little bit more just generally broadly speaking risk-averse.
[00:18:12] So yeah, it's, it's smart to do that so you don't totally shock your audience internally and externally. and it sounds like it would be, if I were to try to replicate this strategy a bit, putting together like mini experiments on, okay, where should I draw the line in the sand? And then also as you, as you mentioned, like have your customer, have a customer or two that's a friendly customer who can kind of give you guidance on like, "No, not funny," or like, "Too risky," can kind of help guide you on like how bold you should go with some of those mini experiments.
[00:18:51] I guess like what's next after I have all those things in place? As I'm like running experiments, is it, is it just kind of execution? Kinda like, you know, walk me through what do I, where do I go next?
[00:19:02] Stefan: I would say prepare to handle, like, objections. Um, you're going to face questions, you know, "Is this off-brand? Does this match our current marketing guidelines?" You know, a lot of people just, just don't like change. Uh, so some people will feel a little uneasy about, you know, anything different than what we've been currently been doing.
[00:19:18] So I'd be prepared to answer those objection questions and be able to back it up with the metrics that, that you've been kind of accumulating as you've been doing the testing along the way
[00:19:25] Elle: Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I've done as, I mean, I haven't done this kind of experiment, but I've done other kinds of experiments in my marketing career, and one thing that I found works really well, I didn't ne- necessarily think about it for objection handling, so that's a really good perspective on it.
[00:19:43] But one thing that I found that it helps to keep my stakeholders happy is to tell them that I'm going to run an experiment and why, and what it's going to, what it's going to tell us. Um, not necessarily what's, what the experiment will, outcome will be, but at least, like, [00:20:00] it's going to inform us on what.
[00:20:02] Like, that's the kind of thing that I would do. And then I would conduct the experiment, and then I would go back again and be, "Hey, remember that experiment I told you about? Like, here are the results, and then here's what I'm gonna do next based on that." And I found that worked really well. Um, I love adding, having all of those metrics in for objection handling.
[00:20:20] Feels like it would help, but also I could see that being such a, you know, just a bummer, buzzkill, like, you know, losing momentum. Like, how did you handle that? Like, how did you not let it slow you down?
[00:20:30] Stefan: Yeah, you know, back to turning up the heat, you know, every time you do those tests, have evid- evidence how you did it. If someone internally doesn't like something, but you could point back to a hard stat on why it performed better, that will answer a lot of objections and, you know, just be very confident and stand up for yourself.
[00:20:45] You know, I know that sounds small, but a lot of marketers kinda cave at the first kind of pushback from a higher-up. But it, it's much better to hold your ground a lot of times and speak up for yourself and speak confidently on, on what you're doing
[00:20:56] Elle: Right. Right. Okay, so what do I do if I have my customer insights and I have my content experiments planned out, you know, that, like, gradual boldness, and I'm, I'm ready for objections, I think. Um, isn't it... Now, is it just, is it go time? Just start executing, and do I just keep, you know, kind of going on those steps?
[00:21:20] What else is next?
[00:21:21] Stefan: It depends on the organization, right? Um, you know, because the last piece is collaboration with other marketers. Unless you're at a tiny startup, you'll likely have to create content with other teammates. Um, at Pushpay, we have this videographer, her name is Mary Ann. She's, she's amazing. Uh, and she does, like, the filming of our content.
[00:21:39] But it took a while for us to kind of find a groove. You know, she had mostly done those, those kind of corporate style videos, and I'm a guy who makes, you know, kind of ridiculous, wacky videos for LinkedIn. So it, it's kind of a clash of styles at first. So it was a little difficult to understand each other.
[00:21:54] Uh, so even back then, like, the turning up the heat, like, was the best way to figure out, like, how do we work, you know, [00:22:00] our best together. And now that we've filmed at least, you know, 70, 80 videos together, uh, and we've kind of tweaked it each time, like, "Hey, let's try this something different each time," now we're kind of lockstep in, in what we do.
[00:22:09] So, you know, my other advice is figure out how to work with other marketers on your team and be-- understand their styles and how you two are gonna kind of mesh be- the best
[00:22:17] Elle: Yeah. 70 to 80 videos? So many videos.
[00:22:21] Stefan: It is, it's a lot.
[00:22:23] Elle: been, I mean, I guess you've been
[00:22:24] there for,
[00:22:24] Stefan: a lot of, I mean, a lot of them are small, but Yeah.
[00:22:26] Elle: Yeah. Wow, that's so many v- so many videos. Okay, So understand your customers, turn up the heat gradually, be ready for objection handling, work well with your stakeholders, marketing team, the one, the mar- other marketers who are gonna help you execute.
[00:22:41] And then wrapping all this up, is the fifth step of this playbook like just continuing to iterate and finding that groove and evolving it based on how your customers may be, you accepting this, you know, new style of content that you're putting out in the world?
[00:22:58] Stefan: Yeah. I mean, it, it's never-ending refinement. Um, even as, as the business expands, right? Like, like a lot of times we're going after different types of customers. Your ICPs could kind of slowly sh- you know, shift in time. So you're constantly kind of evaluating the market, your customers, who you're trying to go out after, and then, you know, making twists in your me- tweaks in your messaging to kind of, kind of match the situation.
[00:23:19] So, um, it's a never-ending process, but that, that, that's what
[00:23:22] makes creativity fun, right? It's always, it's always a new challenge out there, and it's why, I don't know, why I love marketing at least.
[00:23:26] Elle: Yeah. It's, yeah, super fun. I totally agree with that. Um, okay, and speaking of fun, part of, there's, there's, in my opinion anyway, there's like three parts of the fun. There's like the aha moment when you're like, "Ooh, I have a good idea," like based on, you know, maybe some insights that you're getting about your customer, like the whoever's gonna be rece- on the receiving end of whatever it is that you're creating.
[00:23:49] And then there's the, the act of creating it can also be very fun. And then the last thing that's just very gratifying is the, the end result of feeling like that worked really [00:24:00] well. Um, so I guess help us understand when... How do you know when something is working versus it's just noise versus like, "Okay, oops, that went too far."
[00:24:10] Like, yes, the metrics, but like is there anything else at play here in terms of, you know, is it customer sentiment? Is it y- you know, pipeline? Like what's your kind of, what's your go-to like, "Okay, yeah, that worked"
[00:24:24] Stefan: Yeah
[00:24:24] I mean, a- anytime you try something new, I'm watching engagement, you know, click-through rates, time on content. Those are gonna be kind of your early signals. Uh, but vanity metrics can kind of fool you, of course, as, as we all know as marketers. So I try to back s- s- a couple of those things up with something happening downstream.
[00:24:38] You know, are leads moving? Are prospects mentioning the content in sales calls? Uh, the last one's my favorite, uh, favorite one here. When a prospect brings it up un- unprompted, you actually know it kind of stuck, like I said about that, that prospect who messaged me on LinkedIn. Like that was, that was, that was a good feeling, and that was something we're heading in the right direction there.
[00:24:54] Elle: I hope you shared that with your stakeholders
[00:24:58] Stefan: of course it is. And as far as like going too far, you know, the safest protection you have is just ha- having a couple of few trusted customers, like I talked about earlier, that I could send something over to before it goes live. Does this land? And then having that informal loop kind of save you from going too far, of course.
[00:25:13] Elle: Totally. Okay, last question for you on this topic. Um, I feel like you've given s- a wealth of information already, so, but if you had to give one piece of advice to a product marketer who is trying to take their, you know, the boring benefits, you know, content about their product and just make it a bit more bold, like what's one piece of advice you would give to that PMM?
[00:25:35] Stefan: I'd say, um, work on being more creative, and I always hated when PMs say or PMMs say like, like, "I'm not creative," Right
[00:25:42] Uh, creativity is a muscle. Like yes, some of it is innate. We're all not gonna be Andy Warhol, but everyone can be, you know, better at being creative, so just practice it. Um, that's honestly why I make like the silly videos that I do on LinkedIn because I get my storytelling reps in, so on the [00:26:00] job I have that practice.
[00:26:01] So it just becomes so much easier to break down a product story in my head because I've already gotten those reps in. Uh, but for the audience, you know, it doesn't have to be videos. You know, it could be short stories, like take an improv class, draw something from scratch. There's a million ways to practice that creativity, and every PMM out there should be
[00:26:18] Elle: I love that advice. I, I feel like in my own, in my own career, I've gone through phases of feeling like, "Oh, I'm not creative" to, you know, having that validation of like, "Well, I put the practice in," and to your point, I did the reps. so such a great tip and such a good story. I think so many PMMs out there would leave content up to other marketers, but when it comes to being about your product and engaging with your customers, I feel like PMMs should have a seat at the table for, if not driving it, for some of this kind of content.
[00:26:50] Stefan: And that's that's the fun type of marketing. You know, I, I'm not a product marketer that just likes to live in frameworks. I wanna see this thing come to life. So
[00:26:57] I, I, I honestly, like, I know
[00:26:58] it's kinda hard and it can be kinda challenging, but I, I promise you, if you take messaging and then you see it come to life, that's the most satisfying part of the job, at least, at least in my opinion
[00:27:06] Elle: I totally agree. Totally agree. Okay, so now it's time for the next segment of the show. This is the messaging critique. This is where as marketing or product marketing experts, uh, Stefan, you and I get to analyze real world marketing, and the fun part is that you get to pick the company that we'll be talking about.
[00:27:26] Um, just to set some quick ground rules, you are going to, uh, pick a company that, is one that you are familiar with either the market yourself or you are part of the customer base. Would not be fair to critique messaging on a company whose customers we know nothing about. and then, yeah, then tell me what you're loving about it, what stands out, um, you know, what do you wish the PMM would've considered differently, and then we'll brainstorm a little bit on how that PMM could take it to the next level.
[00:27:54] So without, yeah, without further ado, uh, please reveal the company we'll be looking at today
[00:27:59] Stefan: [00:28:00] Yeah, we're looking at Vidyard. So I, I use these guys quite a bit in my job, so I'm at least
[00:28:04] Elle: Okay, Vidyard.
[00:28:05] Stefan: bit.
[00:28:05] Elle: So I'm gonna pull up their, um, I'm gonna pull up their website, and we'll just kinda go from there based on, based on how they present themselves on their website. Granted, I understand that sometimes PMMs don't get a say in what's going on the website, but in theory, whoever created the website is probably using messaging that the PMM made.
[00:28:28] Okay, so walk us through the messaging itself. Like, it-- And I'm, by the way, I'm going to vidyard.com. Let me know if that's the right one, Stefan. Is it V-I-D, then yard, Y-A-R-D.com?
[00:28:39] Stefan: That's it, yeah
[00:28:40] Elle: Okay, cool. So walk us through, like, just kinda give us an overview of, like, who do you think this is for, and what is their kind of messaging and story based on what, based on how they're presenting themselves on the web
[00:28:54] Stefan: Yeah. So Vidyard is a video hosting platform. So basically instead of sending someone like a YouTube link, you send them a Vidyard link, and on the back end you can see exactly who watched it, how long they watched and, and whether they dropped off. So it's basically video with kind of a CRM layer on top.
[00:29:11] Uh, I would say it's primarily for B2B sales teams and marketers. Uh, sales reps use it more for sending personalized video messages to prospects, and marketing teams like myself use it more for hosting and tracking video content purposes.
[00:29:25] Elle: Cool. Cool. Okay, and what's their story? What's their messaging? Like, I, I'm looking at their website here, and I don't wanna give too much away, but, like, the first thing that I ... It's not the first part of the messaging itself, but the first thing that jumps out at me is just their big, big, bold header that says, "Video for every customer moment."
[00:29:46] But you tell us, like, what's, what's the messaging here?
[00:29:49] Stefan: And I, I actually like the hero. You know, as I'm looking at their messaging, I, I think it's a pretty solid hero. I mean, it has some jargon like AI-powered and, and scale [00:30:00] trust, but video for every customer moment, you know, kind of makes sense for me. I mean, that, That that's, that's kind of what they do is, is a sales rep use it throughout the prospecting that has some automation services, you know, to help do that.
[00:30:11] Um, you-- It's kind of a little creepy, but you can create an AI avatar of yourself
[00:30:14] Elle: That is so creepy, but also kind of,
[00:30:17] Stefan: I... People, you know, people, pe-people like it, right? Um, and they list the target audience and the hero. So for revenue teams, you know, that'd be the marketers and sales. That, that makes sense. And, and they list their main features, right?
[00:30:28] So it's video that's personal, trackable, and embedded in your to- in your tool. So I think that's where they kind of do well is in the hero here. And overall on the homepage, you know
[00:30:38] I think they, they use a lot of screenshots as well. I can look at this page and have a pretty good idea on what they're selling.
[00:30:44] And maybe that's a lo- maybe that sounds like a low bar, but a lot of times in B2B, I'm in the homepage like, "Okay, what exactly is
[00:30:48] Elle: I know. I actually agree, and I really, I'm not, I don't think I would be in the exact, um, maybe I would be actually, uh, target audience. I love their, the, the hero copy here. Just the big bold like video for every customer moment really resonates with me and wants me... It's, it, it causes me to want to dig deeper, to be like, "Ooh, what do you mean?
[00:31:12] Ooh, where? Ooh, well, which moments? Okay, so what can I..." You know, so it's, um, it's intriguing, so I really, I think they've done a really great job with that. And I, I also agree, I like product imagery on a website. Again, I'm not, we're not here to critique the website, but I do like that as part of the product storytelling, just because in B2B you can be talking to so many different stakeholders, so it, it helps, um, create some context for me as I'm looking at the, the website to see what your product is and can it do the things that I am looking to do.
[00:31:48] Um, so I think it's helpful for that. So I don't wanna, you know, take too much away. Like, it sounds like you, you see some things that are working really well. What are some things that you wish the PMM [00:32:00] would've considered differently?
[00:32:01] Stefan: Okay, this one's probably a UX one, but I, it, it bothers me a lot. Okay, so the logos underneath the hero are, are a trick. You look at that and, and you think those logos are social proof, they must use Vidyard, but that's not what they are. So, so it's a, that's not that Salesforce uses it, it's actually just integrations.
[00:32:18] Elle: yes. Use it with your existing stack. You're right
[00:32:25] Stefan: you too? That fooled me, and I was like, "Oh, Salesforce uses them. That's, that's really cool." But then it's just like, it's actually the integration. So it's kind of a trick that, that, 'cause,
[00:32:32] Elle: It is a trick.
[00:32:34] Stefan: websites, yeah
[00:32:36] Elle: 'Cause I-- Most people, they are just skimming, and so they just see the, they see the logos, and they're like, "Okay, got it. Those are the customers. Got it." I was even gonna say, I like how they have the customer proof right at the top, 'cause typically something about, like, the stack would be closer to the bottom.
[00:32:53] Stefan: Right. Right. So a little, little, little tricky there, but I'll, I'll, I'll give you them that. You gotta, you gotta play those games in marketing sometimes, so you know.
[00:33:01] Yeah.
[00:33:01] Elle: Sometimes you roll the dice.
[00:33:03] Stefan: Yeah, I don't know if I would roll the dice, but to each their own.
[00:33:06] yeah, for sure.
[00:33:08] Elle: each their own. All right
[00:33:10] Stefan: And I think, I mean, I think the jargon gets, you know, a little crazy in, in some areas. Um, you know, look at, look beneath the hero, you see like the, the built for modern teams. Um, and if I, I always think like as, as opposed to what? Is anybody building for teams in the 1950s, right? Like what, what does that mean?
[00:33:24] Elle: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:33:27] Stefan: And, um, you know, and win deals, scaling what's working. I mean, it, it, it's good. It, it's just, it's just stuff that I've read a million times before. And, you know, back to the earlier points here, I think it's more surface level rather than, than dealing with actual pain points. And, um, you know, another small thing, I think they, they, they say like AI powered five times on a page, which they use a lot of AI.
[00:33:48] I'll, I'll, I'll give them that, but, uh, AI powered is one of those, those buzzwords that, that
[00:33:52] Elle: Yeah. Slow down. Yeah. Slow down, cowboy. All right. So what, um, what advice do you have to [00:34:00] their PMMs or, or, you know, how could they take it to the next level? There's a couple things here that they could fix, but is there, is there more to the story in your opinion?
[00:34:08] Stefan: Yeah
[00:34:09] You know, I'll, I'll, I like the video there on the top right. I think they do, um, a good job as like a walkthrough, but it feels pretty, you know, generic, very corporate. Like there's almost like too much lighting, which I don't know, that perfectly polished image I feel like doesn't work, doesn't work well nowadays in a lot of, lot of settings.
[00:34:26] But, I would think about how to make this, you know, more en- entertaining, right, if I were them. So for this, you know, how, how do we tell a story here? So let's actually flip the script and tell a story of not the seller or the marketer, but of their customer. So let's say in this video we show a customer's inbox filled with 10,000, you know, marketing spam emails, right?
[00:34:45] And customer's just kind of rolling their eyes and deleting them. And then one email comes in with like a personalised video, and it talks about the exact problem they're experiencing in their industry. They find the content worthwhile, and they've already seen the face of the seller, so they feel comfortable, you know, reaching out for more information.
[00:35:02] You know, having that kind of a tweak where you add a story to it to start the video would be a lot more powerful than just kind of a basic intro. Um, so I-- that, that, that's what I would kind of recommend is from a storytelling aspect.
[00:35:11] Elle: I love that. I love that. And something that, you know, if they wanted some ideas on, I guess, like where to get started for some of that storytelling, maybe they could, you know, continue with the story that they've already placed at the top of their website with video for every customer moment. Like, what moments?
[00:35:31] Like, I wanna see, and like what you kind of described is one of those moments. So I would, I would be so cool. I mean, maybe they have this. They might have this already, and I'm, you know, Captain Obvious or something. But it would be really cool from a campaign perspective to do a campaign that was like customer moments, and then it was all of those little, like little engagements or interactions that you just desc- just described.
[00:35:56] But they could do that, ooh, they could do that for like every member of the buy [00:36:00] team, too. So, ooh, so good. Yeah, so good. Okay, Vidyard, you can hire us. Like
[00:36:07] Stefan: Please reach out.
[00:36:09] Elle: yeah, right. Um, okay, cool. Is there anything else you want to mention about Vidyard before we wrap up this segment?
[00:36:18] Stefan: No, I think, I think we talked about them enough. Uh, I, I use their product. I don't wanna insult them too much. I, I like their product, so, so good job
[00:36:23] Elle: Yeah. It does look really cool. It does look really cool. Um, okay, shout out Vidyard. We really like the start that you have with some of your storytelling, um, and we have some ideas for you.
[00:36:33] So consider it. Let us know what you think. Um, okay. So Stefan, one thing that I like to make space for on this podcast is a moment of gratitude. I know that in product marketing, none of us get to where we are without others who have taught us and mentored us and showed us the way. and by you coming on here and sharing your playbook, and it's helping to mentor and educate others in the communities.
[00:36:58] Um, and so I'm grateful for it, and I'm sure everyone out there listening right now is too. So thank you so much for being on the show. And then also before we wrap up, I wanted to turn it around and see if you had any PMMs that you wanted to give any shout-outs to. Part of the gratitude moment is for you to be able to give some kudos to the PMMs who have shaped you into the amazing product marketer that you are
[00:37:21] Stefan: Yeah. You know, I, I wasn't always, uh, like a super creative PMM. Um, like I used to be a pretty conventional stuffy product marketer.
[00:37:30] Elle: We all, every, we have all been that conventional stuffy product marketer
[00:37:35] Stefan: And if you look up some of my stuff and, and you wonder why it's a little unhinged, it, and it's because I was shown by others that product marketing like doesn't have to be stale and it can be fun. And you know, one guy who I think best exemplifies this is, is Zach Messler. I remember my early LinkedIn influencing days, you know, seeing his stuff and thinking like, "Okay, this guy's like funny and weird," and weird in a good way.
[00:37:57] I, I say that in a perfectly good way. And I, you [00:38:00] know, I thought about that and I was like, "Well, maybe I don't have to be, you know, boring either. Maybe I don't have to co- copy this kind of same kind of stuffy formula with frameworks and everything like that." And I've had, you know, several conversations with him since then.
[00:38:09] I've always loved, you know, hearing his stories and, and, and taking his advice. So, you know, thank, thank you to Zach. Uh, you definitely walked so us other weirdos could run, so I, I appreciate it.
[00:38:19] Elle: I love it. Oh, so great. I don't know. I have to get connected with him and, um, yeah. Cool. Awesome. Okay, and this is my last question for you. Where else is it best to get some access to those Unhinged videos? Is it best to just, uh, follow you and add you on LinkedIn, or are there other places where we can find your work?
[00:38:40] Stefan: Yeah, LinkedIn is probably the best place. Um, I have a YouTube channel as well, just under my own name. Um, other than that, always feel free to DM me on LinkedIn. Always happy to have a conversation
[00:38:49] Elle: Awesome. Sounds good. Again, thank you so much, Stefan. This was so great. All right. Yep. And hey, PMM listeners, if you liked this episode, please share it with a PMM friend, and I would be so grateful if you could leave us a review. It helps tremendously with our reach. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with us today.
[00:39:07] I hope this episode leaves you with the inspiration to take in the next step of your own journey
[00:39:13]
