This is The Marketing Hero podcast by ClearPivot, turning marketers into heroes.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Welcome to The Marketing Hero podcast. I'm your host Maia Morgan Wells. And in this episode, we are giving you a rare glimpse into an area of SaaS development that marketers don't normally see, especially on larger teams or for larger solutions. Product and marketing tend to be siloed and in this episode, we are thinking about some of the ways that that separation can be detrimental in the long run. To help us frame this very important discussion about product and marketing, we've got a really special guest for you. He's got a rare combination of experience in the UX design and marketing, that brings such a great perspective to the topic. Vince Plummer, welcome to the show, man.
Vince Plummer:
Absolutely.
Maia Morgan Wells:
So, let me start off with a question that we'd like to ask all of our guests. What's your favorite part of what you do and how did you figure that out?
Vince Plummer:
So, I primarily work now, I'm a senior UX designer, UX-UI designer, and I got there through marketing. I started in digital marketing and I would watch a lot of marketing dollars we spent, to drive, let's just say, fish in the net and then, I would watch the holes in the net lose the fish. And it led me to ask a lot of the questions about, what was missing inside of digital product or software and where were the holes and making sure that that type of thing... You spent so much time on the hype and the focus on getting people there and then it's, once they're there, why are they turning? And so, that led me to go into a bunch of meetups on UX.
And once I realized this important thing around interviewing users and seeing how they felt about it, was really where I felt like my sweet spot was, was trying to design products for users, specifically, informed by users so that companies don't waste a lot of money. And that happened and I saw a startup that I was a co-founder of, in LA back in the day, and so, startups don't have a lot of money, so when they do, when they spend all this money, you want to make sure that your product is sticky enough, that people are hanging around and using it. So, my favorite part of the job is, I'd say, just team designing. A lot of times, I think, people think of design as this siloed thing that happens but really great design comes from the information both internally and externally with a team. And so, I love working on that stuff with people. That's my favorite part of the job.
Maia Morgan Wells:
And do you normally find yourself working with people from marketing teams, in that way when you're talking about working as a team, is that normally a product team that's separated from marketing or do you normally see marketing people as part of that conversation?
Vince Plummer:
They should be, a lot of times they are not. Or really great marketers want to be involved and be a part of it, I think, but sometimes, I think, that it's easy for, in a company where their marketing has their focus and product has their focus. But great products come from all of those people working together, especially brand new features, it just helps everybody to fully understand. And I don't even think it's just marketing, it's product, engineering, marketing and design, all working together. That stuff leads to just making better products because everybody's got a different lens at which to look at the value proposition.
Maia Morgan Wells:
And it does sound like you're saying, among all of that, the customer needs to remain central in that entire process. And I feel like, at least, in the job description, marketers are really the ones in charge of that. Of course, sales on the other end, but you're trying to bring in a particular buyer persona or customer persona and that's drilled into our heads from birth. It's like, do your customer persona first and test your product and make sure there's an audience and a product market fit, really, before you're doing anything else. And so, it does make sense that you would say, in a perfect world, marketers would be a really integral part of that product discussion. Do you feel like that's one of the most important ways UX and marketing are linked or how else are they linked other than really that focus on the customer? How else should they be linked together?
Vince Plummer:
So, there's also the exploration part of this, where you're trying to find out what might work. And so, how I've worked pretty closely in the past is, let's say, you're floating ideas or you're floating feature ideas and working with marketing, running smoke tests, running a landing page, sending traffic to a landing page, I've done the type of thing where, I've designed a landing page or worked with marketing on the landing page and making sure that all of those things are linked up, sometimes I end up playing both roles there. But there's just really defining the persona up front and making sure that all... So, it's like, when you know what you know and then there's when you don't know what you know and I think that there's an opportunity for that relationship on both ends.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Yeah, that's really- [crosstalk 00:06:26].
Vince Plummer:
Does that make sense?
Maia Morgan Wells:
It does it. What are some examples of, do you think, I don't know if you want to talk out of school or name any names, but has there been a breakdown that you think has affected, either the success of one or the other that you can point to as an example? Either where marketing doesn't really understand the product or I don't know, you've worked very hard on a UX endeavor that then marketing messes up somehow? How can this go wrong?
Vince Plummer:
I'd never named names. But what I have seen where I feel when marketing... And I don't think it's one particular group's fault, it has to be baked into the culture that everybody gets together and works together because everybody is like, marketing has got to push the message and push the product. And so, if they're pushing something that feels disjointed, it's a problem. So, I have seen examples where marketing will, let's say, come up with branding ideas and those ideas were done in a silo and the visual language doesn't compute to what can actually end up being in product. Does that make sense? So, let's say, you have a design system and that design system has a certain palette of colors or certain iconography.
And you have to either, as an organization, be committed to looking at your design system as not something that you're just borrowing from somewhere else but if you're committed to having your own design, your own look and feel... Because let's face it, you're competing against products that are starting to think more like consumer products and SaaS products and because people spend all day on consumer products. So, the products that look and feel like and interact in a consumer type of way, are going to be the products that people enjoy using the most.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Right. Makes sense.
Vince Plummer:
So, let's say, marketing comes up with this great certain iconography or a certain color palette or something like that and they don't jive with what the product actually looks like, then I feel like that's a big miss. And so, those types of conversations, I think, when talking about, what the product could look like and what you're going to then market to people, those two things should be in harmony. And when they're not, what you'll find is, marketing ends up having to dress up what the product looks like, in their photos or for their ads or something like that. And then, people get into the product and they're like, "this doesn't look like what I clicked on in an ad." And I've seen that multiple times, where it's very easy for marketing to get into its silo and just be thinking about that part. But if they're not working together in lockstep with... Lockstep, is that the word?
Maia Morgan Wells:
Yeah. I think I've heard that. [crosstalk 00:09:44] Lockstep, that's right.
Vince Plummer:
If they're not working together with product on that thing, then there's a mess. So, that's been the main thing.
Maia Morgan Wells:
You're a big UX guy, so you're thinking about the experience that that user's having. And that was really smart, I think, what you said about the consumer experience, really bleeding into our expectations for SaaS. What do you think, either that psychology or just in general, once you do, let's say, land on a disjointed experience from an ad or maybe even a feature was described in a certain way and that's not exactly how it works. What's the result of that experience, that user experience, do they immediately leave? Do they quit the trial? What's the result?
Vince Plummer:
I always like to use this example as something that I've loved about using certain consumer products. So, you remember the Twitter fail whale, when Twitter would fail, there'd be that picture of the whale and little Twitter birds flying away.
Maia Morgan Wells:
I do remember that.
Vince Plummer:
So, if you think of 404 pages or areas where there are opportunities for marketing to have so much more influence of brand in the product. And if there are all those holes, then those little moments of delightful... and 404 messages or error messages, page doesn't exist, that type of stuff, isn't exactly a delightful experience, but if you could have something that feels cute and fun or that's on brand, error messages, those opportunities...
So, another example is, let's say, you're using a third-party tool like Pendo and Pendo allows for... Well, okay. So, if you think about the product life cycle and then you've got engineering that's focusing on developing or implementing design coming from product or design coming from UX or something like that, that tech ends up living for a long period of time. And so, sometimes little opportunities for marketing don't make it into that tech stack that might live for 10 years on... Because dependent upon what packages that people install and sometimes they don't want to upgrade to new packages, so they're on old packages, depending upon all the different components that might make software fail, so people are leery about upgrading to new versions of things. And so, let's say, that that happens, well, marketing has this opportunity with tools like Pendo to be involved with UX on how to implement in-app messaging or things that would link out to support documentation or something like that. All those things can be working together so that the product is on-brand.
Vince Plummer:
So, oftentimes, it might not be something that happens, but it's an opportunity for marketing to be involved in product. And another opportunity where there are misses for marketing is, let's say, marketing just hands me a bunch of icons, do those icons reduce to small levels? Let's say that that icon is supposed to represent a product in a product suite, has that icon been thought about, what that would look like if I turn that icon into a button? There's a lot of just things with buttons and iconography and product level messaging where marketing can be more involved, so that everything feels more cohesive because otherwise, you end up with a lot of default looking stuff and you could scan your site and realize, you'd be horrified to find out how many colors are actually in a site or in a product, where you're like, "that's not the red that we use." And then, there's 20 different shades of red in the CSS.
So, there's all these moments and I think that a lot of these moments could just be solved by better relationships with product and not just thinking that they only own the message and marketing but just overall look and feel should be thought about at a more holistic level, than a up top, just sending out ads type of level or just sending out ads and messaging and brochures and all that type of stuff. It's way deeper than that when it comes to identity.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Well, right. Because the user is experiencing that brand as a whole, they're not differentiating between what they're seeing in a Facebook ad versus an ad that they saw on LinkedIn versus the actual product versus the company's website or the email they might've received. All they're noticing is that it feels disjointed and they may not see the difference in hex code of two different reds but they may start to psychologically feel that disjointed experience. Do you feel like these design differences are partly because of differences in intent? So meaning, marketing is wanting to push the message out there, grab some leads, product has a different goal in mind. Do you feel like those are maybe reasons why these things get disjointed?
Vince Plummer:
Yeah. It's intense. It's one person doing two people's jobs, it's people coming and going, that have a certain amount of domain expertise in an organization, all these types of things happen in a professional world. Just the natural effect of just humans being too busy and trying to take care of the task at hand, which is why I think that it actually has to be something that's implemented from... I would see that this is the job to be discussed at an executive level because the executives set the culture. So, it's having the chief marketing officer be in lockstep with the chief product officer and the chief technology officer, to make sure that all those things are being implemented and that there's the right amount of head count.
And I think sometimes too, it happens just because you're trying to deliver feature because the features are the things that sell, and so sometimes this stuff becomes an afterthought. But when it does work, if you think of products that are beautiful, it's because those things are in harmony. I think of Square or Uber or a lot of consumer products, like Robinhood, some of these consumer facing apps, their apps are beautiful and you know that the marketing and I would like to think... It's a lot of times it's consumer facing products that touch enterprise, I feel like where the products that are beautiful, they sell more.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Provides this better experience really. And like you said before, we're all expecting that. We have really high standards for our SaaS these days. Nothing really kills that experience faster than something that feels ugly or clunky or hard to get around.
Vince Plummer:
Well, and the thing is, I think, the other reason why it happens is, let's say, you've got executives choosing to buy a certain software, employees are going to use that software regardless of what it looks like, I think a lot of times. But having employees be evangelists for certain software, also goes a long way too because then they can recommend it to people when it's time to choose what type of software you're going to [inaudible 00:18:45]. And that's how you would end up with these, they're paying $40,000 a month for this particular enterprise level software or whatever the recurring monthly revenue is. Sometimes that comes from recommendations from employees, down up, but sometimes it comes from, I don't know it, however it gets there, if it looks great and it feels great and there's cohesion around, I feel like that stuff ultimately gets more recommendations from the employees that want to actually use that software.
And then, once you start using that software, then you're into that software cycle, especially if they become an integral part of your business and you're connected to APIs and things like that. Once you're using that software, you could be using that software for 10 years.
Maia Morgan Wells:
It's important, it's definitely an important conversation. So, on a practical level, do you have any ideas on how that is actually implemented and achieved? Because you started talking about, really, that top down executive level conversation and alignment between technology, product and marketing, at really the brand wide level, let's really be cohesive with this. So, that's definitely a great place to start. As a senior UX designer that does this every single day, do you see yourself having time and space and availability to work with marketing people? Should there be, I don't know, pods or teams that get formed around particular initiatives that include people from all those different teams, even customer service is a great person to bring into the conversation because they have those direct conversations with users about their experiences. So, is that one idea to do it? How does it actually get achieved and do you even have time, as a busy UX person, to incorporate that just on your daily basis?
Vince Plummer:
So, I think that it has to happen first by being determined up top, that it's an actual important thing. And it can't just be important with lip service, it has to be baked into the culture where like, okay, what can we do about it? And do we have the right amount of head count so that it can happen? And I think a lot of times, head count determines a lot of that stuff and making sure that it's being directed from the top that, this is an important thing that needs to happen. I want you to report back to me on how this is happening. It can't just be things that are being reported on in the silo. I think in a weekly biweekly types of meetings where we're making sure that everything is being discussed on that type of level.
Things that UX can do is have marketing involved in sprints, so if you're running a sprint in a meeting or if you're running a sprint on new features, making sure that marketing participates and then marketing has to be willing to participate. And then, inviting UX to meetings, specifically, when it comes to, here's what we're thinking for new branding, here's what we're thinking for this, how could that fit inside of product? Because if you just hand UX a bunch of new design colors and typography, it's like, what if that topography doesn't work inside a product? Those things can be discussed sooner rather than later because sometimes they outsource that information or they outsource that stuff to marketing agencies for other SaaS companies.
Sometimes, they do that stuff in-house and sometimes they will outsource it to marketing agencies that will then come back and all of the sudden deliver what your new product's supposed to look and feel like. And you're like, "whoa, nobody talked to UX about this particular thing, how that's actually supposed to be implemented here and what are the guidelines." And I think a lot of that can save you from even having to go back to the agency, who's going to charge you an arm and a leg, to give you your brand guidelines, it's like, there are some things that could just happen from a few meetings, I think, internally.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Yeah. And it's an important point to think about agencies as well, because, definitely, a lot of SaaS founders out there or even large enterprise level SaaS companies, hire out agencies for certain things. And then, that puts a whole other layer on it, of people that really don't get product. I'm an agency person, so I'm not throwing anybody under the bus, other than myself here but I know that even as somebody who is steeped in SaaS marketing every single day, I don't know a whole lot about UX and product design and development. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show because I think it's really important for people like me that are working in marketing, who are concerned about SEO value, who are concerned about content and our plans for lead nurturing and marketing automation. And that's a lot of things that we have on our plates, just like you guys have a ton of things on your plates.
And so, I definitely think just that philosophical approach to what we're both doing because the goal is the same for both of us. The goal is the same, is to provide that amazing experience that delights that customer into a lifetime of MRR for us. So, I definitely think this conversation is hugely important, in that most marketers don't understand enough about what goes into product and UX. Even to the point of, I've worked with branding agencies before, trying to develop new branding, let's say, for a website but when I get the fonts back, it's really for print. So, even those tiny things, those disconnects, that happen on that level is like, that doesn't even involve a SaaS product. So, I can see how there's 20 different reds in the CSS, after all these people have their hands on it.
Vince Plummer:
Like a Serif font, a San Serif font, there are certain things that won't even show up for most users, depending upon the platform that they're accessing things. Here's the other part of it, you have to also consider accessibility. So, companies can be sued for not being accessible. So, if the color palette is completely and totally off from what could be implemented inside of... Not thinking about it from an accessible place or what are our options for accessibility. And now, that's more on UXs side, where we have to interpret that but starting from that place makes it easier for us to interpret. And I would say that messaging, the messaging opportunities between UX and product and marketing, can live with those third-party in-app messaging types of things, with Pendo and anything that directs out towards support documentation it's like, marketing should be in lockstep that they don't have support documentation that's completely and totally off-brand, which I've seen that before too. So, there's a lot of ways that marketing can be touching product but it just takes those types of conversations.
Maia Morgan Wells:
It takes a concerted effort, I think, is what it's sounding like. Well, this is a very interesting conversation, I think, for anybody working on either side of that, is really just to take this as a way of thinking about how we're both doing our jobs and both working towards that same goal together. So, thank you for the insights in that. I don't know that there's really one solution other than setting policy and enforcing policy, at least, within big organizations. And then, it sounds like in the startup environment, all those people that need to be involved, may be one person, it may be two or three people, that are all doing all of that. So really in that case, it's just a matter of understanding the intersections between these two things and how important they are. I loved your fishing net metaphor. What was that? Tell us that again, one more time.
Vince Plummer:
I have seen large marketing campaigns drive a bunch of fish to the net and then there's a hole in the net. And then the question is, we got all these new users, it's like, just because you get new users don't mean that they stay. So, it's important to understand why they're leaving and that's the hole in the net.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Yeah. That's really important to think about all of the different phases of that flywheel, we call it a flywheel, where you're attracting the new users in, first as leads, then you're converting them into the product or the free trial. And I love what you're saying about in-app messaging, even support documentation, knowledge bases, we can link a couple of articles here in the show notes because we have written a lot about that and how product is a marketing endeavor and vice versa. And so, definitely needing for all of us to work together a little bit more closely. Before we get going though Vince, I saw a little something on Instagram but I wanted to ask you about, now this is away from the UX and the SaaS conversation. But I saw a little something on there, it sounds like you recently released some music. Do you want to tell us about that here, in The Marketing Hero?
Vince Plummer:
Yeah, sure. And I should say that... Honestly, if I link it all back to how I landed a career in tech, it all started from band posters and trying to promote shows. So, I learned those design tools and then I had to figure out other social media platforms to try to drive people towards, either buying tickets or buying, back then it was CDs, but buying music or consuming music. So, I recently released, this would be my 9th album or something, but it was my third album under the name PlumCharlie, as that I'm releasing now. So, that was also a fun little digital marketing experiment of creating the music and then making a music video and then taking various segments of that music video and creating different micro ads. So, for Instagram stories, so I make a 15 second Instagram story and Facebook story and those would run inside of Facebook and then they all drove them towards one particular landing page, that I had installed a Facebook pixel, so that you can retarget those people after you run various campaigns.
Maia Morgan Wells:
So, even with this music that you're making for fun, at home, you got that digital marketing cap on, still to this day.
Vince Plummer:
Because you have to think about it as, you've got these people that spend an exorbitant amount of time making music, you spend all this time doing it... Because music has been largely devalued.
Maia Morgan Wells:
From selling a $10 CD, to now...
Vince Plummer:
Totally. And people don't have the attention anymore because there's more of it, so if the barrier to entry is lower. So, there's high opportunities for a small group of people and then a lot of people, there's not as much, so the more things that you can do, honestly, I don't even really know how you could think about releasing music and not think about the visual component of every single little thing and how you could take one... If you think about it, like Gary Vaynerchuk, you take that one large piece of content and you chop it up all these different ways and you make it platform specific. So, you can take one thing and I think I was trying to turn one thing into 20 different small things. And then, you [inaudible 00:31:29] those together to see what performs better and then you turn off that ad, if it doesn't run the other ad. And it's just slog after that.
Maia Morgan Wells:
And so, you were telling me before that you got some radio play out of this and you think maybe it was the ads. Tell us about that.
Vince Plummer:
I woke up yesterday morning and I was pinged from some radio show in Brighton and I was running- [crosstalk 00:32:01]
Maia Morgan Wells:
Brighton, England. We should clarify because- [crosstalk 00:32:02]
Vince Plummer:
Yeah. In the UK.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Yeah, okay.
Vince Plummer:
I was pinged from some radio show in Brighton and now I don't know, 100% if that's how, but he said that he... they took the song and it was like, I didn't even submit it to that station, they just took it and they put it on and they were talking about it and joking about me being a dad rapper.
Maia Morgan Wells:
Okay. And so, that's a new genre for us. What song was it that they played?
Vince Plummer:
The circles and squares, one with my kid. We made that music video, my kid and I, during lockdown, we just got out a green screen and I was like, "I'm going to learn how to do green screen and I'm going to brush up on my chops in Adobe premiere."
Maia Morgan Wells:
Can you give us a little bit of this dad Rap, to take us out for the episode?
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