Situation:
Marigold (formerly CM Group) is the world’s largest portfolio of email marketing solutions. With a portfolio strategy, Marigold continues to add innovative marketing technologies to their collection in an effort to create a true home for marketers of every scale and varying levels of sophistication.
Problem:
Marigold needed to scale their product marketing practice across the portfolio, requiring process standardization and structuring strategy. Additionally, with an understaffed team of 5 PMMs, they were in need of product marketing execution (sales materials, narrative decks, roadmap documentation, etc.) across multiple product lines and at the portfolio level.
Solution:
Fluvio embedded a team of 3 consultants that solidified the positioning and messaging for each product within the portfolio (via a marketecture) and developed a portfolio narrative. Additionally, the team continued to support product marketing efforts for several product lines for over 2 years.
Client Interview
After 6 months of working together, we sat down and interviewed Marigold’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Grunberg, and Chief Product Officer, Cody Bender to get their thoughts on our partnership.
Jason Grunberg
Chief Marketing Officer at Marigold
Cody Bender
Chief Product Officer at Marigold
Who is Marigold?
Jason: Marigold is the world’s largest portfolio of email marketing solutions, composed of Campaign Monitor, Sailthru, Cheetah Digital, Selligent, Emma, and Vuture. As a marketer, I know all-to-well the challenge of finding the right technology for specific use cases when there are so many options. At Marigold we are bringing trust back into the technology world by ensuring our clients are using the product that best suits their needs.
With a portfolio strategy, Marigold continues to add innovative marketing technologies to our collection in an effort to create a true home for marketers of every scale and varying levels of sophistication.
What problems were you encountering that led you to believe a product marketing consultant could help?
Cody: We were resourcing constrained in an incredibly valuable area of the business, Product Marketing. With multiple products launching features continuously, we needed standardization and structure to be able to scale our PMM practice. We also were short on PMM execution capacity (sales materials, narrative decks, roadmap documentation, etc.) across multiple product lines.
Jason: We recognized that some of our brands - notably, Vuture and Sailthru - were at different stages from both a product and marketing standpoint and we needed expertise on 1) how to focus and quickly scale a niche product, like Vuture (i.e. identify opportunities to invest in within the product, what audiences to focus on, and deliver a compelling narrative), and 2) how to install mechanisms to build a sustainable Product Marketing practice within a fast-growth product like Sailthru, that had already found product-market fit.
How has Devon and his firm, Fluvio helped you?
Jason: Tactically, Devon and Fluvio helped us quickly establish a direction for Vuture and develop go-to-market materials that galvanized our Business Development, Sales, and Customer Success teams. Strategically, Devon has embedded himself into Marigold as a Product Marketing leader, formalized how the PMM function works across our organization, and built a framework for the practice’s evolution.
Cody: Devon has done a great job bringing structure and experience to our PMM practice. He very quickly understood our needs and was able to deliver high-quality output that exceeded my expectations. He also quickly established himself within the team to share his expertise and uplevel our PMMs.
What does Fluvio offer that is unique compared to other consulting firms you may have worked with in the past?
Jason: Fluvio provides us with top-tier strategic product marketing recommendations, but perhaps most importantly, Devon and team execute through to completion. They are accountable, reliable, and fast.
Cody: I have found that Fluvio has done an amazing job in delivering exactly what was promised on time and on budget. There has never been a scenario where the deliverables we discussed were more than a single iteration from meeting our needs. This is incredibly refreshing and saves us so much time communicating back and forth.
What are some of the benefits you’ve experienced since you kicked off the partnership?
Cody: It has been great to have someone who really understands the strategic role of Product Marketing, but can balance the tactical needs of the business as well. Several products in our portfolio needed immediate attention for Sales resources and messaging support. Fluvio stepped in and drove to tangible deliverables in the shortest amount of time I could have hoped for.
Jason: Fluvio provides the high-level, strategic planning and guidance of a traditional management consultancy and couples it with the executional prowess of a nimble startup. I’m excited to continue to partner with them.