Recently I ran a Q&A on Sharebird, a new platform that connects professionals in tech to help share knowledge. There were great questions about market research, and since this is critical to so many functions within an organization, I wanted to share my responses.

Often the terms “positioning” and “messaging” are interchanged, but they are actually much different.

Recently I wrote a post about how to have a successful product launch. This is a quick how-to guide of the basics that you need. If this is your first product launch, it can be overwhelming – so getting organized is key. Culled from over 100 product launches and 10 years of product marketing experience, here are some of my top tips to nail the launch.

Inspired by Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover’s recent interview on “the launch” not being a “one time thing” – I wanted to share a few of my favorite content strategies to build awareness and engagement for your product after the initial launch. By all means, pop the champagne and celebrating nailing the launch, but realize your work isn’t done yet.

When I was running product marketing at AdRoll, hiring sometimes felt like a full-time job. As any hiring manager knows, getting the right people on your team can be daunting. Finding the right candidates is incredibly challenging, the interview process is grueling, and the offer process can be heartbreaking. Here are some pro tips that I’ve learned from many seasoned product marketers as well as through my own experiences at AdRoll and Google. While this is specifically for product marketers, much of the advice here can be applied to any position.

Customer research can be one of the most valuable assets to any marketing program. Whether you’re looking to refine your messaging, launch a product, or determine product/market fit, getting real feedback and opinions from your target customers can make any project better. Yet, sometimes, as marketers, you may find this to be challenging with a limited budget and limited timeline. Below are some “quick win” ways to get great, scrappy and quick customer research without breaking your budget.

Marketers spend countless amounts of time and budget on quests to build the perfect buyer personas. Traditionally, buyer personas are created to understand more about the people buying your products, in order to make better decisions about content development, media strategy, and the holy grail – product development. Yet, marketers are frequently left scratching their heads when the product manager doesn’t give their slides more than just a passing glance, and their work is left to sit on the shelf. This post is an effort to dissect what’s wrong with the current way of creating buyer personas, and how to make them better.

The scene: Glass-windowed conference room at open-air tech office in SF, dog under the table, “micro-kitchen” snacks scattered around, and product manager adorned in company hoodie just finished her killer presentation on the next new game changing product. After the office applause settles, one brave soul dares to ask: “So, who is this for?” The product manager responds, “Well, that’s easy – it’s for everyone!”

Getting started with your first go-to-market plan can be overwhelming. Expectations for the launch to go smoothly will be high, and it may seem like you’ll never be ready in time for launch. But by planning ahead, it can be more manageable, and exceed your team’s expectations. Based on my experience with over 50 product and feature launches, here are 5 tested product launch best practices for getting set-up for success for your first go-to-market (GTM) plan.