Episode Summary
Google Docs and Microsoft Office might offer some of the most popular agenda templates out there, but they’re basic and not suitable for specific industries. And Hypercontext saw an opportunity to capitalize on this gap. The company decided to develop specific agenda templates and created an entire library for marketers, engineers, and sales teams.
In this episode, Camille Trent chats with Hiba Amin, the Senior Marketing Manager at Hypercontext. Hiba discusses the benefits of producing a series of popular templates tailored to first-time managers, engineers, and sales teams. According to her, the Hypercontext agenda template library (includes over 180+ OKR and Goal templates) succeeded because the company had a clear goal in mind – the end-user.
Hiba further discusses how marketers should listen to their customers and consider their input when creating content and ultimately improving the core product.
Guest Profile
- Name: Hiba Amin
- What she does: Hiba is the Senior Marketing Manager at Hypercontext, formerly known as Soapbox.
- Company: Hypercontext
- Noteworthy: Hiba is super passionate about leadership and running meetings that "don't feel like you want to rip your hair out during and after."
Key Insights
- If you are a product-led company, focus on the end-user. Hiba believes that product-led companies should focus on creating a product that meets their customers' needs. That way, they're providing value to them. "We could be marketing to the CEOs, HR, and all those people who could blanketly tell the whole company, 'Hey, we downloaded this tool, but we're implementing it for everyone.' But if we're not building and marketing that product for the people who are going to be using it every day, which are managers, and driving the most value for them, it's not going to stick."
- Marketers, talk to your customers. Hiba thinks that marketers often overlook the importance of talking to their customers and understanding their needs. She claims that customers' feedback can significantly help companies improve their products and make them more customer-centered. "I think what shocked me the most, and I'm 100% guilty of this, is how little marketers talk to customers. I think that we internally have this barrier in our head, where we need sales to introduce us to customers, or we need to get that feedback from sales, customer success, or support."
- Outsourcing fosters collaboration and helps small teams create content faster. According to Hiba, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing. In fact, she believes that it can help smaller teams communicate better and create content much faster. "I think we had about a hundred goals submitted from external partners, which was the best decision we made. From a resource perspective, it doesn't all have to be internal. It doesn't all have to be agency-driven. And I think outsourcing was not only a great way to build more content faster, especially as a small team, but it created a great distribution network, as well. All of these people were proud of being part of building something cool, valuable, and actionable."
“You don’t have to build this crazy, intricate thing to start. Just create an MVP at first.”
Hiba Amin
Senior Marketing Manager
Hypercontext
Episode Highlights
When Creating a Product, Focus on End-User
“I think something to be focused on, as well, is your end-user. I think a lot of people might always focus on who’s the decision-maker, but when you’re at a product-led company, you’re marketing to that end-user.
For us, one of the demographics of people that we interviewed for the agenda templates library a lot was the first-time managers. They might not necessarily be great at people management, it’s a whole new role, and they have no clue what they’re doing half of the time.
So, we thought, ‘Here are some ways that we can help you think less in your job. Here are some ways that we can help you take a bit of the burden off of management by giving you information that not only we’ve curated and created ourselves, but other managers who we respect have also created and have used with their team.'”
Listen to Customers and Consider Their Feedback as a Way to Improve Your Product
“I think the thing that shocked me the most is how little marketers talk to customers. They’re so appreciative when we talk to them because then they feel valued. They think, ‘My feedback is potentially impacting the product. It’s impacting the content that I’m receiving. It’s impacting information that could be useful to me.’
As marketers, we need to not build those barriers in our head that we need to wait for sales or CS to introduce us to customers and go and ask them for talk and conversations ourselves. Talk to people who are your personas, especially people who pick a different tool over you or people who fit your demographic but aren’t sold yet. That might influence your marketing copy, but it also could influence your product.”
You Don’t Have to Go Crazy or Big. Start with Small Things and Keep Building
“I don’t think you have to go so crazy, so big, and so wild. I think it’s nice to start with something, and once you see the results, that’ll give you more time to keep building. You don’t have to build this crazy intricate thing to start. Create an MVP. See if it works, even if you try it out as just a blog, because that’s low effort. It doesn’t require engineering or web development. Just try it out because our blogs that are just talking about art also convert high. So, it doesn’t have to be a full-scale product.”
Sign-ups Can Become Vanity Metrics If They Don’t Lead to Revenue
“From a sign-up perspective, the agenda templates alone and blogs about agenda templates drive 33% of our sign-ups every week. So, I guess we’re talking about two to 300 sign-ups or around 200 company sign-ups just from those pieces of content.
We look at the metrics from sign-ups, which is great, but we also look at how many people came back the next day, how many people came back again within a week, and then how many people converted after their two-week free trial. And every time someone converts, l go back, and I look at what was that first page that led them to sign. And it’s typically a template. It’s either the homepage, the pricing page, a template library page, or a blog. I think, from a monetary perspective, sign-ups can become vanity metrics if they don’t lead to revenue. But they do. And that’s another point for us to look at.”
A Piece of Advice for Future Marketers and Agenda Template Makers
“Start with talking to your customers. That’s going to be the first step. Validate that idea and find a way to do it in the MVP way. If you don’t have that many resources, take it step by step.
I don’t think you should go all out if this is your first time building a template library. I think there’s a lot that you can do as a marketer. So I think proving out that this works for your audience is really important. I think that that’s the start. Talk to your customers. They’re going to be able to help you drive and understand what the best type of template library is.
If you can get to a point where your customers care about your product as much as you do, you did the right thing because you built something that is valuable to them and not to your resume as a marketer.”
