SaaStrophe Series: Marketing in the Dark by Olena Bomko @ Olena Bomko Artwork

Mouseflow Podcast: The show for marketers who obsess over results.

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Mouseflow Podcast: The show for marketers who obsess over results.

SaaStrophe Series: Marketing in the Dark by Olena Bomko @ Olena Bomko

October 16, 2024 • Mouseflow

0:00 | 2:18

🚀 Key Takeaways:

Why collaboration between marketing and sales is essential for success
The importance of customer research and understanding the product
Timeless advice from Eugene Schwartz: Great marketing starts with listening

Tune in for a candid conversation about what happens when marketers fly blind and how to avoid marketing in the dark.

In this episode, I share the story of my time as a fractional product marketer at a cybersecurity SaaS startup—where things weren’t quite as they seemed. The website was full of buzzwords, stock photos, and AI claims, but something was missing.

During my research, I discovered the sales team had a brilliant deck customers loved. Naturally, I suggested using it for the website. Then came the twist: the CMO had never seen the sales deck. That’s when it hit me—marketing and sales were working in silos, with no customer insights guiding their efforts.

Marketing in the Dark, a story by Olena Bomko

Once upon a time, I worked as a fractional product marketer in a sales-led cybersecurity SaaS startup. And they had a standard cybersecurity website—as you’d imagine: crammed with buzzwords, the word “AI” screamed at you from every corner of the homepage, while the stock photos stared at you with their soulless gazes.

As any good product marketer would, I started with research. During this phase, I interviewed their head of sales, who proudly showed me a sleek, crystal-clear sales deck. Customers loved it. I loved it.

Naturally, when talking to their CMO about the website copy (and that’s what product marketing consultants sometimes get hired for), I suggested using the info from the sales deck. After a brief, yet awkward moment of silence, he responded: “I’ve never seen our sales deck.”

That was the moment the puzzle pieces fell into place. I suddenly understood why their website looked the way it did. And a few other things became clear too. Do you think this CMO ever talked to their customers? Nope! And as a marketer, that scares me.

How can a marketer do their job if they don’t know the basics? It’s impossible to do good marketing if you:

Don’t understand how the product works,
Don’t collaborate with your go-to-market teams,
Don’t do customer research,
Don’t understand the market or competition.

And don’t just take it from me. Take it from Eugene Schwartz, one of the greatest copywriters who’s ever lived:

“Copywriting is the simplest of all possible jobs. Lazy ears produce bad ads. Here’s what I’ve discovered about sharpening mine:

Sit down with the owner of the product and pump the hell out of him.
Talk to his customers. Do it in person or on paper. See if they agree with him. If they don’t, find out why.
Listen to his competitors. They often tell you more about the opportunities they’re missing in their ads than the opportunities they’re seeing and therefore seizing.

You see? People constantly ask me why I haven’t burned myself out by now… how I can write three or four fresh ads each week without going crazy.

The answer is simple: I don’t write them. I listen to them. And you can too.”