INNOVATION KEYNOTES

Bringing Innovation to Center Stage at Pulse

PULSE CONFERENCE

Each year Gainsight hosts its Pulse conference to bring a community of customer success, customer community, product, and education professionals together to share ideas, strategize best practices, and build relationships across the community. One of the agenda highlights is the Innovation Keynote, in which the Product leadership team takes the stage to unveil the biggest, most exciting updates to the Gainsight platform to conference attendees.

As the Head of Product Marketing and a key partner to our Product leadership team, I was invited to join the mainstage keynote sessions in 2021 and 2022 to announce new features on our roadmap.

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BRINGING INNOVATION TO MARKET 

The features that were announced during the Pulse Innovation Keynote are the largest items to be launched each year, requiring a comprehensive launch strategy and full-scale execution.

Identifying Keynote-Worthy Features

In order to ensure the keynote was filled with our most exciting announcements, I'd work with the Product leadership team to identify the right features from our roadmap to feature in the session.

Defining the Narrative

Like with any product launch, I had to define the story we wanted to tell about each of the new features we announced during our Innovation Keynotes. In addition to developing messaging for each of the features, preparation for our keynotes also included defining the overarching narrative around our roadmap and product vision in a way that showcases our leadership in the market.

Bringing Innovation to Life with a Demo

Our keynote presentations were a delicate balance of show and tell. In addition to telling a story about our product vision, we wanted to put these features into context for our users by showing them exactly how they work and what they could use them for. I worked closely with the Product Managers to map out a demo that clearly highlighted our innovation and differentiators, while making it simple enough for our customers and prospects to quickly put into the context of their own business and challenges.

Ensuring Internal Readiness

A big part of setting these launches up for success was ensuring that our internal teams had everything they needed to hit the ground running immediately after the keynote. I hosted multiple internal enablement sessions so that our GTM teams knew what was being announced and had both messaging and collateral to start promoting these capabilities to our prospects and customers on day one.

Amplifying the Impact with an Integrated Marketing Plan

Making bold, flashy product announcements that drum up excitement during the event was just the beginning. To amplify the impact of our announcements and generate buzz among those that weren't there in-person, I partnered across the marketing team to build out campaigns to keep the momentum going post-event. This included press releases, social campaigns, thought leadership content, new updates to our website, emails, and more that continued to deliver quarters after the event.