Richard King

Product Marketing Alliance

Product Marketing Alliance is a collective of passionate product marketing innovators committed to driving demand, adoption and the overall success of their products.

Founder & CEO

The Alliance

The Alliance is the go-to professional development platform for high-growth organisations and individuals worldwide.

CMO Alliance

The CMO Alliance is a global gathering of marketing leaders.

Founder

LinkedIn

Instructor profile: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/richard-king 

Courses: 

Product Marketing Foundations 
Product Marketing: Competitive Intelligence

LinkedIn Learning Instructor

Acara

Moving event marketing forward: A powerful event marketing platform  enabling you to drive business performance through in-person events.

VP, Product & Co-founder

Tito

Investor

Ignition

GTM Alliance

CEO & Founder

Sales Enablement Collective

The Sales Enablement Collective is a global gathering of revenue leaders, all striving towards one, shared goal: consistent and predictable revenue growth.

Product-Led Alliance

Fuel your growth with a product-led approach.
We’re the world’s fastest-growing community for product pros, growth gurus, founders, and thought leaders. You’re in the right place to master your PLG strategy.

VP Product Marketing

I’m a builder at heart, with five startups and three exits under my belt. 

My passion lies at the intersection of product, marketing, sales, and data - so you’ll often hear me talking about product marketing.

My entrepreneurial journey has taught me the value of resilience, innovation, and questioning the crowd rather than following it. Most importantly, it’s shown me the power of community.

👉 Why I share on LinkedIn:

I believe in collective learning: I want to provide tried and tested insights to help you navigate your career, whether you're a founder, marketer, or looking to learn something new. 

👉 What I talk about: 

1️⃣ Building bootstrapped companies
Why go-to-market efficiencies are a non-negotiable 

2️⃣ How to spot and nurture talent
Strategies for building high-performing and efficient teams

3️⃣ Product marketing - why won’t I shut up about it?
How effective product marketing drives business success.

4️⃣ Operational excellence + a great culture. It is possible.
The nuts and bolts of business operations and fostering a winning culture.

5️⃣ What does leadership really mean?
The changing expectations of what it means to be a “boss.”

Go ahead and hit the follow button, and I’ll see you around!

This is why product marketing matters

😂

"Nah man don't buy AirPods"

"You need the Sony WH-1000XM5-WHCH 720N-WF1000XM5-CH520"


Sony product naming meeting:

Engineering: "We're launching 4 new headphone models. WH-1000XM5, WHCH 720N, WF1000XM5, and CH520"

Product Marketing: "That's not a name, that's a license plate"

Engineering: "We should bring in OpenAI. They're good at naming"

Product Marketing: "The people who named their models GPT-3.5-turbo-16k-0613 and text-davinci-003?"

Engineering: "See, they get it"

Product Marketing: "You both need help"


Meanwhile at Apple:

Engineering: "We're launching new headphones"

Product Marketing: "Call them AirPods"

Engineering: "What about the premium version?"

Product Marketing: "AirPods Pro"

Engineering: "And the over ear ones?"

Product Marketing: "AirPods Max"

Engineering: "That's it?"

Product Marketing: "That's it"


** scene **

Happy Weds, hope you enjoyed this skit haha

Talking truth on leadership, growth & product marketing | 5x founder | 3x exits |

Give Maria Nimfuehr  an oscar for this

😂



The stages of every product launch.

10/10 visualization hahah.

 
 
Maria's POV:

"You're a founder. You successfully raised from VC. Do you think you nailed your value proposition and positioning?

There is one serious mistake that tech companies make. In their minds, how they pitch their product to investors and how they sell it to customers are the same. 

But they are not. Why?

When pitching to investors, founders are expected to sell the vision ✨ Convince a group of skeptics that they are the ones who will grow to $100M ARR very quick. 

All works towards this goal: they are selling the 𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗟 vision of the product, showing how big is the market and how customers lie awake in the night dreaming of buying their solution. Founders are selling the future, what they will become when they grow up 👦

In reality?

The product is often in the early stage and it can't do all that you promised to investors. When users try it, they quickly find out that your 'data powerhouse rocketship' is just a buggy, scrappy MVP. And they leave.

Your positioning, messaging and value prop for users should be focused on 𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗧. What your product can do today that solves my problem? Why should I choose you over alternatives NOW? If it's valuable to me, I will buy it."

---


👋 P.S. Make sure you give Maria a follow!

Still laughing at this, well played hahah

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BMW turned their competitors into free advertising.

The full campaign playbook for you:



To celebrate their 100th anniversary, BMW set up a free toll lane on Moscow's M11 highway. The barrier used visual recognition to spot BMW logos and let them breeze through without paying.

Over 300,000 BMW drivers got free rides all summer.

Then Audi and Mercedes drivers got jealous.

They wanted the free pass too.



So what did BMW do?

They published printable BMW logo stickers on their social pages. Custom sized to cover competitor badges. Mercedes owners could slap a BMW roundel over their star and glide right through.

Read that again.

BMW got Audi and Mercedes drivers to voluntarily cover their own logos with BMW branding. And drive around Moscow as free mobile billboards.

So so good 😂


The results:

4 million cars saw the exclusive BMW lane. 15 million media impressions. 70+ articles in 2 days with zero paid media. And brand awareness among competitor owners went from 30% to 33%.

The kicker?

Mercedes responded months later by offering free airport parking to premium car owners but it wasn't nearly as effective.

BMW set the playbook and competitors followed.



My 0.02 for you PMMs:

We're entering a new era where product velocity is accelerating faster than ever. AI is compressing build cycles. Launches are happening weekly. The brands that win won't be the ones with the best product announcements.

They'll be the ones with the most creative distribution.

BMW didn't run a billboard campaign about being 100 years old. They created an experience that made competitors WANT to participate. And turned that participation into owned media.

This is the kind of thinking PMMs need to bring to competitive strategy. Not battlecards. Not feature comparisons. But stunts that flip the script entirely.


Find your M11 highway moment.

Make it impossible for competitors to ignore.

Then invite them to join ✌️



P.S. What's your take on this?

Hey PMMs, stop. Read this.

🔥 analysis by Jason Feifer:


Celsius struggled for years — because of a CRITICAL MISTAKE that many brands make:

It was selling the wrong benefit.

In this case, Celsius spent years screaming “BURN CALORIES!”

Problems:

❌ CONFUSION (how does a drink burn calories?)
❌ EMBARRASSMENT (would you carry that around?)
❌ SACRIFICE (the can says little about flavor)

In short, Celsius only reached people who want to sacrifice and diet — instead of people who want to enjoy themselves and feel healthy.

Now look closely at its new can, and the fixes it made:

✅ ENJOYMENT (flavor takes the spotlight)
✅ PRIDE (premium design, new “Live Fit” tagline)
✅ HEALTH (claims are small and refined)

Think of it like a conversation. Celsius used to open the conversation with a bold health claim — which turned most people off.

Now Celsius opens the conversation with enjoyment and lifestyle — and THEN, once people are intrigued, its health claims make them feel good.

In 2023, Celsius netted $1.3 billion in revenue.

Don’t ask, “What makes me unique?” Instead, ask “Am I meeting people where they are?” That distinction is EVERYTHING.


--

👋 P.S. Make sure you give Jason a follow!

Great POV by my friend Aatir Abdul Rauf:

"Will we see pure SaaS products opening retail stores in the future?"


I had this debate with a friend the other day that started as a joke.

Our first reaction was that it's not in any GTM playbook because it's a money burner. 

At the same time, we agreed that physical spaces do something digital can't.

In a world of vibe-coded apps, presence is a differentiator. You interact with a human, create outcomes in real-time, and trust hardens. 

We talked about Apple. Yes, they sell hardware, so it makes a lot more logistical/financial sense for them. But their retail experience accelerated their journey towards becoming a lifestyle brand. 

Could a SaaS store create that same feeling?

After all, SaaS brands already invest in non-digital advertising.

→ ClickUp plastered ads on buses.
→ Artisan ran billboards across SF. 
→ Ramp pulled off that giant marketing stunt in the middle of NYC. 

And at big conferences, you see these brands spending through the nose for elaborate exhibitor booths.

Those moments create something. 

Brand recognition jumps. 
People remember the experience. 
The product stops feeling "fungible".

A retail store can deliver that year-round, but obviously NOT if the math doesn't work out. 

We realized this works only for larger SaaS brands.

→ You need massive scale. Probably relevant for products with $500M+ revenue minimum. Think Canva, Hubspot, Slack.

→ Location discipline is everything. A 2,500 sq ft store in NYC's Flatiron runs about $1.5M per year, all in. If you pick vanity locations, the math collapses.

→ The store must produce measurable conversion lift or direct revenue to justify the burn.

For that to happen, it can't just be brand theater.

The store has to be an education and services studio first, a showroom second.

Example:

→ Canva would run paid design workshops and operate an on-site print lab for business cards and event materials. That's potentially $900k in annual services revenue.

→ Slack and HubSpot would turn the space into a solutions center. Workflow clinics. CRM migration sessions. RevOps audits. The goal would be to land 1 enterprise customer per month or 8 to 10 mid-market deals at $100k to $200k each. 

In other words, the store adds to the pipeline, not just awareness.

But what would happen at these stores?

Some ideas we riffed:
→ Canva could host stations where you design and print stuff live.
→ Slack runs workflow labs where entire teams optimize their Slack setup in real time.
→ One-on-one CRM sessions where staff sets up a HubSpot instance for a small business owner. 
→ Certification programs with expert coaching and exam days
→ Paid workshops that turn casual users into power users
→ Events that build community and turn customers into evangelists

I don't know. Maybe we're making no sense.

But curious about this
Would a retail store change your perception of a product? 
Or is there genuinely no utility here?
--

P.S. What's your take?

PayPal

- Promoted to lead the go-to-market strategy and execution team for our Risk as a Service and Payouts portfolios.
- Driving towards $500mn+ portfolio goal, directing e2e programs that ensure internal preparedness, commercial org alignment, and successful marketing and communications strategies.

Head of Value Added Services GTM

- Promoted to lead marketing strategy for our large enterprise customer segment during a period where our marketing team expanded from 7 to 42 team members across our core markets in NA, EU, and AU
- Awarded a Key Talent Award for top performers at PayPal
- Developed marketing messaging and positioning briefs around our key solution areas
- Led team annual planning and budget allocation
- Initiated and executed a global media campaign across 10 countries and 13 Tier 1 business publications in partnership with various marketing and comms teams
- Won a Bronze Award from the Financial Communications Society for a global, multi-asset campaign led by our team in partnership with the Financial Times
- Collaborated with the Brand team to create our first, marquis Enterprise brand positioning video
- Developed targeted messaging and marketing playbooks to reach key audience personas and industry verticals
- Designed a custom training program for the enterprise marketing team to level-up their knowledge, skills and personal development
- Created new processes, knowledge sharing forums and content repositories for our new marketing team
- Worked with cross-functional stakeholders in Brand, Comms, Sales, Sales Enablement and PMM to align on positioning and execute marketing programs

Enterprise Marketing Strategy, Global Lead

- Delivered prioritized GTM strategy to downstream Sales and Marketing stakeholders
- Translated complex technical capabilities into value-driven narratives 
- Designed and oversaw strategic projects, such as: a new customer segmentation framework, a product architecture study, global competitive and voice of customer research, and an industry vertical opportunity map
- Worked with stakeholders across Sales, Demand Gen, Product Marketing, Brand, Product, and Comms to collect insights, develop strategy, and kick off GTM execution
- During a major brand effort to unify various acquisitions, worked with leaders across the Enterprise org to write new messaging and positioning 
- Regularly trained and supported personnel on the new Enteprise segment narrative and strategy

Enterprise Product Marketing & GTM 

Harris Insights and Analytics

- Managed multi-million client portfolio.
- Matched enterprise clients with research solutions in brand strategy, corporate reputation, advertising and messaging impact, and research for public release.
- Developed action plans to tackle client questions around societal shifts, competitor disruption, brand equity, marketing/advertising impact, reputation, etc.
- Introduced clients to cutting-edge research technologies such as social listening and text analytics, implicit/subliminal response testing, innovation forecast modeling, etc.
- Identified and developed key C-level and director-level+ relationships in pursuit of new opportunities.
- Developed sales enablement and training materials, as well as custom marketing materials for clients.

Senior Enterprise Consultant

Euromonitor International

-	Began as consultant on the Research team and was promoted twice to become a Senior Solutions Consultant and Strategy Delivery Lead.
-	Worked with leading large enterprises and mid-market clients from all over the globe to uncover research needs and scope custom consulting engagements.
-	Initiated enterprise-wide special projects with Global VP of Consulting to implement strategies around business development, communications, and marketing.
-	Achieved 130% of personal annual business development revenue target, year over year.
-       Led internal strategy project to evaluate the potential for a new distribution platform for our data.
-	Designed, proposed, and sold custom consumer research projects; solutions included everything from full-scale innovation strategies to brand research to market sizing.
-      Managed dozens of independent analysts in Latin America and Europe to execute field research. 
-	Trained and coached 45 account managers on Consulting capabilities and sales.

Senior Solutions Consultant, Global Consulting Group

NBCUniversal, Inc.

•	Managed all client account requests related to contracts, inventory & programming.
•	Negotiated alternative programming packages to resolve frequent scheduling issues.
•	Awarded an “Above and Beyond: Ovation” award in recognition of my management of the entire national sales operations department during a three-month period.

Client Manager, National Sales Ops

Alex Sink for Governor Campaign

•	Initiated and cultivated relationships with donors through strategic development efforts.
•	Solicited contributions, meetings and events for the campaign.
•	Produced events such as fundraisers, rallies and other outreach opportunities.
•	Managed a pipeline of major donors in targeted statewide fundraising initiatives. 
•	Assisted in Hispanic media outreach efforts in pitching interviews, stories, and events.

Professional Fundraiser

Williams Mullen

Williams Mullen Strategies International is a full service international public affairs firm based in Washington, D.C.

•	Promoted to director of research from a research associate position within six months.
•	Supervised and trained five team members.
•	Coordinated up to ten concurrent projects for foreign diplomats, attorneys and C-level decision makers within the firm’s culture of rapid turnaround and aggressive deadlines.
•	Led team in conducting research and writing briefing memoranda for firm’s president, principals and clients.
•	Liaised with Congressional offices, government agencies, and media in anticipation of legislative action.
•	Created government relations proposals and presentations for the firm.
•	Directed coordination of conference events, meetings, and receptions for up to 500 guests.

Director of Research, WM Strategies International

About me:

1. Born and raised in Miami, and currently reside in Chicago. (Yes, I moved from Miami to Chicago. Yes, I’m aware Chicago winters are brutal. No, I’m not crazy.)

2. My work passion is bringing products to market for large enterprise customers. I like the complexity of the deals, the variety of customer needs, and the exposure I get to different approaches to business.  

3. My approach to work and leadership is centered around radical transparency and collaboration. I enjoy building cross-functional teams and marshaling them around shared goals. Personal relationships are the key to getting things done - and they make life worthwhile. 

4. I’m deeply curious and live by one of PayPal Braintree’s foundational principles: “Always Ask Why.”

5. I love learning about the world through travel (I’ve been to 40 countries and feel like I haven’t scratched the surface) and am energized by international projects with all their cultural nuances. 

6. They say there are 3 types of professionals: those who like to “design, build, or run” projects. I feel at home as a designer/builder and get bored easily in the day-to-day running of a program after I’ve built it. Always on to the next opportunity to solve new problems. 

If you want to know more, just ask!

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Richard King

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