Q&A with Collette Johnson, Product Marketing Specialist at Redgate Software

Collette Johnson, Product Marketing Specialist at Redgate Software, is the key player in the organization’s marketing success. She is known for always offering the highest standards of work for the benefit of the companies she works for.

MEDIA 7: Congratulations on being included in the “Top 100 Product Marketing Influencer 2020” list! What prompted you to get into marketing?
COLLETTE JOHNSON: For me, it was all about the customer. Early in my career, I realized that allowing organizations to embrace new technology to drive their successes excited me, and that’s what inspired me towards a career in marketing. I’m really passionate about understanding how to engage people, learning what messages and narratives help them make decisions, and how to enable sales to succeed through the materials we produce. I absolutely love the learning you get in marketing and how everything you do is different while you’re testing and repeating for the best result for customers.

Commitments are the key to helping people embrace a career in product marketing and to understand what work entails.

M7: What are the factors that led you to join Redgate Software? Please take us through your journey.
CJ: The most important factor for me to join the Redgate software has been the value they place on marketing and how crucial it is to the success of the organization. I joined the organization in an exciting growth phase, which in product marketing brings many exciting challenges in terms of strategic vision, messaging realignment, understanding the importance of new characters and the complex interactions between key stakeholders and understanding of our customers’ changing needs.

So far, I’ve been working on our data protection and privacy offering and I feel the impact we have had on our customers with the repositioning has been transformative for the people in their roles and for the entire organization. This year I will be working with our monitoring team and this brings with it a whole new challenge that I am looking forward to. The key thing about Redgate is that every day is different and we talk to our customers every day, which is extremely powerful in marketing and I believe it makes for great and powerful product marketing.

M7: What is your approach to market research, focused on both the customer and the competition?
CJ: Good market research is the key and I believe it is what makes marketing professionals excellent. For me both as a client and as a competitor, it is ensuring a mix of formal and informal insights from across the market which can be customers, key opinion leaders, analysts. It also ensures that you keep busy in these areas frequently — every week I set aside an afternoon to update myself on competitor research (I also set up active searches for when competitors are mentioned in PR, etc. to make sure I have the least intelligence for when I may need to react to strengthen our offers).

Also, I talk to our customers every week to make sure we have up-to-date information. Recently, I implemented a digital mural for sales, marketing and product to insert insights as they are earning, which we review weekly and decide which ones warrant further investigation — it’s an excellent tool for subtle changes in the market or to see patterns in so that we can act quickly to gain business benefits.

Never give up. Marketing is a very competitive space and it can be difficult to get into. Find a mentor to help you explore different areas of marketing and support you in gaining experience.
M7: What marketing strategies are you looking forward to implementing in 2021 and why?
CJ: What I look forward to most is looking at the complex decision-making processes in the company and understanding how to bring success to these organizations. I like to understand what organizations need, but make sure the voices of key stakeholders are heard and reflected in the marketing I produce to ensure the greatest possible success with the product portfolio I work on. This then needs to be translated across the organization to ensure understanding and so that we can ensure success with these groups and this is something I really enjoy and initial feedback on these insights is key to ensuring strategic success. long-term.

M7: You also have several commitments like mentoring, education in the business sector, and participating in podcasts like Product Marketing Life. How do you keep