For nine months I ran product marketing for an HR software line at one of Vietnam’s biggest software companies. I wrote the packs, ran the ads and brought leads to the webinar.
Then I realized that most Vietnamese SaaS products are B2B. As a result, I wouldn’t gain much technical growth, but rather just refine my soft skills to approach businesses. That’s also the reason why I left.
Vu Quynh Anh - Product Marketing Manager, AMIS HRM · MISA, 2021
Nine months, one product line
- AMIS HRM is an HR management software tailored for Vietnamese businesses, covering employee records, payroll, timekeeping, social insurance, and recruitment. While it also supports employee L&D, it requires integration with other platforms, including Accounting, CRM, Work Management, and ERP systems, to operate fully.
- January to October 2021. Full-time, Product Marketing Manager.
- Brand and strategy on OKRs. Plans, resources, tactics.
- Google Ads and Facebook Ads to bring in MQLs and SQLs for the sales team.
- Then straight to AhaSlides.
What I was hired to do
| Area | What | How it went |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy | Brand and strategy for AMIS HRM, needs to build KPIs. | Done |
| Paid | Google Ads and Facebook Ads, to bring in MQLs and SQLs. | Running them |
| Awareness | B2B and B2C campaigns across paid, affiliate and owned channels | Running them |
| Sales enablement | A product knowledge pack for each module | Wrote them |
| Competitors | A competitor pack and a comparison checklist per module | Wrote them |
| Webinar | Getting leads to sign up and join | Team’s participation |
| Team | Three people | Managed them |
| The product | Growing it | Went nowhere |
The last row is the honest one. I will come back to it.
Most of the job was for the sales team
I thought product marketing meant campaigns. At MISA, most of it was documents for salespeople.
AMIS HRM was sold by people, not by a website. A lead came in, and a salesperson called. So the salesperson needed to know the product better than the customer did.
Rivals: Base and 1Office
Every module also got a competitor pack. Base and 1Office were the names which came up again and again.
We compared them feature by feature, in a checklist. Where we were better. Where we were not.
The second column is the one that matters. A salesperson who only hears your strengths gets surprised on the first call. Then they stop trusting your packs.
Getting people to the webinar
2021 was the year everyone worked from home. So the big campaign was a webinar about managing HR when your whole team is remote.
My part was the leads. Getting the right people to sign up, and then getting them to actually join.
That is two different jobs. Signing up costs nothing. Joining costs an hour. A full registration list can still mean an empty room.
What happened to the leads
Our team kept a sheet. A previous colleague built it. Every lead, the page it came from, the source in Analytics, and then what the sales team said about it later.
Reading it was humbling.
Some leads went to a salesperson. Many did not. Not an opportunity. No need. Already using another software. A student, signing up to study. And one I still remember: wrong phone number.
So a lead is not a customer. It is not even a person, sometimes. Two campaigns with the same cost per lead can be completely different, if one brings real businesses and the other brings typos.
You only see that if someone puts the CRM next to the ads report. Most marketers never do.
The product went nowhere
This is the part I have to say plainly.
I did the work. The package, the deal, the competitors, ads, webinars, a team of three. And the product still did not move.
Some years after I left, AMIS HRM was redesigned.
I cannot say why it did not grow. I was one marketer on one product line in a very big company. But I can say what I learned.
Marketing can bring people to a product. It cannot make the product the one they choose.
Why I left
I wanted to know what SaaS really is.
At MISA, a salesperson closed every deal. The software was the thing being sold, not the thing doing the selling.
Back then, I heard about products that sell themselves. Free to start, used by one person, then a team. I wanted to see that from the inside.
So in October 2021 I joined AhaSlides. Everything I tried there failed first, and then SEO worked. That story is in its own post.
> More on AhaSlides: What I failed as an in-house marketer at AhaSlides
What I’d tell myself in 2021
- In a sales-led company, write a product for the salesperson first. One good pack is used in every call. One campaign runs once.
- Follow the lead into the CRM. Cost per lead is a marketing number. What sales says about the lead is the real one. Therfore, you would need to track both number, cost of MQLs and SQLs.
- Marketing cannot fix the product. If it is not moving, say so early. Do not keep buying traffic for it. You also need to fix up the product alongside with the Marketing stuff.
- Go after what you are curious about. I wanted to learn SaaS, so I left to find out. It was the right call, my time at AhaSlides turned out to be one of the most incredible experiences of my professional life.
