As part of an ongoing initiative to showcase all of the wunderful people that work for our company, we’re highlighting key hires and new roles within Wunderkind that are sure to make a high impact for years to come. This time, we’re introducing our new Director of Product Marketing, Megan Kresinske. Megan is tasked with overseeing our pivotal product marketing function and comes to Wunderkind with over 10 years of experience in product marketing and technical communications at companies including: The New York Times, Gannett, Borderfree (Pitney Bowes), and Olapic. Read on to learn more about Megan, her background, and the key challenges and opportunities she sees for Wunderkind product marketing throughout 2021 and beyond.
What is one thing that excites you the most about Wunderkind moving into 2021?
This may be cliche as a product marketer, but I’d honestly have to say the product direction. It’s very exciting to be part of a company that’s investing in diversifying their product portfolio. And, more importantly, doing it in a way that just makes sense for marketers. With the recent acquisition of SmarterHQ and the launch of text messaging, our ability to deliver tailored, one-to-one experiences for clients is unmatched and I’m looking forward to seeing the growth results of these integrated solutions.
What do you feel is one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest opportunities for Wunderkind?
I always see challenges as opportunities—so I’ll sum up this question in three words: Text Message Marketing. It’s a challenge because it’s a new channel, and there can be hesitation from brands when choosing to invest in those. However, it’s a channel that’s already shown it can provide greater immediacy and attention than its digital marketing counterparts. Because we’re already the market leader in list growth, incorporating text with our proven email solution provides a huge opportunity for our clients to capture, engage, and convert the right customers, while driving additional revenue.
What do you feel is an important step for product marketing to take in 2021?
Getting a product to market is often messy. There’s a lot of work done behind the scenes to prepare a product for launch, and to drive it’s post-launch long-term success. I believe that being laser-focused on customer needs as well as keeping them and the market well informed on our product vision and direction will be an important step for ensuring product market success—especially with a roadmap plan as integrated and innovative as Wunderkind’s.
What made you decide to come to Wunderkind when looking for a new opportunity?
I’ve spent my whole career in SaaS, publishing, and eCommerce, which is coincidentally all-encompassing of Wunderkind. So that initially drew me to the company. However, upon diving deeper into what Wunderkind really stands for, I saw that it embodied all the qualities that any candidate would look for in a company—a strong emphasis on culture, a high-performing technology platform, an impressive client list, and accelerated growth.
Finally, from a personal perspective, the opportunity to build a product marketing team from the ground up and help bring future Wunderkind products to market were certainly opportunities I couldn’t pass up.
Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background? Any fun facts to share as well?
Work background aside, here’s a bit more about me:
- Born and raised on the Jersey Shore (and recent resident after spending the last 8 years in NYC).
- I’m an avid reader, Peloton cycler (megske for other Pelofanatics!), Knicks fan, and have a serious love for pizza and travel. One of my favorite trips was traveling to Petra in Jordan.
You hit on Text Message Marketing before, what do you feel are the biggest opportunity for Text in 2021?
I can think of plenty of reasons, but I would have to say the opportunity to connect with consumers. As we all know, the marketing landscape has radically changed due to the pandemic, and because of that, there’s more pressure than ever for brands to create connected, authentic, and personalized consumer experiences—and I believe Text can help with that. It’s an effective, direct way to communicate with customers and to provide the content they want, where they want it. Plus, because of the simplicity of text (keeping your messages to 160 characters) it can help alleviate some of the messaging pressures off of marketers and ease decision-making with consumers, which has proven to lead to higher engagement and conversion.
What’s one piece of advice you have for other product marketers in the MarTech space?
Similar to my sales colleagues, my advice to product marketers is in the ABCs, except instead of closing, we should “always be curious.” In a space as saturated as MarTech, it’s important to challenge product development decisions, ask sales what’s missing or will make a difference in the sale, and constantly engage with customers for their product feedback. Being curious helps product marketers connect the dots between customer needs and how your products can solve them—and that’s what I love most about my job.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Wunderkind’s product suite can help you send highly-engaging, better-converting one-to-one messages to your customer base, get in touch with us today.