{"id":54804,"date":"2023-08-11T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newrcblog.wpengine.com\/us\/en\/blog\/?p=54804"},"modified":"2025-03-13T06:37:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T13:37:03","slug":"ringing-in-the-future-3-things-learned-from-my-ringcentral-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/us\/en\/blog\/ringing-in-the-future-3-things-learned-from-my-ringcentral-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"Ringing in the future: 3 things learned from my RingCentral fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello! I\u2019m Arielle Zappia and I just finished up my product marketing fellowship at RingCentral. I\u2019m here to tell you the three most important things I learned throughout this experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. The value Product Marketing Management (PMM) brings to a SaaS company<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\" As a PMM fellow, I was able to experience and contribute to the value of a PMM team first hand. PMMs are essentially the link between product innovation and the market those innovations are built to serve. The product team is ideating and creating new innovations in the form of products, features, and new software solutions. While the market (customers) is telling us what problems and pain points they are facing today, how can we help in solving these problems, and what they are willing to pay for in the end. PMMs are tasked to bring the product to the market, primarily through messaging and positioning. Positioning is identifying the exact place where customer delight and product vision intersect – determining what your unique selling proposition (USP) is and why that is important to customers in specific segments. Messaging is how you convey your USP to customers externally, whether it\u2019s through digital storytelling (web), sales interactions, customer case studies, campaigns, social media, blogs, or thought leadership. I worked in far more detail with messaging – constructing product\/feature value propositions, taglines, use cases, pain points, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working with messaging has allowed me to take projects from just ideas to fully market-ready products with clear value propositions, user stories, and competitive differentiation outlined. I have been able to dive deep into what each aspect of messaging means, why it\u2019s important, and how to best articulate it to consumers. For example, value propositions are the \u201cwhy\u201d of a product. Why would a customer buy this product or service? In what way does it benefit them and\/or solve one of their pain points? Having a complete understanding of a product\u2019s value props is crucial in ensuring that you are targeting the right market and that the product has a product-market fit. A product may seem like a great idea to you, but if there is not a place for it in the market, the majority of consumers will not be interested.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pain points are another key aspect in messaging, as these are the factors that a product is trying to solve for customers. For instance, RingCentral\u2019s Push to Talk was created to alleviate three major pain points in frontline workers:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Frontline workers regularly have to pause in order to answer calls or make announcements on paging devices.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. They often have \u201cdevice fatigue\u201d due to the number of devices they carry.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Texting can take far too long in emergency situations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    After solidifying these pain points, RingCentral\u2019s product marketing team created value propositions to directly target these pains (i.e. driving ROI through fewer devices and apps).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Understanding the importance of messaging and positioning has allowed me to understand the value that a SaaS company brings to market. Connecting the product strategy to the market\u2019s needs allows the business to optimize its marketing efforts, and therefore, market the best version of its product possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    2. AI is revolutionizing SaaS processes<\/span><\/h3>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    One of my projects was working on AI powered live transcriptions, summaries, and sentiments for RingCentral Phone & Video.<\/span><\/p>\n

    During my fellowship, one of my main projects was working on the ever expanding portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI) offerings with the introduction of new voice AI capabilities, including live transcriptions and call summaries, in <\/span>RingCentral MVP<\/span><\/a> (Message Video Phone). Powered by RingSense, RingCentral\u2019s proprietary AI platform, these features enable RingCentral\u2019s millions of phone global users worldwide to boost productivity and collaborate more efficiently. <\/span>
    \n<\/span>
    \n<\/span>Specifically I helped launch the following features:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n