Chief Marketing Officer

Welcome to the GitLab CMO Handbook

This page details processes for the Chief Marketing Officer at GitLab, including review and approval requests, communication guidelines, and information-sharing best practices.

Learn more about GitLab’s Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Ashley Kramer in her README.

Communication guidelines

In an effort to create more efficiency in how we collaborate, please utilize the #cmo Slack channel for items that require CMO review, feedback, approval, to share updates, or if you have questions directly to the CMO.

Note this is a public Slack channel, so please consider it is SAFE before sharing.

Review and Approvals

Follow the steps and details for workflows that involve different types of review requests for efficient reviews.

• Join the #cmo Slack channel to create a new review request
  • Tag @Ashley
  • Include the URL to the MR or slides/docs
  • Add a short sentence describing the topic, and ask.
  • Optional: Add more context in subsequent lines in the message, or as a reply into a new message thread.
• Ensure that direct reports to the CMO have reviewed and approved before asking the CMO to review
  • Example: A new product messaging house is developed, and the VP of Product Marketing must sign off first.
  • Example: The marketing handbook front page adds a new strategic vision for events. The VP of Integrated Marketing, and the VP of Product Marketing must sign off first.
• Please add CMO’s EBA as CC into the message and include a due date until when the review is required.
  • The CMO’s EBA will add a notification to the CMO’s calendar to finish the review request on the same day/week.
  • Example: Urgent review ask because of the new quarter starting in two weeks, requiring the new messaging. Please review by YYYY-MM-DD, 5 PM PT. cc @<EBA name>

Example review request:

@Ashley This MR adds the CMO review requests and communication guidelines page into the marketing handbook. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_requests/115432

Context is your request to create a dedicated Slack channel, and documented guidelines for team members to share review requests and content updates, similar to the #ceo Slack channel.

Please review until 2022-12-01 10am PT. cc @Laura Vickerman

Follow-up actions: Share with CMO leadership, add an update for the next Marketing all-hands meeting.

Merge Requests

Before assigning the CMO for review and approval, please ensure that the following applies:

• The MR is mergeable: All comment threads resolved, MR is marked as ready and not a draft, and CI/CD pipelines ran successfully and deployed the latest review app.
• Add @akramer as a Reviewer to the MR. You can use /assign_reviewer @akramer as a quick action in the comment (press r as keyboard shortcut)
• Optional: Share a Review App URL for direct access to relevant changes and pages, or add a screenshot/summary in the request for more efficient reviews.

Follow the best practices for merge request reviews in the CEO handbook.

Sharing content to read

If you have an interesting article or news item to read and learn, feel free to share it in the #cmo Slack channel too.

• Add FYI, without @-tagging the CMO in the beginning of the Slack message. This avoids notification distractions and enables async reading.
• Create a summary of 1-3 sentences with key talking points and take aways.
• Add screenshots, or source URLs for better context
• Optional: Suggested actions: that suggest a follow-up task for the CMO.
  • Example: Retweet/Reshare a Twitter/LinkedIn share, or share an article in the network for thought leadership.

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