How do you build trust that feels authentic, not transactional? | Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Product Marketing, Navattic

What if building trust didn’t start with the product, but with the story you tell before you ever show it?

In this episode of Straight to Voicemail, Rachel Elsts Downey connects with Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Product Marketing at Navattic. With over a decade of marketing experience, Natalie helps B2B companies build trust through transparent content, demo-led experiences, and storytelling that centers the customer.

You’ll learn:

• Why most product marketing comes off as a pitch  and how to make it a conversation instead
• A trust-building framework to anchor your marketing in authenticity, not just ROI
• How Navattic uses customer “show-and-tells” to create high-context, low-pressure demos

Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) The big question: how do you build authentic trust in product marketing?
(01:00) Why storytelling always comes before product demos
(01:34) The power of founder origin stories and leading with customer voices
(02:00) Navattic’s “customer show-and-tells” - a non-salesy way to showcase value
(03:00) Natalie’s “Unique and Valuable” framework for trust-driven content

Straight to Voicemail is for CMOs, CEOs, and Heads of Marketing in B2B tech who want insights from the people who’ve been there. Each episode centers on one big question answered like a voicemail you’ll want to play again.

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Rachel Elsts Downey (00:00):
Rachel Downey most product marketing. It feels like a pitch. Natalie from Nevada makes it feel like a conversation. She helps buyers experience products firsthand. No pressure, no hard sell, she doesn't need to. With over a decade in marketing, Natalie's built her career around one overarching principle, putting the customer at the center at Nevada. That means actual stories, transparent content and demo experiences that meet people where they are. So of course I had to ask her, how do you approach trust building in a way that feels authentic and not transactional? Here's what she had to say.

Operator (00:53):
Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message. At the tone, please record your message.

Natalie Marcotullio (01:01):
Hey Rachel, hope you're having a good day here. Just answering your question about trust building, I think a few different ways. So one, and it's something I actually just talked about a lot in a launch that we just did, but I'm really a big fan of how do you figure out this story that your audience will identify with before you get into the product details. Whenever doing product marketing or even just thinking about how do I position a new feature? I work for a demo company, we love showing off the actual product, but I think sometimes we start with that step versus the first step of figuring out why would my audience care and what's a story they can latch onto? One thing we just recently did was bring in our founder origin story. I feel like those are really great, or if you have a really great customer story, I always love if you can lead with a customer voice.

(01:44):
So really figuring out what is the story, the thing that people will resonate with to get hooked in. So when you try to show off the features, you can tie it back to that story and they've already gotten bought in and played along versus just being like, oh, why should I care about this random feature? Or don't have the context around it. That'd be first way. I'm also, as I mentioned, big fan of as much as you can just have your customers be the center of the story or the way that they can share about the product versus you. One thing that we have started doing is these customer show and tells where at live events, we'll record customers basically just geeking out about how they use Nova. We try to do a very specific use case, have them go really into detail. So not just high level ROI.

(02:24):
And I think that also helps build trust. It's like we're not just creating content that's going to try to sell you, but actually whether you're a customer or prospect, really get in the weeds, let you understand it, get see from the person using it, how excited they are, how they're using it, and then really just focus more on the customer being the champion in the center of the story versus just, oh, look how cool our product is. We're the best. So I think those are the main ways really thinking about the story, thinking about how that relates to your audience and why they would care. I'm a big fan. I have a framework called Unique and Valuable. So unique, have they seen it before? Valuable? Is it something that will help them in their day-to-day? How will they care? And then if you can incorporate real customer stories, not just ones that feel like clear ROI transactions. Well, a little bit of a ramble there. Hope that this voicemail helps you out and have a great rest of your day.

Rachel Elsts Downey (03:19):
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