As much as I would love to share a one-size-fits-all KPIs, I’ve found that no two launches are the same. Even if you’re launching a product again in a new market, you’ve probably learned something from the first launch that will lead you to optimize your approach the next time. Instead, I break it down into these four categories and choose the most important metric from each category: * Business metrics: How will this launch help the business to meet its goals? Is it revenue, subscriptions, marketplace balance, users? * Product metrics: What action(s) do we want our target audience to take? For example, trial, adoption, retention, increased usage. * Channel metrics: Based on the way that the campaign is set up, what’s the most important way that our audience can engage with the marketing campaign? Do we want them to watch the video, click on the push notification, read the blog, ask a question or something else entirely? * Top of funnel metrics: What do you want your audience to know, think or feel based on the launch? These are your awareness, perception and sentiment metrics. It takes a lot of discipline to pick only the most important metrics and stay laser-focused on those. But I’ve found that when I’m able to do it, it gives the team a clearer mission and strengthens the impact.

Great question and glad to see people taking a customer-led approach to product launches. There are a few strategies I recommend here and they fall into 4 areas. 1. Review the foundational research and insights that already exist - What you’re launching was built based on deep customer research and …ensure you’re clear on the insights that drove what you’re bringing to market in the first place. If gaps are identified, now is the time to identify and close them. It’s better late than never on the foundational pieces. 2. Dig into early customer feedback - Talk to beta customers - what do they love, what’s missing, are they actually using the product with frequency and intensity? You’re a great product marketer, so you already have some customers on speed dial (OK…does anyone remember speed dial???) But you get the idea. Talk to customers! 3. Qualitative and quantitative research with prospects/target audience - To develop great messaging, positioning and marketing plan, you need to know what work the marketing actually needs to do to convert your target audience. What are the perceptions, motivations, barriers, media sources, and buying process for your audience? All in the context of your new product. The keys to this research are to target a representative group of your audience, do the qual first to guide what you’re measuring in the quant, and leverage product prototypes for stimuli, so feedback is richer. And remember, focus groups and individual interviews are not perfect…I find they can identify big reactions - but are not likely to inform how people will behave in the wild. 4. Market and competitive research - Do your diligence on what’s happening in the market. What else is your target audience exposed to? How will you create a breakthrough message? Big markets with lots of $$$ tend to be crowded and highly competitive, your goal may not be differentiation, but going to market with distinctiveness.

The best product marketers have the following traits in common: 1) They are type A. All of them. 2) They have a growth mindset. There is no finished product product marketer. This role requires constant learning to succeed day-to-day and only people who enjoy the treadmill of non-stop skill building will last. 3) They are sharp. If the candidate isn't incredibly sharp, I won't trust them, and this cannot be micromanaged. 4) They are "tactfully pushy" which is my term for people who can convince people to change their opinion or roadmap etc. without ruffling feathers. Passive doesn't work. Jerks don't either. 5) They're already good at something and succeeding in their current role. Entry level PMM roles are something that you are promoted into, not fall back into. This is also what you will build around from a training perspective.

First off, I'll say that I'm never a fan of making someone create messaging/positioning and defining a GTM plan about the interviewing company's product because you're never going to get to the level of knowledge as someone in the company...and it takes way longer to do it right. OK, rant over. :) Typically when I ask candidates to give a presentation, it's less about the specific products they're presenting, but rather HOW they present it. Can the candidate articulate how they effectively approached their GTM strategy, from ideation to execution and beyond. Can they clearly understand the customer pain points and technical capabilities of the product, and translate that into clear marketing messages that resonate? Can they effectively launch a product/feature and properly engage the right cross-functional partners to make that launch a success? Are they outcome-oriented and think about the metrics they're trying to drive with a given launch? Those are just a few things that I would be looking for in a presentation. My hunch is that you were missing some of these things in your presentation.

What are some surprising ways that candidates have stood out to you in PMM interviews? What are your biggest watchouts? PMMs are notoriously difficult to hire. The best PMMs I've worked with are * Balance left and right brain * Are equally adept at fast thinking and slow thinking * Can maintain the 10,000' view while understanding the details at 1,000' It’s important to identify the 1-3 skills that will be most important for your company and domain. Then look for experiences that suggest they’ll excel in those domains. A few examples: * Large enterprise sales force - Here, being able to enable and hold court with a large sales team is critical. Does the candidate have leadership experience (in PMM or outside of work)? One PMM I worked with organized a 1,000 guest annual fundraiser for a non-profit they were involved with. Their ability to corral multiple stakeholders, drive sponsorships, and drive to a productive event suggested they’d be great at enablement. * Technical products - Here, having the hunger to dig into technical details is key. Does the candidate have a personal interest in a complex domain. Perhaps they’re savvy investors in their personal life. Perhaps they’ve built demos or software in the past. In one interview, a candidate came having used our product with dozens of recommendations for how we can improve the product and our marketing. Ultimately, the things I look for: * Grit: Have they demonstrated resilience in high-stakes environments and persistence in the face of volatility? * Leadership: Can they influence peers and leaders across Product, Sales, Marketing, and e-staff? * Persistence: Can they operate in highly ambiguous and variable environments. This is especially important in the early stages. * Domain/Persona: Do they have past experience with your domain/persona? Not necessary but helps accelerate their path to becoming opinionated. * Tenure: Have they been able to build tenure and have impact in their past roles * Pace: Can they hustle in a fast paced environment? * Portfolio: Can they produce a portfolio of high-quality work? * Stage Experience: Have they operated at your stage of company before? * Revenue: Have they operated at the revenue target you are looking to reach in the next 12 -18 months. Be mindful of planning for the future and not today. Candidates should pull your business forward. * GTM Motion: This one is critical, but have they worked with your GTM motion before (PLG vs. SLG)

There are many ways to structure messaging and positioning docs. Effective frameworks usually contain these key components, which I’ll share with an example from a recent launch: * Target audience * CIO and executive IT * Market trends (why now) * With AI on the rise, the office of the CIO is responsible for creating an AI strategy that supports their employees’ experience while maintaining data security and privacy. * Value and differentiators * “Build the right foundation for AI by securely integrating work data” * “Deploy AI confidently with safeguards & transparent controls” * “Surface intelligent insights to deliver greater ROI at every level” * Proof points and use cases * Customer and analyst highlights from Zscaler and IDC

Love this question. This will differ at every org, but for me the gold standard is win/loss ratio and booked revenue associated with a sales play, along with qualitative/sentiment data on whether it's resonating with customers (pitch recordings, feedback from sales, etc). These are not always easy to gather (and the first two might be outside of your official PMM remit), but they will really point your enablement efforts toward ROI. Other traditional measurements are more internal adoption- or checkbox-focused (passing a certification, attending a training, downloading or using an asset), but it can be harder to glean whether your enablement efforts are effective from those measures.

Great question. Post-launch is the most underrated parts of the cycle. You've spent months aiming the rocketship, putting fuel in the tank and blasting off - now you've got to steer. Let's break it down into three steps: 1) ANALYZE The first thing is to immediately begin watching not just usage of the product, but which parts of the product. How are people interacting with your features? Where are they dropping off? Where are they spending their time? This will give you context and clarity to move onto step two. 2) PLAN Now that you know where your hypothesis was roughly right or wrong, develop a plan to go after those areas. Our team uses a one-pager that is incredibly simple, laying out the problem we're trying to solve (ex: the pricing is too high, awareness is too low) and mapping out in specific detail, right down to the deliverable specs, how we plan to solve it. 3) EXECUTE Especially soon after launch, when blemishes become clearer in the light of mass user feedback, we aim to move quickly. If you're still talking about a major problem with the way the product has been positioned or messaged two weeks later it's been way too long. Standups with your cross-functional team including creative shouldn't end at launch! The fun is just beginning...

When scaling from 5 PMMs to 20+ PMMs, it becomes increasingly important to have a well-defined team structure and organization. One approach is to ladder individuals into verticals based on their area of ownership and area of expertise. As the team grows, it may be necessary to have discipline leads and managers to help with collaboration and alignment. Here is a simple little progression: How PMM teams grow and mature over time… * Generalists (with some diversity but broad and deep ownership and expertise). Can be SMEs or just great PMMs depending on product. * Generalists with product ownership and disciplines * Product (vertical) and GTM (horizontals) PMMs, each owning some discipline. * Product and GTM and Discipline (horizontal and vertical; ex Competitive, release, AR, P&P). Discipline become a hub for specific work types (shared service). * Product broken into Core and new Products with managers…and rest gets custom from there. The decision to have a manager versus a collection of individual contributors (ICs) depends on the needs of the team. Generally, once a team reaches a certain size, it becomes necessary to have managers in order to provide leadership, direction, and support for the team. However, it's important to consider the specific needs of the team and the individuals involved when making this decision.

30 days: Balance being an absolute sponge and learning by doing. Be a sponge by reading every doc you can get your hands on (enablement materials, case studies, team quarterly/annual plans, research studies, etc.), talking to as many prospects and customers as possible, and scheduling 1:1s with both stakeholders and company leadership. Learn by doing by getting involved in low-risk, low-hanging fruit activities where a PMM touch is needed but perhaps don’t require a ton of context. 60 days: Hopefully you’ve gained enough context by 30 days to start to get an idea of what the big challenges and opportunities are at the company. My goal is to have identified a couple of “base hits” that I can deliver by days 60-90 that can demonstrate tangible results against things that a key stakeholder cares about like the CMO, a Sales VP, or a product manager/leader who is a respected influencer within the product org. Identifying and delivering these base hits gives you an early platform within the organization of visible results and relationships that can open doors and give you the room you need to set an ambitious vision and plan for the function. 90 days: Delivering a POV on both the role you want to carve out for the PMM function (see my answer on surprises about moving to a smaller organization) and the initiatives you hope to tackle in the coming quarter. If you’ve done the homework of gaining context as a sponge, delivering one or two meaningful base hits, and winning the trust and endorsement of a couple influential stakeholders, you’re much more likely to get buy-in on your plan/POV and the latitude to actually start getting to work on building the PMM function as opposed to just executing on stuff people throw your way.