HubSpot

Product marketing plays a key role in sharing the roadmap externally to ultimately help buyers buy and sellers sell. Here's some key ways to on how to do this: 1. Public roadmap pages or tools - Share high level public facing roadmap that helps give customers insights into the areas the product is investing in and the use cases, themes and problem areas where the product is doubling down to support. 2. Customer advisory boards - share the roadmap selectively with top-tier customers (in certain upmarket deals customers want to see this before they make product investments.) 3. Ongoing release moments - the key here is to have a regular cadence for your ongoing releases, so customers know when to expect this (e.g. HubSpot uses a 2X/ year Spring and Fall Spotlight cadence to launch our big product innovations for the year). We combine our biggest innovations in these 2 marquee moments and present them in a customer first narrative (vs. feature launches) to help customers understand how we're helping them solve their problems. 4. Customer facing events - Use events to unveil exciting roadmap themes and demo the product 5. Social media and content marketing - Build buzz for new features or releases for example by posting a teaser video on Linkedin hinting at an upcoming big release 6. Tailor roadmaps for specific audiences - this could be specific segments of your customer base (E.g. enterprise user, or specific geographical markets or industries) the goal here is to tailor the enhancements to what is most important to this sub-segment of users based on their needs.

If your goal is to influence the product roadmap there are a few pitfalls you should avoid. 1. Don't treat the roadmap as something fixed/set in stone - Having a roadmap is super crucial to helping focus product teams + also giving the market a clear sign on where you are going. However, there needs to be a fine balance here, so that you don't miss opportunities to meet the moment. A better approach - is to recognize that roadmaps are dynamic, frame your input as a way to enhance priorities or respond to emerging trends. 2. Don't focus only on features, ignoring the problem - Suggesting features without tying them to customer pain points or business outcomes can make you seem out of touch with the broader goals. Instead, present insights framed as 'problems to solve' e.g. the customer needs a better way to track ROI, letting PM's design the solution 3. Don't forget to make trade-off's - Suggesting changes and additions without tradeoffs can make your input seem unrealistic or unhelpful. Instead acknowledge tradeoffs and frame as opportunities for discussion (e.g. if we say yes to this, we may need to delays Y. Here's the impact of both options) 4. Don't overpromise to customers - Making commitments about future features without product team's buy-in can lead to misaligned expectations. Instead communicate roadmap priorities but be clear when things are in consideration, or timeline hasn't been finalized. 5. Don't dismiss the product's teams expertise - this sounds like a no-brainer but PM's are experts in their product - acknowledge their expertise, ensure you are clear in framing your recommendations from your expertise in bringing market and customer insights 6. Don't forget to follow up and have shared documentation - follow up and shared documentation is super crucial to finishing the swing

What works here in my experience is having regular touchpoints for alignment + strategic reviews to influence direction. Here's a framework: * Weekly or bi-weekly syncs - for ongoing collaboration and alignment. This is where you discuss progress on current roadmap items, any changes to product launch timeframes, updates on GTM plans, customer feedback and market trends. Why it's important: Maintains a constant feedback loop and prevents surprises as features move through development * Quarterly roadmap planning - PMM's present a 'GTM recommendations report' summarizing top customer problems, market opportunities. Bring snippet Gong calls, rep calls here to help frame the customer first mindset. PM's share upcoming plans and trade-offs for the next quarter. Why it's important: Provides a formal opp for PMM's to influence the roadmap and for PM's to be aligned with the GTM strategy * Ad hoc as needed - This is to address any urgent issues or opportunities (could be a critical customer or sales feedback, competitive threats, market shifts requiring immediate adjustment

This is a great question. An important thing to remember is Products should be built with a market in mind - and that's where a PMM comes in. They should be experts in the 'market' (customer, competitor, market sizing) and use this as their grounding. Here's what worked from my experience: 1. Coming to the table with data and insights - Product teams value concrete, actionable insights so bringing data that they can't ignore helps. Use customer feedback, rep feedback, competitive analysis and adoption data to make your case. Data shifts the conversation from 'opinion' to 'fact' 2. Becoming known as the person that brings the voice of the customer to life - This takes some work, but create space for yourself and set aside time on a recurring basis to speak with customers. Understand how they are using your product, what's working and what's not. Capture their exact sentiments, and share this with PM's on a regular basis. Have a call scheduled with a customer - bring your PM along so together you can understand customer pain points and sentiment directly. 3. Have product expertise and strong knowledge on the competitive landscape - These 2 skills are crucial to establish credibility. Share interesting and impactful competitive intel with PM's. Become a partner that your PM looks at as someone that will help them grow and learn as well. 4. Embed yourself into product planning early - Find ways to inject PMM influence into the roadmap early. One thing we have been doing at HubSpot is helping our GM's take their product vision (a technical doc) and frame it in the lens of a customer narrative and a company growth narrative. This has helped us showcase our value as a trusted partner, and enabled us to provide recommendations on the roadmap 5. Build relationships -Invest in trust-building with product leaders. Have regular 1-1's with PM's to understand their challenges and find ways to support them.

Competitive win rate! This requires reps to record (and for your CRM to have a field for) competitor (existing -rip and replace - or exploring - head to head). This is the most direct way to see if you are moving the needle against your core competitors. Secondary metrics may include things like analyst and review site achievement (i.e. G2 ranking) or traffic and search relevance for comparrison pages (i.e. a competitive landing page). This answer is highly dependent on which data exists in your CRM - if competitor is not trackable, secondary metrics are a good proxy / directional indicator. 

You can't rely only on the narrative. But a strong one, especially one that frames up the problem and value you deliver as different / outsized, is critical to competitive success. But you know what else you need? Claim chowder. Proof points. Quantified impact. What actual results has your product proven to deliver? Weaving these into the narrative will help to make it more real, tangible, and create a sense of urgency for your audience. 

There are a few rinse and repeat assets that work well for us in competitive. For products with a significant rep-assisted motion, having competitive comparison cards helps distill complex products into key capabilities, highlighting parity and differentiation to help overcome objections and convey additional value. Competitive teardowns, a more comprehensive exercise in support of the above, help drive a deep, shared understanding of competitive priorities (hint: select a few key competitors, don't mop the ocean) and consistent competitive positioning across marketing teams. 

My favorite example is Adidas video which shoes that yes, a runner can sprint through the desert in Nike shoes -- but a camera man with 50 additional pounds of equipment and wearing Adidas can keep up with him. It strikes the balance between saying, we respect your product and - ours is as good or better. Really clear value, clever approach, not so dimishing as to take away from the credibility or respect associated with Adidas' brand. Companies can absolutely straddle the line. It's about solving a new problem, solving a problem differently, and disrupting the status quo. The way to do this is focus on the benefit / new value you are delivering rather than simply tearing down a competitor. We offer extended value (strong) vs. they're not as good as you think they are (weak). There's a new way to think about this (stronger) vs. they're thinking about it wrong (weaker). The Bounty ad in the above blog also does a great job of this - no specific paper towel brand is the problem, any brand that isn't using Bounty technology is. Compelling stuff!

We develop personas in three degrees depending on the need: lightweight, qualitative, and quantitative (statistical). Each of these populate a similar framework: demographic details (job title, geo if applicable, age range, etc), responsibilities/needs/jobs to be done, challenges/pain points, Worth mentioning that a companion framework, the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), is often created to establish firmagraphic targeting to complement. Competitive insights are typically not included in our persona frameworks (though I hold space for exceptions here in rare cases - i.e. if credentialing on a certain product is part of a job responsibility). Instead, generally, our competitive insights are cultivated and applied in conjunction with the above. From a Challenger model, we aim to reframe the problem, introduce new/improved impavt as a result, and ultimately reveal value. 

Make it snackable. Make it easy to remember. Make it impactful. Show the impact of reps applying this to amplify awareness and usage. Reps spend their days diving into a multitude of different businesses with divergent needs, goals, and deal stages. The more adaptable, simple, straightforward your competitive intel is, the more likely it is to be leveraged and applied. As a separate note (personal pet rock): use the term comparrison cards, not battle cards. Sales is hard enough without suggesting to them (implicitly) that they're in a battle (violent). We are in product marketing, words matter, choose the right ones.