AMA: Atlassian Sr. Director: Head of Global Lifecycle Marketing, Teamwork Foundations (Self-serve & High Touch), Ami Denman on Product Marketing / Demand Gen Alignment

It can feel tricky or prickly depending on your approach. If you treat it like a joint optimization as opposed to a handoff problem, things will feel less tense and more like a shared problem that the data can help solve.  I'd start with the assumption that positioning and ICP are never fully finished- they are iterative while being validated by data and real world feedback like performance data and customer conversions. If positioning is resonating but conversion is breaking down at the bottom, ...Read More

In my experience, this is probably two problems. The first is that PMM may not have visibility into what content actually performs by buying stage and customer intent. The second is that different channels have different format requirements that aren't always obvious from the outside. Demand gen's job is to close that gap - not just flag it. Map current content to each buying stage, identify what's missing, and bring that to PMM as a brief or as part of a planning session. In the past, my teams ...Read More

In practice, a healthy feedback loop is a two-way street with a regular cadence behind it. It can be its own meeting, but it can also live as a standing section in your weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly touchpoints, plus a regular campaign lookback that both teams contribute to. Demand gen owns bringing performance data: what's working in paid, what's converting in lifecycle, where things are stalling and why. PMM owns bringing their side: new research, customer conversation insights, anything they' ...Read More

Ideally, I'm not starting with just a positioning doc. PMM provides the positioning, messaging framework, value props, and proof points. Demand gen translates that into a campaign strategy and testing plan, and Creative brings it to life. More and more, I'm seeing the onus shift to Demand Gen, so it's a great question. I typically break a positioning doc into three parts: the customer problem, the value proposition, and the proof. Then I map those to the customer journey. I use ads to introduce ...Read More

It's stressful when you don't have a seat. I've learned, the best way to get a one is by showing up to early planning with a clear point of view on what you need, when you need it, and how it connects to the pipeline target. If you don't have a seat yet, start with your PMM. Come with a plan: what you need from them, what Creative needs to build, and what the timeline has to look like for campaigns to be ready at launch. Then show them how your plan will get the company to its target. Once you d ...Read More

Demand gen should be shaping positioning once it's in market via performance data. PMM's research tells you what the market thinks before they engage. Channel performance tells you what's actually resonating when messaging meets a real person at scale. Both inform positioning but at different stages. In practice, if something is consistently outperforming in paid or lifecycle, that's a signal worth bringing to PMM. Not as "your positioning is wrong" but as "here's what we're seeing and it might ...Read More

Lead with the win, not the gap. If something outperformed, that's good news for everyone: the product, the campaign, the business. Remembering this and coming at the situation this way changes the whole dynamic. In practice, I'd bring the data in the context of the feedback loop, not as a standalone finding. Here's what we tested, here's what performed, here's what it might mean for how we're messaging to this segment. Then ask PMM what they think. I find that when you ask for their interpretati ...Read More