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Nate Franklin

AMA: Amplitude Director, Product Marketing, Nate Franklin on Stakeholder Management

January 26, 2022 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. What are some cornerstone KPIs that product marketers should use for every Go-To-Market strategy?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    I'm glad you asked about KPIs. As Product Marketers, we don't have the luxury of a single metric or even a couple metrics. We own the health of the story & vision our company is selling. I say health intentionally. It's not just that we own the story (we do) but we also need to make sure it's landing amongst our key segments, that we have the right segments, our sellers can actually deliver the story (if you're B2B) and on and on. And it's something that we need to be monitoring regularly -- ...Read More

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  2. How does your company define the difference between product marketing and integrated / brand / customer marketing?

    Do you see value in having both roles, e.g. Integrated team works more closely with the creative team on seasonal/holiday/brand campaigns whereas Product Marketing works more closely with the Product team on product launches, user research/insights, positioning strategy, etc. I have found it challenging for Product Marketing to own all of this, and often see different skill sets from marketers who are great at creative brand campaigns vs. PMMs who are skilled at positioning a new product and bringing it to market.

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    I see those as different skills sets and usually different teams but I don't think there are strict lines in between them. Product Marketers should own the story, the core positioning and messaging, the surrounding context / thought leadership and GTM strategy. Ideally there are counterparts in integrated marketing, campaigns or growth marketing to help make that come to life.  But I think there's also what is ideal on paper and what is practical in real life. More often then not those integrate ...Read More

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  3. Do you have any success/failure story to share around how you managed to influence a difficult stakeholder? Lessons learned?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    Friction with stakeholders definitely comes with our jobs. While it can be stressful, frustrating and evening maddening, ultimately I think it also makes us better PMMs. That's my biggest suggestion for how to approach these situations. Ask yourself what can you learn from their pushback? A few years ago I had a sales leader tell me on sales leadership meeting that our play for a specific competitor was completely broken and he was instructing his team not run it anymore. Obviously having this b ...Read More

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  4. Tips for managing stakeholder input: are there any templates or best practices for when to gather input and how to incorporate (i.e. whose feedback to incorporate vs. ignore, etc.), especially as it relates to a timeline?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    The best way to manage stakeholder input is to start with a project plan or institutite a cadence that has specific points for stakeholders to provide input. Otherwise, as I am sure most PMMs have experienced, it comes in all over the place and in moments where it's not helpful.  For example, when I am running a launch, I'll articulate specific times when feedback is requested and by which teams. Usually it starts with leadership and then as we progress it cascades down to a select group of ICs ...Read More

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  5. As a product marketer, how do you build trustworthy relationships with Sales leadership and Sales?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    Love this question. I believe that a major difference between successful PMMs and those who struggle is their relationship with the Sales org.  Here are some ideas that can help you build trust with sales: Help win a deal - This might mean some busy work creating slides, joining a call to offer a new perspective or sitting down with a seller to game plan an account. Often times, it's work that's not directly related to your day to day but can translate to a salespersons takehome pay. And money t ...Read More

    1,962 Views
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  6. What advice do you have on stakeholder mgmt for small PMM teams (i.e. 1-3 ppl) that are coupled with larger, growing stakeholer teams (i.e. sales =15-25; CS = 20-30; Product = 8-12; marketing = 5-10)?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    You have to align on what priorities you are working on and when. I even suggest having a sort of PMM roadmap. If you can get that agreed to at the leadership level then it will be a lot easier to have conversations with your stakeholders across teams.

    There are always going to be firedrills you have to jump on, but by driving alignment and visibility at the leadership level you can make sure those are the exception not the rule.

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  7. I have to do a global roll out of a new first call pitch deck. How do I make it interesting?

    Nate Franklin
    Nate Franklin

    Airtable Senior Director, Product Marketing • 4y

    Love this question! Definitely a daunting task for any PMM. Here are my top three suggestions: 1) Incorporate customers 2) Get sellers to present 3) Make it a competition. Incorporate Customers - This can be hard to do but it will go a long way to making it land. In the past, I've done this with a video showing a bunch of customers talking about their business and the challenges they are facing. You could also invite a customer for a fireside chat and be sure to ask them questions that hit on ke ...Read More

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