AMA: Atlassian Former Marketing Director (Trello), Jessica Webb on Brand Strategy

PMM wears so many hats it's important to recognize what is needed at any stage of a company. When first coming into an organization as the first PMM I think the most important thing to do is establish what does and doesn't exist - and where the biggest holes that can be plugged are. This can be accomplished by interviewing the top stakeholders at your company: Sales, Product, Support to understand what is working and where the pain points are. From that, you can build a list and prioritize it ac ...Read More

As stated above, PMM wears so many hats it's important to recognize what is needed at any stage of a company. When first coming into an organization as the first PMM I think the most important thing to do is establish what does and doesn't exist. I think this is the right order of things that should happen first but if you come into an organization and feel that some of these things are already in a good place you can skip to the next step. That being said, when you are new to a company you have ...Read More

I think there is a ton of value in having these teams work closely but separated into specific pods. As you noted, there are different skillsets here and they can be even more effective when given the space to own their domain expertise. That being said I think when PMM and Brand get too far from each other the end results suffer. I often think of PMM & Brand like a zipper in that they are stronger together and work in tandem. It's essential that brand messaging aligns with the product exper ...Read More

There are tons of ways to do this but they all center around defining the personality of your brand/product, this means understanding how you are perceived by others and reflecting that back (or making an effort to change it!) in your tone and voice across owned assets.  We actually recently did a HUGE refresh of Trello's brand (after being around for 10 years!) this past February. It was a big, multi-year undertaking led by Trello's head of Brand Marketing. One exercise the team used was called ...Read More

Brand is such an important part of product marketing. Developing a strong brand, voice, and tone for your product or company lends itself to everything you do from launching new features to tradeshows. Brand is all about how your company or product is perceived in the market - how it stacks up against competitors and how it informs what people believe to be true about the functionality of your product. Product marketing can be 100x more effective at an organization if brand is a focus - features ...Read More

I see the PMMs job as connecting the product teams to end-users and to the market. PMMs have a pulse on what is going on competitively, what is trending, and brand perception the market. PMMs also talk to a lot of customers for customer stories, blog posts etc. so they have a good perspective on what successful users look like.  I see the PMs job as interpreting user feedback and rallying the team to strategically build features that enhance the user experience and also align with the goals of t ...Read More

Hone in on the skills you have that align with what PMMs are asked to be good at - I'm SURE you already have a lot of them from your experience, which seems very relevant! The ones that come to mind for me are being great at prioritization, project management, data gathering/fact-finding, working cross-functionality, strong writing skills, and a willingness to get the job done and get your hands dirty - PMMs are often tasked with taking projects to the finish line and it behooves skilled PMMs to ...Read More