AMA: Cisco Meraki Head of Product Marketing, Grant Shirk on Industry Product Marketing

A shorter answer here, but I think there's a pretty straightforward way to measure sales enablement overall. Ideally, this is driven by the sales enablement team, and you're fueling their succces: Key metrics to measure sales enablement: Rep ramp - How long does it take new reps to onboard and reach full quota? What is the success rate in that period? Annual quota attainment - What % of reps are at or above plan? Does it match the business needs? Win rates - How effective is sales at qualifying, ...Read More

I'm a little biased here, but I don't believe that there are courses or certifications that are a prerequisite or requirement to jumping into product marketing. If you haven't done any marketing before, or worked alongside a good marketing team, Pragmatic Marketing by the Pragmatic Institute is a solid framework for twisting your head around what marketing is really about.  But the best way to learn is on the job. If you have a PMM function at your current company, get to know them. Ask about wh ...Read More

I love these big questions. What strikes me is there seems to be an underlying tension in several of the questions about industry vs. product marketing. Just like any two teams in marketing, there are superpowers of each that when combined together make a much stronger team.  Paging Indy Sen - I think there's an Avengers or IMF reference buried in here somewhere. But seriously - when industry and "core" PMM work together with a common purpose, there's very little you can't accomplish. By pairing ...Read More

Internal evangelism and industry expertise.  Yes, you need all the core PMM skills. You might even need to be a stronger writer and positioner than the core PMM. But if your sole goal is to help grow your share in a specific industry or set of industries, you're going to have to: Sell hard on behalf of your customers. Industry features are niche features. Functionality, file support, integrations, compliance, partnerships. Industries are specialized and niche, and each of these will never be "ab ...Read More

A "head of role" is a very different focus. Before we can talk about standing out in the interview, I think it's important to define what a leader in marketing can and should be.  Rule #1.#1. You are no longer a marketer. Not really. Your real focus is twofold: building the team, and strengthening the company. At this point in your career, you already know how to do the job. The pivot now is to build a team that can do the job better than you and at larger scale. And then you have to leverage yo ...Read More

This one depends on company stage and maturity of the market.  At Cisco, we're incredibly mature, and I'm very fortunate to work alongside Sophia Danvers and her amazing Audience Marketing team. They eat industry intel for breakfast and turn it into not just persona insights, but messaging, content, and campaign ideas that keep our top industries growing, even 15 years later.  In earlier stages, this process is a lot more ad hoc, and really depends on how much time you can spend with customers a ...Read More

This one all depends on the product, market, and customers. If you're an industry-specific solution and just getting started in market, taking an industry bent first will help you differentiate against the horizontal plays. Being able to tell a credible "insider story" and keep the team focused on material problems is a huge advantage.  Alternatively, if you have a horizontal play that's starting to get real traction in more than 2-3 industries (and by traction, I'd say if you have 3 industries ...Read More

Unfortunately, I really haven't. Find people who've worked places where you see great industry expertise. Talk to them. Talk to customers.  Read Crossing the Chasm. Again.  Ooh, fun one. Alex and the Sharebird team are telling me that there's a 300-character minimum answer. Now we get to pick on them a bit. "Alex, I thought that one of the greatest strenghts of PMM was synthesis and simplification! Why can't I be super concise and pithy here? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?" Okay, let's see if that's ...Read More

As a PMM, revenue is a trailing metric and the one you have the least control over. If there aren't existing quotas set by industry (and this is rare), this is likely to be unsuccessful. Instead, go back to the core KPIs for PMM: Opportunity creation (count), Qualified pipeline ($), and win rate (or pipe coverage). These are more direct to measure, and if you create opportunity for sales, they'll follow those dollars.  Establishing these can flow directly from past results and the next few quart ...Read More

I'm not certain if you mean category management in the retail/B2C space or the category management specific to sourcing and procurement. Either way, I don't think I'd rule someone out on this alone, but they are very different skillsets. While great PMMs come from all walks of life and all backgrounds (for me that's History major -> UX design -> Planning and Finance -> Vertical Marketing -> PMM), there are a few things that are always critical: - Structured thinking - Deep product an ...Read More

The pressure's on for this one. Feels like this is the kind of topic first chapters in business books are devoted to.  A successful GTM is hard to describe in detail. Every business, customer, product, team, and marketplace are different and the right path through can vary widely. And the details shift as the market matures; competitors enter, different problems take priority, macroeconomic uncertainty can loom. But, there are some characteristics of success you can look towards to judge if you' ...Read More

There are two questions here, and I'll address both. One answer is much shorter than the other. How do we collaborate across industry and core PMM? Constantly. At Meraki, we do have an Audiences team focused on both industry and a few specific LOB personas. The give and take is pretty regular. We collaborate on content, messaging, and thought leadership to make sure we're helping attract and meet customers on their terms.  That's the short answer. Your second question about being the first verti ...Read More

Other than everyone?  Product and UX - To highlight industry-specific opportunities for roadmap or positoning Sales - To help them drive better discovery, solution positioning, and credibility with a customer PMM - To pressure test messaging and inherit the best, most compelling value props they have Customer Success - drive renewals and critical vertical customer stories to drive growth Execs - You need great storytellers who "love" your vertical, even if they're not deep.  Demand Gen - To make ...Read More

This is a really tough one. First and foremost, it's important to separate PM and PMM. They need to be parallel, not dependent, organizations to effectively function. You need them to have the freedom to call BS on each other, work through differing opinions, and emerge with a stronger view of the market.  I'd recommend starting with the problem to be solved. Is it improving overall GTM effectiveness (opportunity creation, pipeline, win rates), or accessing a new market or vertical? What are the ...Read More