AMA: Cisco Meraki Group Product Marketing Manager, Nicole Gallow on Establishing Product Marketing

COMMUNICATE! Early and often! In a successful GTM plan you're collaborating up front with PM, design, engineering, PMO, NPI, senior leadership, integrated marketing (demand gen), regional marketing, and so many more! From a technical counterpart perspective, I've worked with design teams to work through customer feedback since PMM is talking to customers and to sales so often. Having regular syncs with engineerings helps you not only gain a more techincal perspective that you can then 'uplevel' into marketing speak, but gives you a more concerete timeline for launch. EVERY time, I'm collaborating with the PM team from the point of PRD, so getting through GTM planning is icing on the beautiful product launch cake. As we all know, everyone is unique and different. Every TEAM is different as well. Developing relationships with technical team has been one of the best things I've done with my PMM career. Having regular syncs so there aren't surprises and we all get to share what's happening in our different worlds is incredibly valuable. My PM and engineering teams love being part of the GTM planning process and our relationships between teams have grown stronger because of it. I get my technical counterparts excited about how I'm showing off their product and in turn I have even more marketing advocates that will share content, social media and stories with their networks. 

It's a fun project to take overall quarterly objectives like sales enablement or new feature launches and tie them back to OKRs. In fact today, I was talking with my team about how we can measure success for a sales enablement next quarter. We're going to do this a couple of ways: 1. Sales confidence -- Are sellers using decks, scripts, etc more (track this through CMS) than they were previously 2. Competitive wins -- what percentage has our win-rate increased from the previous half Aside from this, my team currently has a lot of new feature releases. Since new feature adoption isn't tracked through a typical KPI like revenue or bookings, we've opted to track adoption metrics -- how many users choose to 'opt in' for a feature or provide feedback for a public beta feature. From that we can assert a 'win' on a quarterly goal, AND it helps the product team as we build out new features and updates to current ones. 

Get that headcount ASAP! I kid, I kid.... kind of. My selfish, well, self, wants to say ask for approval as soon as you start -- first 30 days. Hiring someone doesn't happen overnight so you want as much time as possible to get applicants. That said, the logical part of my brain says take some time to assess the business need and team need. I had a PMM team previously that included PMMs, PMs, Content Managers and Sales Enablement Managers. For a startup I'd bring on a content person first, assuming I can create the messaging and give direction, but need a creative person to take my (somtimes) genius ideas and turn them into thoughtful, customer-focused content that leans into the brand of the company. I've been blessed with working with many incredible content marketing gurus in my days.

I believe the answer to this 'depends' on many factors, a couple of which are: * Company size * Org (PMM or reporting org) size If you have a large PMM team, having a more vertical org may make the most sense. At Cisco, I believe our PMM org is very balanced, not too flat or too tall, but would be considered vertical. That said, Cisco is a large company and having PMM leaders with teams of PMMs has been incredibly beneficial from a messaging and communications perspective. Each PMM is responsible for their product line, and their PMM leader is responsible for that product portfolio. I've found it depends on the number of direct reports, where a manager loses productivity if they have too many direct reports, but smaller/more manageable teams are make for a more productive work environment for all parties involved. 

This question is great and so very relevant. I've been companies where leadership has had 3 very different thoughts on the PMM org. 1. PMM IS AMAZING 2. What the heck is PMM and why am I paying their salaries? 3. Eh, PMM exists but I don't care much about what they do. << my least favorite of them all, believe it or not. PMM is amazing: This of course is an easy one! Keep doing great things and the leadership team will advocate for you. Communicate to them often on progress. Partner wherever necessary. You'll be the ones they call when they need help with events, messaging, content, knowledge -- anything, really! What the heck is PMM: I actually like this group too, I see them as a challenge. How do I get them to "like" PMM? I show them what we're worth. How do we contribute to their business goals? How do we make our business better? How do we help customers? How do we help sales and PM and all the stakeholders that the PMM org works with on a daily basis? PMM exists but I don't care: I initially thought I'd like these types since it's more like I can do what I want when I want and not worry about getting a report to a leader or justifying budget --- but I came to realize that's BAD. The joy is very short-lived. I want to turn these folks into PMM advocates because spinning my wheels creating content for nothing isn't helping me or my team. Show them your value, just like the #2 folks. Here's why you need PMM. Here's where my content feeds into your integrated marketing plan, CMO. Here's how I'm contributing to revenue, CEO. Here's how I'm driving customer adoption and renewing licenisng, CRO. Find an ally on the leadership team, find a mentor that is a senior leader or reports to one. Getting yourself seen and heard will ignite something in the non-believers when you show them the value of PMM -- which can be shown in a lot of areas! 

My first step would be talking with the sales team (outside of my hiring manager and direct colleagues, of course), to see what they're using currently and what our customers are needing. Then create content for those immediate needs. Typically there are 'decks' (story of our lives, right?) or playbooks that either need updating or there's a need for net new content. Getting these content pieces done early and often will impress your manager and your sales teams -- win, win!