AMA: Crossbeam Senior Director Product Marketing, Amanda Groves on Establishing Product Marketing

This one gets a lawerly response - it depends! I like to use the following: attach rate as a metric for product adoption reactivations for product engagement product sign-ups for conversion upsell and expansion revenue NPS for sentiment For example, for a new organization that is trying to find product market fit - if you can attribute product sign-ups to a PMM activity like website optimization or launch program, you'll have a clear and measurable way to show ROI towards a larger company initia ...Read More

Here's how I typically tackle the first 30-60-90 days for establishing PMM: First 30 - Listening tours + product/data downloads Shadow sales demos, listen to customer calls on Chorus or Gong, watch Fullstory sessions and marinate in any and all of the data you can find Get your hands on the product, get so comfortable with it you can give a demo Start market research, understand your TAM (total addressable market) and personas First 60 - Assess, Align and Establish Assess orgs needs + company go ...Read More

Ooo I love this question, the three things I'd prioritize tracking overtime are 1) Reactivations This is 100% within our team's ability to improve and acts as a force multiplier for every department. More active customers? Mores potential revenue. More innovation opportunities. More use cases to support. 2) Product sign-ups Given most PMM orgs start at the bottom of the funnel - product sign-ups are a primary conversion lever to continuously manage and optimize for. Similar to reactivations, thi ...Read More

Here's how I typically tackle the first 30-60-90 days for establishing PMM: First 30 - Listening tours + product/data downloads Shadow sales demos, listen to customer calls on Chorus or Gong, watch Fullstory sessions and marinate in any and all of the data you can find Get your hands on the product, get so comfortable with it you can give a demo Start market research, understand your TAM (total addressable market) and personas First 60 - Assess, Align and Establish Assess orgs needs + company go ...Read More

The best part of being in product marketing is sharing the burden - there's always something to do in the messy middle ;) I think a simple and pragmatic way to share the load is adopting a framework like the Eisenhower Matrix to help prioritize and delegate efficiently. The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity, prioritization, and time-management framework designed to help professionals prioritize a list of tasks or agenda items by first categorizing those items according to their urgency and imp ...Read More

Great question! My advice would be to remember the product stage is likely quite different than your existing product. For the new product, prioritize product market fit PMM tasks during the initial integration roll out. Steps to do this: Conduct a TAM analysis with products like Crossbeam to understand overlapping base and eligible customers for GTM. Conduct listening tours to understand target audience and personas. Build new personas and train + enable the team on target audience. Use tiering ...Read More

Great question. I would tackle the PMM foundations first: Personas ICP Messaging Hierarchy Launch process with product Sales enablement needs Relationships internally and externally VoC work What NOT to focus on? Items that don't map to company goals or priorities Shiny objects High-budget/glossy requests I think the hardest part of being in PMM is prioritizing given we sit at the intersection of so many business lines - so make sure you keep guardrails on the most impactful tasks and map to out ...Read More

Setting up a new product marketing function can be a challenging but rewarding task. Here are some challenges you should be aware of and some tips for overcoming them: Defining the scope: One of the biggest challenges is defining the scope of the product marketing function. This involves determining what the function will be responsible for, such as positioning, messaging, competitive analysis, sales enablement, etc. It's important to ensure that the scope is well-defined and aligned with the co ...Read More

I would try an establish common ground early and often. Ask yourself these questions: What guiding principles do you need to establish between your role and senior leadership to be successful? What latitude do you need to be successful? What core philosophies do you need alignment on to be successful? Once of you a sense of the above, set rules of engagement with leadership so you're aligned on needs. This comes before outcomes - establish your relationship and rapport. Once that's in place, dis ...Read More

Product marketers and growth marketers should work closely together to ensure that their efforts are aligned towards achieving the company's goals. Here are some ways they can work together effectively: Establish shared KPIs: Product marketers and growth marketers should agree on shared KPIs that reflect the company's objectives. For example, they may track metrics such as user acquisition, conversion rates, or revenue. This ensures that both teams are working towards the same goals. Define boun ...Read More

I think this really depends on business stage and company needs. If you are in the 0-1 phase, you can likely handle the department in single player mode while bets are still manifesting. The 0 to 1 phase involves inventing something new, testing hypotheses, taking contrarian bets, soliciting market feedback, and developing products which address a validated market need. The subsequent phase of a business, i.e. going from 1 to 10, requires attention to a different set of tasks. Its success relies ...Read More

There's two ways you can think about this: Qualitatively: Use quarterly pulse surveys to do a temp check on cross-functional department needs and efficacy of existing programs. My favorite questions to ask sales teams is: What slide deck are you updating the most? This indicates your most valuable asset that you should be paying attention to What material do you wish there was more of? Less of? This will help identify what's being used and what's being left on the editing room floor. Quantitativ ...Read More