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AMA: dbt Labs Former Director of Product Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Product Marketing vs Product Management
April 27 @ 9:00AM PST
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Dbt Labs Former Director of Product Marketing, Lauren Craigie on Product Marketing vs Product Management
Top Questions
Where does in-app copy fit in your org? (Under Product Marketing, Design or other?)
Particularly interested in technical products, but also curious for nontechnical.
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
A few answers here, based on use case! Naming inside the product (like features, tabs, or experiences) would be handled by PMM during the launch process. PM is likely to have ideated an internally-referenced name early on, but as we get past the beta and understand what value users actually d......Read More
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
DATA. But I don't think the word "influence" is quite right. I really don't think PMMs should have an agenda when it comes to roadmapping. I think our role is to represent the needs of users, and bring data to PMs to help them navigate that decision making process. We can provide: * NPS score ......Read More
677 Views
1 request
How do you get product management to focus more on customer problems and solving them, and less on shipping features that customers don't need?
They want to convey 20+ features to the public when we should only focus on top 3-5 features then figure out what the true benefit is to the end user.
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Ah I'm sorry you're in that situation. PMM should be part of product roadmapping meetings, since everything that's in the queue should be going through some sort of business valuation (what is the cost/benefit of putting this feature into the world). But I think stepping back to understand the......Read More
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3 requests
What does Product Management have to provide in their Project Briefs in order for Product Marketing to be successful?
Example: Project Briefs should include: problem, solution, etc.
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
oh mylanta I love this question. I think a lot of this can be an interative process with the PMM, but I think the things I see most often left out of these documents that could completely change the way a new feature is positioned includes: - Not just what problem this solves, but how was the ......Read More
463 Views
3 requests
What are the biggest frustrations you have as a product marketing manager?
The role of product marketing has become more strategic. How is it affecting you?
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Any frustrations I have are either a reflection of my ego getting in the way, or a failure on my part to communicate expectations or demonstrate value. Some examples: * Sometimes it's frustrating when sales comes up with their own messaging, and slideware. However, if they're doing that ......Read More
358 Views
2 requests
What specific areas of roadmap influence do you think product marketing can help the most with?
Is it the decision of what features to actually build based on customer feedback and marketing opportunity OR more so naming, branding and how we position and target features?
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
I think both, though the latter (naming, branding, messaging, etc) seems to be the default for most PMMs. If PMMs want to partake in the beginning of the cycle—what's actually being built, they need to bring new data—not just personal opinions. Product managers have a product vision that align......Read More
357 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Interests: What kind of questions do you want to answer? This is just my personal take, and probably oversimplified, but if you're driven by optimization questions like "Who is getting the most value out of this?" "How do we better articulate what this thing does?" "How do we increase close rate......Read More
390 Views
2 requests
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
I've always felt like this question felt a bit like, "who owns features, engineering or product?" Both teams are responsible for different points in the lifecycle. In my ideal version of the world, pricing overhauls (a new pricing strategy like moving from seats to usage), is managed by a pro......Read More
389 Views
2 requests
What would you say is the most important objective of the Product Marketing team? The #1 objective that if achieved would impact your business the most?
Product Marketing is usually pulled in 17 directions at any given time so saying "no" is more important than saying "yes". What is the singular highest point of contribution?
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Customer segmentation—who cares the MOST, why are they using us, what are their alternatives, why would they stay, why would they leave. Both qualitative (interviews), and quantitative( (product usage and sales cycle data). I think getting incredibly clear on user profiles, habits and motivat......Read More
375 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
I've heard before that product marketing KPIs can be squishy—that it's hard to quantify the value of what we do. I don't agree! I have a few KPIs that are unique to PMM, and a few that are tackled with PM, just from a different angle. I'll focus mostly on the shared KPIs: Shared: Feature adop......Read More
840 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Oh interesting! I've done both, but I truly believe PLG is the future for everyone. Or, I should say the paths are likely to converge! New organizational structures that are empowering end-users to make more decisions for themselves, coupled with extremely efficient try>buy experiences are re......Read More
625 Views
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Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product Marketing • April 27
Yes depending on the type of feedback sought we have different owners, but we are trynig to move to a place where the Customer PMM owns tracking of outreach (we don't want to ping the same account 7 times across different deparments). In-product NPS is owned by customer success, but interviews......Read More
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