AMA: Etsy Director of Seller Product Marketing , Madison Kiani on Influencing the Product Roadmap

Great question! I try to approach it as being continuous, but thoughtful. Product Marketing shouldn’t only wait for big planning moments to share insights, but we also shouldn’t inundate teams with every piece of customer feedback we see. For every GTM my team leads, we use a consistent, templated approach to share back performance results and seller sentiment. This template includes a summary of the primary and secondary KPIs, support volume, and seller sentiment. It also recaps key learnings a ...Read More

I’ve seen the most effective influence happen when PMM is embedded in the day-to-day work of product teams. In practice, that means actively participating in discovery conversations, quarterly and/or annual planning, and ongoing launch performance reviews. It also means building strong 1:1 relationships with product partners, where you can share context and recommendations more candidly.    Clear, concise written documents are also really important, especially when they are tied directly to the ...Read More

Definitely! Influencing the product roadmap is really about helping teams make better decisions and tradeoffs on behalf of your customers’ problems and needs, not just about driving revenue. Because of that, the same principles apply whether you’re working on a monetized product or something like a public education or awareness campaign. In those cases, product marketing can still add a lot of value by clarifying the target audience and positioning, defining the problem being solved, surface ins ...Read More

This is such a great question! I’ve been lucky to work with some incredible research and analytics partners at Etsy, and I’ve learned a lot from them about how to build learning plans that actually help teams make better decisions. Through that experience, I’ve found that the most effective learning plans are built by bringing together three lenses: Qualitative research (think 1:1 direct conversations with customers) to dig into customer needs, motivations, and pain points in the seller experien ...Read More

This can be a tricky balance, but an important one! I would start with the customer problem before jumping into any recommended solutions. Strong recommendations clearly articulate the customer pain point, show evidence from multiple sources (like Research or Support feedback), and explain why it matters in the context of the company’s priorities. I’ve also found it helps to be explicit about tradeoffs. Acknowledging what you’re not recommending (and why) will build your credibility. When recomm ...Read More

Such a great question! It can feel like a lot of pressure to be new at a company and bring immediate value. When you’re new, influence comes less from having answers and more from asking the right questions. Early on, I would suggest focusing on listening (from your peers, leaders, and especially customers). Learn what your customers biggest problems are, how product decisions are made internally, what constraints teams operate under, and where there’s uncertainty. This will ultimately help you ...Read More