AMA: Slack Former Product Marketing Lead, Judy Abad on Messaging

Hmmm … this depends on what you’re launching. The most important things to understand when you’re creating any messaging is who your audience is, what is the benefit to them, and how you'll reach them. This is a great read if you’re just getting started (and something I make my new hires read): https://medium.com/startup-grind/people-dont-buy-products-they-buy-better-versions-of-themselves-2ce85fdb5ff1 In general, the framework is only as important as the message you’re trying to deliver. Play around with what works best for you and the people you work with. Don’t be too beholden to the process. 

It depends on how big your company is! At large companies, there’s often a Content Strategy or Product Writing person or team that sits under Design. The PMM should ensure the in-product copy aligns with overall positioning, but is not the directly responsible person for that. Absent a product writer, a PMM should work with a PM to deliver the right in-product copy.

This is a tricky one because you need to prioritize your work and hit your goals. At the same time, you want to be flexible if new projects come up that supersede what you’re working on. There are ways to ensure you arrive at the best decision for the good of the company. At the end of the day, everyone is working to make the company successful, and if your teams are functioning well, people will get that. A win for the company doesn’t always mean a win for you, personally. The best thing you can do here is communicate and share your goals and what you’re working on with your manager and/or with other teams. This will help you say no to any extraneous requests that come in. If you think an ad-hoc request is important, work with the person making the request to build the case for your team or whomever you need to work with to get it done. Why is this request being made? What will the impact be to the business? How does it align with company goals? What is the estimated time/resources needed? How will this affect what you’re currently working on? By ensuring everyone is on the same page, you can work together to make the right decision. 

As Mary said, it definitely depends on how you define power, but in general, the PM makes the final call on the building the product and the PMM makes the final call on the launch strategy. Well, actually, it’s really the CEO that has the final call on everything, but you get my point. In terms of which role is more strategic, it depends on what you enjoy doing and what you want to learn to do more of. PMs are generally defining the “what, why, and how” of the product, working closely with engineers and designers. PMMs define the “so what” and work closely with cross-functional partners to reach targeted audiences across channels (earned, owned, paid, partners, sales, etc). PMs and PMMs need to work closely together to understand customer needs and ship and launch the right thing. This means understanding the competitive landscape, partnering on a set of shared metrics, and sharing milestones in planning, development, launching, and supporting a new product.

This is something I have experience doing since I was one of the first monetization product marketers at Instagram and the first product marketer at Slack. I'll say that it was different at both companies, so it can vary. It really matters what your company's priorities are and what each individual is focused on and where their strengths lie. PMMs do not support PMs 1:1 in small companies (wouldn't that be nice!), so it's best to be strategic about where a PMM can help fill in gaps early on. To me, this is really at three phases: 1) defining the MVP (through an understanding of customer needs, competitive overview, and market sizing), 2) determining if an alpha/beta is needed and managing those, and 3) launch and post-launch support. I also believe strongly that a PMM should help define success metrics. If it's too early to set concrete KPIs, it's important to start building the foundation for what you'll measure and why.

Great question! In general, I don't think of product marketing as separate from the overall consumer-facing experience because that's what we're all doing at the end of the day (whether your audience is consumers or businesses). The best in class for me is Apple. I know, what an original answer! :) I am a self-professed Apple fangirl. When you build great products and market them well, it can be a magical experience for the consumer. They do a great job of focusing on key benefits and making it dead simple for people to do the thing they want to do when using an Apple product. Other companies I think do a really great job - MailChimp, Intercom, and of course, I have to give love to Instagram and Slack. Outside of tech, I love Nike.