AMA: Grammarly Global Head of Product Marketing, Natala Menezes on Influencing the Product Roadmap

February 9 @ 10:00AM PT

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As a product marketer, how do you manage product teams that are poor at scoping releases? Especially as they apply to changing release dates and minor updates.

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

It’s a bummer situation when product and engineering teams don’t deliver on the timeline planned. My best practice is to make sure that there’s organization-wide agreemen...

810 Views

5 requests

Can you share advice for the first product marketer at a company for influencing the product roadmap?

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

Keep a stack-ranked list of the top product/feature requests that you hear from customers. As the product marketer, you represent the voice of the customer within the org...

462 Views

2 requests

As head of PMM at a startup, how did your PMM team grow over time, e.g. what positions did you hire, when, why? How did divide scope of responsibilities? What were the most strategic hires you made, including non-PMM titles if any?

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

When I started at Grammarly, I did an audit of how PMM mapped to the product organization, our consumer acquisition and growth teams, and our B2B sales teams. The audit r...

11695 Views

2 requests

Should product marketers be "influencers" or "partners" in product roadmap decisions?

As an influencer you might just share market and customer research, competitive intel, etc. as another input for PM to consider in their own decision making; whereas if you're a true partner, you're discussing and debating with them, as equals, what product roadmap decisions should be and why, where PMs and PMMs bring different inputs and value to the table as equals. Thoughts on being an "influencer" vs. being a "partner" in guiding the product roadmap? Thank you.

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

Ideally, PMMs are influential partners. :) As PMMs, we represent the voice of the customer in product decisions – because we know our customers and their needs best thro...

423 Views

2 requests

What are the SaaS you think is doing product marketing exceptionally well globally and it's competitors and also please explain how is the one able to stay ahead than the rest?

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

Outside of the wonderful PMM work we do at Grammarly (we’re hiring btw), I think Salesforce and Google do an exceptional job with product marketing. Salesforce focuses on...

3164 Views

2 requests

How do you more effectively influence product roadmap priorities and timeline?

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

I have always loved this quote by Robert Johnson (notably a musician, not a product marketer!): “Leadership is the ability to influence people and motivate them to do wh...

1991 Views

2 requests

In what ways to you see (or recommend) product marketers build trust with their XFN partners?

Natala Menezes•

Dialpad Vice President Product Marketing | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC Grammarly + startups • 4y

Show up! In my last role, I was on a team where it wasn’t usual for PMM to play a significant role in the PM planning or organization. I showed up, spent time with the le...

709 Views

2 requests