AMA: Homebase Senior Director Product Marketing, Jennifer Kay on Establishing Product Marketing

The short answer is this is highly dependent and should be greatly influenced by the product and the company that you are part of. This is the dilemma of all things product marketing, there is no one size fits all nor silver bullet answer. I've had equal success with pod models, where a product marketer is embedded with a cross functional teams to work on a particular product or vertical as I have had with creating teams solely focused on bringing products to market. I advocate begining by asses ...Read More

Every company and every growth stage is different so the evaluative framework you utilize needs some flexibility. I recommend that your framework is developed in tandem with your partner stakeholders early on and is communicated often. A reliable framework includes a clear organizing principal, inputs, outputs/ impact, measurements, and timelines. As a first product marketer, I'd also advocate including a line item for dependencies and cross functional asks. Once you start building momentum in a ...Read More

The question comes up a lot in product marketing. It is particularly challenging when you are in a product marketing role or on projects that lean heavy into influence or when your organization is stacked with channel owners. Simply put- there is no one metric that suits all product marketing.  That said, at the outset of any project, it is critical to discuss what the hypothesis or goal of the work is and how you intend to measure the success of the outcome. Since product marketing is cross fun ...Read More

It takes time at any company to increase the visibility of a new department and or function. Building trust takes time and I believe you need to be adaptable and cognizant of the company culture you are in.I am a firm believer in building relationships cross-functionally and making deep investments in both the people and the problems that those people are solving for. To this end, a genuine and insatiable curiousity and empathy for your user and product is a product marketer's super power. Begin ...Read More

I remain surprised by how many digital professionals or companies with outsized product footprints are still unfamiliar with the specialty of "product marketing." When your the first hire of this kind, I'd recommend being prepared to talk about the scope of product marketing and take the opportunity to help crystalize where your initial focus area will be. It's also helpful to walk through the types of projects and impacts that you've worked on in the past and how they can translate or be depoly ...Read More

Whether your a product marketer or just a new employee, the most important thing you can do is to ASK WHY + LISTEN.0-30 days - Talk to everyone. Ask Why 5 times. Don't make any assumptions and ask lots of questions. Dive into your broad market and understand the competitve landscape. Form an objective opinion of where your new company and products fit in, and then dive deep into your customers and thier experience. You bring fresh eyes and I'd recommend compiling copious notes on what you observ ...Read More