AMA: Intercom Group Product Marketing Manager, Christine Sotelo-Dag on Building Product Marketing Team

Our product marketing org strucuture is made up of 6 groups. Most of our groups are aligned directly to product, and how product strucutres their org. So each product group that is focused on building customer facing product - has a PMM group aligned to it. We refer to these PMMs as "full stack" PMMs partnering closely with product in defining roadmap and scope and GTM teams in bringing new products and features to market.  We also have a group focused on enablement - supporting our customer fac ...Read More

My advice is to work on building relationship with the Product org. Proactively find ways you can bring them value - whether it be through market or competitive insights, product teardowns, industry knowledge, customer insights, etc. Find out what information they wish they had more of, and figure out how you can bring that to them.  This partnership is so important for PMMs - and will help break down the metaphorical wall that stands between product and marketing, that products are tossed over ...Read More

I think this depends largely on the size of an update - and the audience.  For our largest releases, they are communicated early and often - to drum up excitement. Through company all hands, sales trainings, slack channels, etc.  For mid-sized and smaller updates, we'll leverage the internal channels that make the most sense for the internal audience. If its sales, we'll update via our bi-weekly newsletter, slack channels, internal knoweldgebase docs on what to know, as one example. Each interna ...Read More

There are a few things you'll want to establish and get alignment on right out of the gates.  1. Establish a tiering framework. Define what a large product launch looks like (tier 1) and what would qualify a product / feature to be a tier 1 - and what activities would be aligned to it. Do the same for the smaller launch tiers as well, and make sure your product counterparts are aligned. This will help set expectations and ensure launches are aligned to specific gaols.  2. Define the jobs your pr ...Read More

Some of the low hanging fruit here would be setting up team rituals - team meetings, slack channels, team hubs, etc.  Some of the more logistical processes would include setting up a shared launch calendar to have a shared source of truth. Defining a tiering framework for launching products. Establishing areas of ownership and alignment to product and/or audience and/or sales.  Find ways to templatize work that you'll be dividing amongst yourselves - messaging guides, pricing frameworks, naming ...Read More

The most straightforward way to manage this might be to divide the products between the two of you in an even way - where each of you has a clear line of ownership, end-to-end, of your skews. This will be less messy to untangle as you hire new pmms, where you can hand off speficic product areas in a clean way. As far as there only being 2 of you, and multiple/complex products - once you're clear in what you own, work to prioritize the product areas that are aligned to business impact. Which prod ...Read More

Although our company hasn't been officially remote, our Product teams all sit in Dublin, Ireland - while our PMMs are all sitting in San Francisco. Of course this physical (and time) difference poses some challenges - we've worked on some strategies that have helped bridge the gap.  - Make sure to set up regular checkins with your product counterparts. This may not feel informal, but it's important to stay connected - even if there isn't anything immenent to ship to market. Take the time to unde ...Read More

I wouldn't under estimate solid PMM expierence, but I wouldn't let lack of direct PMM experience be a blocker either. As you've calledo out, being a well-rounded marketer/communicator is really important. My perspective is, if someone can demonstrate they are a solid story-teller - can take product and technical messages and translate them into customer value, this usually sits at the heart of PMM skillsets. This skill is so important in being able to support GTM stakeholders.  I'd also spend ti ...Read More