AMA: Intercom Director of Product Marketing, Jasmine Jaume on Stakeholder Management

This is actually something we're working to improve at the moment, as the process at Intercom hasn't been that standardised in the past. Historically at Intercom, betas were driven by the product team and wholly focused on collecting product feedback (often via research interviews and feedback through our messenger). As our PMMs work closely with PMs - and are often involved in sending the messages to beta participants - the feedback from these betas would be shared with PMMs and we'd use it as relevant to inform messaging and launch plans. However, because we also want to leverage betas for things like customer testimonials and messaging feedback, and because our customer base has over time become more upmarket (which tends to mean beta featuress need to a bit more 'baked' before customers will use it), we've started introducing new processes to betas. This includes things like having them being more full-featured before rolling out as a beta, starting earlier so customers have more time to see the results of using a feature (which aids us with testimonials), and sales and PMM being more involved in choosing the beta audience. Things like ideal timelines and how to standardise dissemination of the information is something we're still working on - maybe we'll write a blog post when we figure it out!

In the past we've used things like Google Sheets/docs, but for the past 18 months or so we've started using Coda and it's been a game changer. We do all our launch planning in Coda, which means there is one 'source of truth' where all stakeholders can see progress, timelines, who's responsible for what etc. This has been much easier than our previous world of having loads of different docs and no one ever knowing where anything is! I actually published a template of our launch plan in Coda , which you can make your own copy of if you like. Outside of Coda, for bigger launches we usually have weekly syncs with key stakeholders to keep things on track and use slack channels to coordinate async. For our biggest launches, we have support from program managers (on the R&D side) and campaign managers (on the marketing side) who help coordinate comms, update emails etc to keep everyone on track. Before we had those teams in place, PMMs usually played that role!

This is a tough one! It can be really difficult when you have exec stakeholders who aren't aligned. Ultimately, it's on them to get aligned and provide clear direction 'down the chain' but a few things that could help: * Understand where the misalignment is - is it the whole strategy, or specific parts of it? Is there a compromise you could propose that would help get alignment? What are the main concerns of whoever isn't on board, and can you ask questions to better understand what is driving the concerns - and can you then address those? * Provide additional research/evidence or test a proposal - if you can, try proposing a way to further validate or test out the strategy such as customer research, a/b testing etc (this will depend on what type of strategy you're working on!) * Re-align on goals and timelines - sometimes it can be helpful to go back to the original goals and make sure everyone is still aligned on what you're trying to achieve. Re-sharing timelines, and how not making a decision by x date will impact them, can also help drive things forward when they get stuck If one of these execs is your manager, it's also worth having an open conversation with them about the challenging position of being in the middle and asking them to take the lead on getting alignment with their peer.

As I said in another answer, being a successful PMM relies heavily on being able to build relationships and trust with your cross-functional stakeholders. The tips in that answer about building relationships apply here, but I'll also add 2 things: 1. Always look for opportunities for PMM to add value, and make sure you understand other functions' goals and priorities. If other functions can see the value PMM bring - and that you want to help, not hinder them - it's much easier to get a seat at the table - they'll want you to be there, because they've seen the benefit of having you involved in the past. This doesn't mean giving in, doing whatever everyone else wants and never standing your ground, but it does mean being strategic about when to push back, when to go the extra mile and when to compromise. 2. There is always going to be some tension between functions, because whilst we all have the same ultimate goal (the business succeeding), functions also have their own goals and priorities. Whilst that tension can feel uncomfortable, as long as you can find compromise and still work together, it's a good thing because it helps keep things in check. For example, if I was a product manager, and my goal is adoption of my feature, of course I'm going to want us to message every customer about that feature until they all use it. But as a PMM, I might know that there are also 10 other things we need to tell customers about, and I want to make sure we spread out messages so we're not annoying them by spamming them repeatedly. This may cause tension - but that tension will eventually lead to a better outcome, which is likely to be some sort of compromise between the two that gets the message to customers without annoying them. 

The product team at Intercom are very invested in understanding our customers so they often themselves talk to customers, interface directly with sales, read customer feedback from conversations in Intercom and so on, and we have a very talented research team who do more in-depth studies for us. This mean that it's not just down to PMM to represent the customer voice (which is a nice place to be!) That being said, in general the key to getting alignment around priorities is being able to demonstrate impact - for example, how many customers or sales deals have we lost due to not having X feature? What was the total revenue lost? Or, what's the potential revenue opp of building a feature (based on total addressable market, potential expansion, potential new revenue stream etc)? This kind of data helps everyone understand the real business impact and the priorities and trade-offs. It also helps keep the conversation more objective and less prone to 'recency bias' (e.g. based on the most recent deals we lost or last customer convo we had)

I think the first step is to understand your buyers and market, so you can define who you're targeting and how you want to position your product. So as you say, competitive research, understanding the pain points of your buyers and customers, talking to your sales team to understand why you win/lose deals and creating an outline of your target buyers (or personas, if you're into those!) I'd then develop a GTM starategy, including defining where you want to position yourself in the market, and a messaging guide to outline how you want to describe the product, outline benefits, key differentiators etc. This also includes gathering any evidence you can such as customer testimonials. It's important to get aligned on this with all stakeholders incl. product and sales leaders. From there, create a PMM roadmap of sorts, defining goals and intiatives depending on the needs of the business, what already exists and what needs to be prioritised. For example, if the company is focused on outbound sales, there might be a need to prioritise sales enablement activities. If it's very inbound, it might be improving the website, or increasing adoption. If the product hasn't launched yet, this will likely be working with product on their roadmap, developing a pricing strategy, and defining a plan for launch. Look for where PMM can add the most value. Given that in early stage startups, PMM may be the only - or one of very few - marketers, this plan may need to be more of a 'marketing plan' than just a PMM plan. It really depends on the business model and stage, but hopefully that gives some ideas!

We collect feedback in various ways. We obviously use Intercom ourselves, so we get user feedback through conversations, responses to our announcement messages and conversation ratings, for example. We also do run NPS surveys, using survey apps integrated into our Messenger. Some of our product team recently recorded this podcast about how user feedback informs what we build, which may be of interest! We also have an amazing research team at Intercom, who will do research interviews, concept testing or surveys with customers if we're researching something specific or running a beta (you can read more about some of their approaches here ). If we're looking to get feedback from non-customers and it's something with a clear hypothesis, we often use usertesting.com. PMMs will often do this to test things like reactions and comprehension of product messaging for example.

I believe that the ability to build relationships with stakeholders and influence others is key to being a successful PMM. As you've noted in your question, due to the nature of our role PMMs are often drivers of very cross-functional projects, which involves co-ordinating peers and potentially people more senior than you too. Really, it comes down to all the classic relationship-building things: * Build trust - spend time with the people you need to influence (and not just when you need something!), be helpful and reliable, do what you say you will, ask for their input and feedback, and look for opportunities to help them achieve their goals. This will all go a long way when you need their help with a project, need to give feedback, need them to help advocate for something etc. * Know what their goals are and what drives them, and then make it easy for them to understand how what you're asking for will help them achieve them * Adjust your communication style - everyone has their preferred communication style. Some people love reading docs, some like to talk things through, some just want the 3 bullet highlights. Understanding how your stakeholders like to communicate will make it more likely you'll get your point through * Focus on the impact to the business, not why you need it - similar to the point about knowing your stakeholder's goals, you'll likely get a better result if you can clearly show how whatever you're asking for - a project to be prioritised, or feedback to be actioned for example - helps the business, because everyone should want the business to be successful. This also helps makes it less personal (you're not asking for yourself, you're asking for the business!) * Data, if you have it - if you have data, research or any kind of evidence that helps back up what you're asking for, that can make it significantly easier to get buy-in

In general, PMM roles at Intercom are more of the 'full stack' variety - i.e we cover the whole journey from feeding into the roadmap to launch, including competitive research, buyer/persona/market research, GTM strategy, positioning and messaging, enablement, launch planning etc. Our team sits in marketing and reports into a Senior Director of PMM. Our team structure has shifted several times in the time I've been here, based on changes to the company strategy, product team structure and where we most need to focus resources,. Currently, we're split into 3 'groups' based primarily around product areas and segment: * Solutions (a Group PMM + 3 PMMs): Each PMM is focused on one of (or part of) the 3 solutions/audiences we position Intercom for specific solution. Each PMM owns positioning, messaging and GTM for their solutions, and partner with the relevant product managers for their solutions and product areas. * Platform and Core (that's my group - me plus 3 PMMs) - we look after overarching/high level positioning and messaging, and cross-solution features such as the Messenger, data platform, and our partner ecosystem (incl. apps and integrations). We often partner with solution PMMs on things like launches for platform features. We also partner closely with the platform group in R&D, as well as the Business Development team on partnerships. * Pricing and packaging (a principal PMM) - fairly self explanatory, owns pricing and packaging strategy/decisions, as well as buyer personas and research

In general, PMM roles at Intercom are more of the 'full stack' variety - i.e we cover the whole journey from feeding into the roadmap to launch, including competitive research, buyer/persona/market research, GTM strategy, positioning and messaging, enablement, launch planning etc. Our team sits in marketing and reports into a Senior Director of PMM. Our team structure has shifted several times in the time I've been here, based on changes to the company strategy, product team structure and where we most need to focus resources. Currently, we're split into 3 'groups' based primarily around product areas: * Solutions (a Group PMM + 3 PMMs): Each PMM is focused on one of (or part of) the 3 solutions/audiences we position Intercom for specific solution. Each PMM owns positioning, messaging and GTM for their solutions, and partner with the relevant product managers for their solutions and product areas. * Platform and Core (that's my group - me plus 3 PMMs) - we look after overarching/high level positioning and messaging, and cross-solution features such as the Messenger, data platform, and our partner ecosystem (incl. apps and integrations). We often partner with solution PMMs on things like launches for platform features. We also partner closely with the platform group in R&D, as well as the Business Development team on partnerships. * Pricing and packaging (a principal PMM) - fairly self explanatory, owns pricing and packaging strategy/decisions, as well as buyer personas and research In terms of measurement, it varies according to focus area and the projects we're working on. We currently don't have specific metrics for each role but we look at launch metrics (depending on the goal - adoption, upsells etc), feedback from cross-functional stakeholders and so on. For the partnerships part of my group, we also look at metrics such as co-selling revenue (in partnership with BD), growth in the no of partners, and app adoption.

This is a tough one to answer without more context on your specific situation, but in general it sounds like you may be being asked to craft messaging for a product you don't believe truly meets customer needs. When you're in this situation it often means that PMM haven't been involved early enough in the product development process and product are throwing something 'over the wall' for you to launch. This is a common challenge for PMMs, and requires work to get PMM 'a seat at the table' and show how PMM involvement ultimately leads to a better product. Acknowledging though that this will take time to change and you may be needing to deal with this right now, there are 2 potential routes that could help depending on what your situation is: 1. If it's that your 'must haves' aren't getting through to your product team, dig into why that is, and provide as much evidence as you can as to why the product is not yet meeting customer needs. Doing some testing of generic messaging with potential customers and getting their feedback could help support your case. Try and understand what the pushback is from product, and then look for ways to address their concerns but still get the outcome you want. 2. If there's no potential that the product will be developed further, you could try and find a new angle through customer and market research - is there a niche but underserved market the product could suit? Can you run a beta and try and get some results from customers to use as testimonials and bolster your messaging?