AMA: Jellyfish VP of Product Marketing, Daniel Kuperman on Influencing the Product Roadmap

Establish a cadence of meetings with the product team so that you can be on top of what's going on with the product roadmap and also share insights about customers, competitors, and changes in market dynamics. The frequency of meetings will depend on a) how many products the company has; b) the size of your PMM team; c) how often new releases take place. A good rule of thumb is to have a weekly sync with the product team to understand short-term tactical aspects of upcoming releases, monthly dis ...Read More

Product Marketing's influence comes in many shapes and forms, including but not limited to: Feature prioritization Naming Pricing & packaging GTM motions Part of your job in PMM is to bring a more holistic view to the release process, help the product team understand how different releases fit into the bigger product narrative, and coordinate the go-to-market motions to make that release a success. The mindset to have here is of an "active participant" of this process, which means being voca ...Read More

The best way for junior product marketers to earn trust and create impact is to come prepared and ready to add value. What I mean by this is to make sure you know the product thoroughly, understand the jobs-to-be-done by the buyer personas, and has also a deep understanding of the market dynamics at play. If you come to product meetings armed with this information, you will be able to demonstrate your value as a PMM and no one will care about your title. It does take a lot of homework, preparati ...Read More

The best information to be shared with the product team is a combination of customer feedback, win/loss analysis, competitive information, and market dynamics. By sharing customer feedback, you can help the product team put things in perspective as to why customers need a certain feature or what is the job they are trying to get done. Win/loss analysis is a great way to show the product team why we win and why we lose certain deals, and what specific product features may help us in those situati ...Read More

Most roadmaps will have short-term and long-term releases, with the short-term (e.g. next month) in more detail and a higher degree of confidence than the long-term (e.g. next year). A good way to think about it is to have a "now-next-later" view into the roadmap and align with the product team on the time horizons. In most cases, you'll see what's coming in a month ("now"), next quarter ("next"), and in the next 6-month horizon ("later"). Of course, this also depends on the industry in which yo ...Read More