AMA: Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing, Jason Oakley on Establishing Product Marketing
January 5 @ 10:00AM PST
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Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing, Jason Oakley on Establishing Product Marketing
Top Questions
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
Know the product and their role (product management) well. In my experience, I've been able to build credibility with PMs by being able to speak their language, communicate in tools like Jira, Confluence, Miro, Figma, that they use every day to do their job. While product knowledge is important......Read More
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2 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
1. Sales win rate, more specifically competitive win rate Make sure that you're reps are populating a "primary competitor" field in your CRM so you can track this effectively. You'll then be able to track win rates over time and show how your efforts to enable your team with comp......Read More
2344 Views
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What's your best product marketing 30-60-90 day plan to make a big impact at a new company?
I'm starting a new job next week! Would love to hear your top tips in general as well as at the director level.
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I don't split it out into 30-60-90 day increments, but within that period, these are the things I'd suggest doing: 1. Get to know your product - get demo certified, the same as your AEs 2. Start building key relationships internally - have lots of 1:1s 3. Create battlecards for your top 2-3 c......Read More
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Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I was one of the first marketing hires at Chili Piper. I personally think there's a strong arguement to hire product marketing first. Positioning, messaging, segmentation, sales enablement, these are all critical things that should be focused on early. If not, you'll waste a lot of time and money......Read More
462 Views
4 requests
What's the earliest stage a startup should consider hiring a Product Marketing Manager?
I'm curious if you've observed the impact of adding a PMM to smaller organizations or if you think they're most impactful in larger organizations?
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I was one of the first marketing hires at Chili Piper. I personally think there's an arguement to hire product marketing first or second. Positioning, messaging, segmentation, sales enablement, these are all critical things that should be focused on early. If not, you'll waste a lot of time and m......Read More
695 Views
2 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
They know very little about our market, product, and competitors, and haven't really made an effort to learn. One way to stand out in the interview process is to show that you have a solid understanding of what the company does. If you can confidently speak about their competitors, talk about t......Read More
1116 Views
4 requests
How can I get into product marketing from my current technical sales/enablement role?
I'm a product specialist at Meltwater and I'm looking to move into product marketing but would prefer to look externally. I currently support the sales team by setting up and demoing customized environments to prospects, sparring use cases, and doing some enablement work.
I've been doing some small projects with both the product marketing team and the broader marketing team - most recently a competitive VS style landing page and vertical-specific landing page copy.
For a side project, I'm in the midst of starting a podcast for aspiring marketers where I interview people from different disciplines so students and others looking to get into the field can see what best aligns with their interests.
Is there anything else I should be doing? Am I looking two steps ahead and I need to get more experience first? Feel like I wouldn't even get an interview if I applied to a PMM job in the tech space.
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I'll start by saying that I love the initiative you're taking to break into product marketing. It sounds like you are doing a lot of the right things. A lot more than most who are in your shoes. I think my first question would be why are you preferring to look externally for your first PMM role......Read More
459 Views
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Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I think it's a hugely valuable and strategic relationship. Sales Enablement is invested in the growth and performance of the sales team. They provide the systems, processes, and tools that reps need to ramp quickly, and continue hitting their quota. They ususally have credibility amongst the sa......Read More
679 Views
2 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I'm still trying to master this one, but here's what I'm doing at Klue (I'm in my first month at the company). Create your PMM Charter With the input of your boss and other leaders in the company, you'll first want to define what PMM looks like at your org. This helps set the guardrails for wh......Read More
5649 Views
5 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I actually did a presentation on this about a month ago, which you can watch here. I don't split it out into 30-60-90 day increments, but within that period, these are the things I'd suggest doing: 1. Get to know your product - if your sales team has demo training, consider going through ......Read More
792 Views
4 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
It's hard to give a specific answer here because every company is unique, but here are some things to think about: 1. How experienced are you as a PMM? If you've built and managed multiple PMM teams in the past, you already have a solid understanding of the types of people you're l......Read More
727 Views
5 requests
How do you manage the transition from being the sole person responsible for product marketing activities to now having someone else who can share the burden?
One of the biggest changes when managing people and a team is handing off the responsibility to others. This is tough to do when you're so used to handling everything yourself. Any tips or suggestions on how to best make that transition?
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
This is a really great question, and something I think a lot of poeple struggle with. I've found this article from First Round Review really helpful. It's based on Molly Graham's concept of "Giving Away Your Legos." A quote from Molly – "If you personally want to grow as fast as your company,......Read More
810 Views
3 requests
Typically a Product Marketing function will start with one generalist, followed by another generalist, followed by... ? When do you start to specialize PMM roles within your team? Which type of a specialist roles make the most sense to start with?
Context: In this instance I mean "specialist" in the sense of narrowing focus to have headcount more specifically devoted to a particular area of Product Marketing, scuh as pure GTM focus, market/audience research, CI analyst, Pricing & Packaging, etc.
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
Great question. I don't actually know if it has to start with generalists and lead to specialists. I've been at some companies, like Chili Piper for example, that have 100% generalists who own specific product lines. I definitely agree that at least the first PMM should be a generalist. But at ......Read More
392 Views
2 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
Assuming you were hired for this role, I think that this type of conversation should ideally happen before you accept the job. Asking a question like "what vision does the CMO, Founder, CEO, executive team, etc. have for this role?" Even just digging into the job description and asking for more d......Read More
845 Views
2 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
I can't think of three good ones right now, so I'll give you two of my favourite: 1. Saying yes to everything When you come in as the first PMM, people are going to be throwing projects at you left and right. It's easy to say yes to everything, after all, who wants to say "no" in th......Read More
944 Views
5 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 6
A lot of this depends on the size, stage, and goals of the company, but here's how I suggest approaching prioritization. Create your PMM Charter With the input of your boss and other leaders in the company, you'll first want to define what PMM looks like at your org. This helps set the guardra......Read More
1092 Views
3 requests
Jason Oakley
Klue Senior Director of Product Marketing • January 5
It's challenging because there are so many overlaps, but I think it boils down to clear, consistent communication. And maybe breaking it down into how you work (or don't work) together on a project-by-project level. For example, on a product release, your committee will likely include people fr......Read More
933 Views
3 requests
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