AMA: Mode Director of Product Marketing & Customer Marketing, Christine Sotelo-Dag on Product Marketing 30/60/90 Day Plan

This is a great question, and one I thought deeply about prior to starting at Mode. Thankfully, I had a nice long break between Intercom and Mode which I leveraged for lots of down time 😉 but also as a time to reflect on how I wanted to approach those first 90 days. First, I'd recommend reading 'The First 90 days' by Michael Watkins. There was a lot of great information in here that I definitely borrowed from. Here is a birds eye view of how I applied it:  First 30 days - Listen! This can often ...Read More

This is a hard question to answer because it is pretty dependent on your company's industry, business model, gtm strategy, etc. However, I'll give some examples I've come across in my experience.  1. Website. As a marketer, your website is your storefront - and there are endless ways to continue to improve it to maximize results. Whether your business is built on a self-serve model or you are 100% sales-led - the role of the website is an integral one - spefically in letting prospects and custoe ...Read More

As a first (and oftentimes only) product marketer at a company, prioritization is the mother of all skills. The framework I would apply is a natural extension of the 30/60/90 day plan outlined above. Prioritization can only come once there is a decent amount of work done to understand the current state and needs of the business, and your fellow cross-functional counterparts. That said, there are some tangible and practical ways to approach prioritization.  1. Build out your team (functional) cha ...Read More

My perspective here is whether you are starting at a larger organization with hundreds of employees or a startup with 40 employees - the first 30 days look roughly the same. This is your window to build up as much context as possible, understand the goals, mission and prioritiies of the business, and identify gaps and areas for impact. The advantage of being at a smaller company is this access to information is much more accessible. People are easier to reach, things are probably still very ever ...Read More

This is a great question - especially because I think this relationship between product and marketing (product marketing) is one that often takes time. Trust needs to be built and that often comes from being able to show value.  I think inately part of Product Marketing's role is to become a subject matter expert in your space. This means deeply understanding the market (trends, competitors, hot topics), prospects and ideal customer profiles - their pain points and how your product helps solve t ...Read More

I think the common questions you'd want to ask both of these teams are  1. Tell me about your role and your teams - how do you operate today? (Build context of how these teams work in this organization as it will likely look different from places you've previously worked, even if only slightly)  2. What is working well in your orgs, and what are areas that could use improvement. (Understand what challenges these teams face - and listen through the lens of how your team may fit into the solution. ...Read More

The skills I look for in a PMM are:  - Messaging / Positioning: Ability to create compelling messaging that articulates how the products value propositions solve customer pain points. Examples of how messaging and positioning has been leveraged to tell stories that resonate with the core audience.  - Project management / Prioritization: Sitting at the cross section of multiple other orgs (Sales, Marketing, Product) there are often many balls in the air - the ability to prioritize, manage stakeho ...Read More

My first, and likely only, item would be 'Let's get to know each other.' Of all the skills I've acquired over the years as a PMM, I think the most valuable have been the human / people side of business. I've thought a lot and deeply on how to be a good manager. How to listen to people and understand them as people. I think this really starts with getting to know each other. That doesn't necissarily mean opening up on a personal level, but talking about why we're here, what drives us, how we like ...Read More

This question shows up a lot for product marketers, in many different ways. Unlike other parts of the busienss that have numbers attached to their roles (quotas, MQLs, etc) often times PMMs share success metrics with their cross-functional counterparts, and attribution is not black and white. That said, there clear ways for PMMs to showcase their value (which might not always be quantatively measureable) AND ways to quantifiably measure success.  I'll start with value. A fundamental way to bring ...Read More