AMA: MParticle Head of Product and Solutions Marketing, Shabih Syed on Building A Product Marketing Function

Ultimately, the ROI for product marketing is revenue growth. But there are some in-process KPIs that you can set to measure the impact of product marketing. For example: Content contribution can be measured with number of MQLs converted to SQLs from digital channels. Also, with increased website traffic within a time frame due to SEO/SEM initiatives. Sales enablement contribution can be measured by reduction in the average time it takes to close a deal Product launches can be measured by adoptio ...Read More

It's difficult to generalize here. You need to first establish the need for product marketing because not every company needs a product marketing function. In my opinion: Small companies or start-ups (<20M ARR) can delay hiring product marketers if the founders or early marketing employees can perform the job. Once you have happy customers and start seeing competition in your sales cycle then it's time to bring in a product marketer to develop competitive positioning and fine tune the GTM mes ...Read More

I believe that product marketing's core mission is to maximize value realization and conversion rates across all key user personas which in turn helps the business achieve revenue targets. Solution marketing is a component of product marketing that demonstrates value by outlining an end-to-end technical solution to a problem. If you think about platforms that become core infrastructrue (examples include customer data platforms (CDPs), database-as-a-service (DbaaS) and integration-platforms-as-a- ...Read More

The biggest mistake I see candidates making is that they do not spend time learning about the product and the space it operates in.  My recommendation is that you spend time on the website and learn some basics about the product and it's practitioners (personas), identify the newest features released, and find out if the product operates in a category that Gartner or Forrester tracks to see where it stands in the market. Doing this research will help you develop context for the space the product ...Read More

The best way to establish credibility is to demonstrate to them what is your process for launching products and where do you need their help and how you will help them. Think of product marketing as delivering a set of services to the product managers. These services can include market research, competitor analysis, value proposition messaging for a feature etc. Be clear about documenting these services and the SLAs behind them..Ideally, product marketing can be a function within the product tea ...Read More

I personally don't see product marketing to be of different types. However, as you setup a product marketing function you need to develop work streams that are led by experts.  These foundational work streams can include:  Developing GTM messaging Coming up with pricing methodology Developing sales playbooks Managing product launches Churning out content with a regular cadence Developing competitive outtakes Managing relationships with industry analysts  I don't see one person being an expert at ...Read More

In all product marketing teams I have worked for we came up with product launch treatments for the types of product launch. The types of launch can be "New SKUs", "New Features", "Minor Features" and so on. It's best to have a product launch playbook template designed for each type with consensus from all functions that can include product management, marketing, enablement and customer success. Make sure that product marketing project manages each launch and is ultimately responsible for the suc ...Read More

I see the product marketing function as a mix of strategic and tactical work streams. Strategic work streams are harder to improve on and naturally have a significant impact. Tactical work streams are easier to improve on. The strategic work streams may include developing GTM messaging, pricing methodology and sales playbooks which require cross-functional alignment. To lead these projects you need to gather opinions from multiple stakeholders and be able to drive consensus. You can only achieve ...Read More

Thank you for your question. It's true that sometimes hiring managers look for the steretoypical background markers such as years of experience when evaluating candidates for product marketing. But in my experience I don't find those to be strong indicators of how well you are going to perform as a product marketer. My own career curve is a testament to that where i was a developer then a product manager and finally a product marketer. You have already demonstrated that you have gained experienc ...Read More