AMA: Nextdoor Head of Consumer Product Marketing, Rayleen Hsu on Consumer Product Marketing

Moving up the ladder from an IC or manager role into a director role is typically dependent on a few factors, some of which individual PMMs are very much in control of, some of which they are not unfortunately. At a high level, some of the requirements needed to progress include the following: * Clearly defining your team's purpose and strategy and clearly articulating how your strategy aligns with the overarching company objectives. I will start by saying I am fully in the camp that the words 'strategy' and 'strategic' are often overused and serve as a default term to describe, well, nearly everything in the business world. In this context, I'm using the word strategy to describe the "how" - specifically how you'll accomplish your goals. That said, having a clear strategy is critical to being a successful product marketing leader. The reality is that it's so easy to get caught up in the day to day and to get caught up in execution mode which is why having goals that the company cares about and a clearly defined strategy to accomplish those goals is critical. If you're always heads down in the day to day, you're probably not taking a step back to look at the bigger picture and your work is likely not making the impact it could and should. * Drive business impact individually. Having managed numerous product marketers through my career I've found that it's very easy, especially at larger companies, to overindex your time and energy towards the supervisory and managerial aspects of leading a team and you often spend a lot of time supporting all the initiatives your team is working on rather than focusing heavily on and prioritizing your individual impact. However, being a strong people manager is not enough to progress in your career and as a product marketing leader, it's critical to still carve out a couple meaningful workstreams for you as an individual to own so you can demonstrate the value you are bringing to the table beyond building and supporting an amazing team. Being able to speak to a couple very specific large initiatives that you've driven in addition to being a strong leader will only further support your progression to the next level. * Ensuring your career goals align with company's business needs and resources. Sometimes a company is growing at lightning speed and opportunities are thrown your way. Sometimes a company is growing too slowly and does not have a business need for growing its workforce and its PMM team. In the latter scenario, if leading and managing a team is a top priority of yours and if it truly seems like there's no flexibility or near term growth, then unfortunately it is likely time to consider outside options. When business needs align with your career aspirations, here are some tips on how to boost your career progression: * Be proud of and celebrate your accomplishments. Don't shy away from letting others know about the amazing work you do and embrace when others acknowledge your contributions. In order to move up and be rewarded for your accomplishments, key decision makers need to know what you've done so don't be shy and celebrate the amazing work you do! * Ask for the opportunities you want. If you don't speak up about what you want, chances are no one is going to go out of their way to help you. It's important to ask for the opportunities you are interested in and excited about and to work with your manager to build out a plan to help you get there. * Perform at the level you want to be at. Most companies I've been at promote on a lagging basis, meaning you need to already be performing at the next level for a substantial period of time in order to get promoted rather than just demonstrating ability to perform at the next level. That said, take any opportunity to show others what you're capable of. * Develop advocates in your cross-functional partners. This one is obvious but a good reminder that the more people who are aware of your contributions and who support your career progression, the more likely you are to get promoted and be given more responsibility. Leverage your cross-functional partners to be your #1 advocates as they likely have the most visibility into what you've accomplished as well as how you've accomplished it. 

Whether you are an experienced or aspiring product marketer, these are the qualities I look for in product marketing hires: * Customer obsessed. Product marketing is the voice of the customer and a successful product marketer is one that is customer obsessed and keeps the consumer at the core of all that they do. Product marketing's role is to help inform the product roadmap and market new products and features to consumers. If we don't have a deep understanding of who our customers are and what they care about we simply cannot do our job well. * Analytical. Marketing is both art and science which is why it's critical to leverage data in decision making and building We partner with product and eng Product marketing work with When hiring product marketers I look for people who really embrace research and data to make decisions. * Strong communicators. As mentioned in a previous question, product marketing sits at the intersection of product and marketing which means numerous parties, both internally and externally, rely on product marketing to get information from one place to another. That said, it is critical that product marketers are incredibly strong communicators who not only recognize the need to proactively disseminate information internally but who can also effectively communicate the value prop of different products and features to consumers. * Go-getters. I say this all the time but product marketing can be a very ambiguous role and is often different across companies and can even be different across teams within the same company. This is why hiring someone who is highly motivated and takes initiative, especially in the absence of clear direction, is key. Product marketers can't sit around and wait for others to give them instructions or ask them to do things, they have to identify opportunities, prioritize and take initiative in order to truly make an impact. Some of the best PMMs I've worked with are the ones that embrace the whitespace and solve problems most people didn't even recognize existed.

I think the same best practices hold true no matter what kind of proposal you're putting out there that you need to secure buy-in for - come to the table with a clear, structured ask and always bring data to the table to support your ask. Specifically: * Clearly outline your objectives. Clearly communicate what you're hoping to accomplish by outlining your success metrics and/or learning agenda. No one expects you to have all the answers from the get go but it's essential that you clearly articulate why your initiative matters and what you're hoping to accomplish or learn. Also, if you're asking for budget or resources from other teams, your goals and overarching objective should ladder up to broader company initiatives or objectives these partners are excited about. * Leverage any existing data, performance benchmarks, relevant case studies and consumer insights to support your ask. Help others understand why this initiative is a great opportunity. What have others done in the past that make you believe your project/campaign/initiative will be a success? What is the opportunity size? Are there external organizations that have done something similar and seen success? What are we hearing from customers and seeing within user behavior that tell us this is a great idea or at least an idea worth trying? * Start small but think strategically and for the long term. Everyone wants to make a lasting impact so be sure to show how your idea can scale. Start with a small ask and test into your idea but be sure to show that you've thought out the long term plan and how and why your idea can scale. This can be as simple as outlining next steps beyond the initial test or quickly speaking to what an evergreen program would entail. * Bring key partners and stakeholders along for the ride. The earlier you can get feedback and buy in from key partners, the better. Get their feedback early on so you can incorporate their thoughts into your project brief and address any key questions in advance. This also helps communicate to others that you have cross-functional support and that others are also excited about your idea.

From my experience, it's less about product marketing's placement in the org chart and more about product marketing's relationship with product and cross functional teams. I've been in orgs where PMM reports into product as well as others where PMM reports into marketing and have found that our ability to influence the roadmap is more dependent on the value that product marketing brings to the table and having a seat at the table rather than your reporting structure. A product marketer that has clearly demonstrated value and is considered a part of the core team will be brought along in the process early on. I will acknowledge however that being part of the product team means you're more looped into planning timelines from the get go and have to do less work to get information. Regardless of where product marketing sits, it's important to build strong relationships with key partners so that you are always top of mind when it comes to roadmap planning and product decisions. 

I love that product marketing sits at the intersection of Product and Marketing and that we're able to help inform the product roadmap in a meaningful way by bringing consumer insights to the table. Our ability to influence the product roadmap and to really understand the why behind product development enables us to develop customer-centric marketing plans that bring products to life and really resonate with consumers. It's also incredibly fulfilling to be part of the process from start to finish and to partner so closely with product and other cross-functional partners to bring ideas to life that enhance the user experience. 

I've been in PMM roles at mostly large companies and PMM has typically focused on either the consumer or the business side of things. However, for smaller companies with smaller teams, it's not uncommon for PMM to lean into both, depending on the needs of the organization. Regardless of how the team is structured, close partnership across PMM whether your focus is B2B or B2C is critical. PMM is often positioned to oversee what's happening holistically across the org and can help provide visibility across B2B and B2C to ensure the broader team is coordinated and thinking more holistically about the user experience. Coordination across B2B and B2C is also essential in ensuring we are teling a cohesive story and aren't bring products to market in a silo.

To embed PMM into product teams, PMM should strive to do the following: 1. Build strong relationships with product partners by ensuring they know your objectives are aligned and demonstrating value add from the get-go. If you are not top of mind for your product partners, you won't get a seat at the table. So, set up those regular touchbases with your product partners, proactively bring data and customer insights to the table and raise your hand to support the team whenever you can. 2. Act like an equal owner across the product development process and not just things that seem related to marketing. It's often easy to step back and assume certain discussions are not relevant to marketing but in order to be fully embedded into product teams, PMM should be equally invested in product decisions and discussions. This is not to say that PMM should be providing input on topics they have no understanding of but as the voice of the customer and as an invested partner, PMM should act like a fully vested owner and not limit their input to only marketing-related discussions.