AMA: Nextdoor Former Head of Growth and Product Marketing, Dan Laufer on Influencing the Product Roadmap

That's a great question. It depends a lot on the product of course. There are some products that lend itself to a soft launch before we put any marketing effort behind it in which case quantifying marketing impact is pretty straightforward. More generally, I'm a fan of PMM and PM co-owning several metrics. You can't parse which side drove what share of the metric but if you have a good partnership that shouldn't matter. And having that lens means a PMM should care deeply about whether we're brin ...Read More

I think a good PMM should take the stance that "I'm going to know everything about the product, competitive landscape and our customers." If you do that well there are several ways to prove value to PMs, for example:  1. Provide competitive insights/positioning they may be missing.  2. Share a perspective or understanding of customers they may be lacking or not have exposure to.  3. And of course being skilled at bringing products to market and messaging in a way that's differentiated, clear and ...Read More

That can be very tough. Similar to another answer I wrote, I think a lot of this is interpersonal which makes specific feedback tough without more context. A few ideas to hopefully help: 1. Assume best intentions. Presumably product wants the same end outcome as marketing/research.  2. Given that, meet with the relevant counterparts or leaders in the product org to understand where the disconnect lies. Do they hear you and are not persuaded? Are they not hearing your input or is it synced with t ...Read More

There are a few touchpoints here: Our sales team posts a report after meeting with a prospective client that gets shared with all revenue stakeholders including marketing and product. So we're all seeing feedback on a per client basis although admittedly that can be a lot to consume.  We have someone in sales ops who aggregates that feedback and shares trends and that gets shared on a weekly basis. That could also be done in PMM but it works as is. There's a periodic discussion between sales/mar ...Read More

That's tough since a lot of it is interpersonal dynamics. I don't think there's a silver bullet but a couple thoughts that might help:  1. Bring product into some of the meetings/focus groups where you're hearing the feedback. That may help them crystallize what you're hearing. 2. Set up a 1:1 with your PM counterpart and see what you can do to be helpful in getting feedback to her/him. It could be you're talking past one another. For example she may want data and you're bringing qualatitative f ...Read More

I think there are three stages to product planning that involve a product marketer: 1. Before the roadmap is set (helping inform what the product should be),  2. While the product is being built (ensuring it'll make sense to customers), 3. When the product is getting ready to launch (positioning it and GTM).  I think your question is directed at the third point specifically in which case it probably varies on the type of product launch. We have relatively minor launches where a PMM gets pulled i ...Read More