AMA: Quizlet Product Marketing Lead, Caroline Walthall on Influencing the Product Roadmap
January 30 @ 10:00AM PT
View AMA Answers
👋 Caroline Silverkorn
Hi all, my name is Caroline (Walthall) Silverkorn. 👋
💼 Job: Director of Product Marketing at Freed. Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet.
📍 Location: SF East Bay (Moraga, CA)
🍦 Favorite ice cream flavor: Matcha Doodle (Humphrey Slocombe)
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
If you can get it, the most important thing is executive buy-in for a team structure that honors marketing not just in the end phase, but also as a crucial thought partne...
1985 Views
3 requests
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Every team has a different dynamic with this. In my experience, the PMMs who are highly empathetic and clued into team dynamics do best in this scenario. One of the fears...
702 Views
1 request
Have you ever been part of a launch where the eng/product team brought in product marketers or customers after work has kicked off (but before launch) and influenced feature development? What was that like?
Sometimes when product kicks off work they have assumptions about how people think about certain features. Marketing, support, and even customers can come to the table with real stories that may invalidate the assumptions product had early on in the feature dev process.
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Yes. One of product marketers’ jobs in the process is to continue sounding the alarm for user validation at each phase of the process, but that’s easier said than done. P...
1040 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
It’s almost a cliche, but a really well-made slide deck can go a long way. Gather insights from all parts of the organization (sales, user operations, customer success, m...
705 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
This may be bold, but I like to help facilitate the roadmap development process when PMs are okay with it. Not all PMs will jive with this, but if you can develop a stren...
910 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
So, I never use all these types of research, but here's a great menu of research phases that I keep at the top of my Research Plan Template. Usually at most I'd pick one ...
1108 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
We have a product pod structure at Quizlet. Each product pod has 1-2 very clear business goals and usually owns certain product lines or domain areas. Every pod has a PM,...
2076 Views
2 requests
How do you get product management to focus more on customer problems and solving them, and less on shipping features that customers don't need?
They want to convey 20+ features to the public when we should only focus on top 3-5 features then figure out what the true benefit is to the end user.
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Yes! I can relate! Feature-level messages are so limited on the marketing side. Part of your job as PMM is help recommend the best way to 1) connect features benefits, 2...
1727 Views
2 requests
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Other than the things already mentioned throughout my answers (relationship building, offering to facilitate planning sessions, etc.), I would also try to show them your ...
1697 Views
1 request
How do you manage launches when the product team has a difficult time sticking to timelines?
This makes launches pretty difficult to manage without creating large lapses in communication.
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
I would bake in as much buffer time as you can in your marketing timelines. If they have a track record of not shipping on time, I'd start assuming that. If your product ...
1680 Views
1 request
How do you influence the product roadmap without clear monetization targets for new features/products?
It's clear there is an opportunity, but currently hard to see how big of an opportunity.
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Before prioritizing product initiatives, it's important to help your product team get a handle on the market and estimate the market opportunity. I usually work with an a...
883 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
It depends what the real downstream problem is here: - Does it hold up your launch campaigns? - Does it create a poor or unconsistent customer experience which damages b...
1533 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
Set super clear research goals whenever you talk to customers or conduct a research study. As part of those goals, explain what the physical output of the research will b...
1562 Views
1 request
Freed Director of Product Marketing | Formerly Quizlet, Udemy, San Francisco Ballet • 6y
For a full-scale launch, yes, I do a pre-mortem about a month ahead of time so there is time to act on any key risk-mitigation activities before launch date. I like to ...
1045 Views
1 request