AMA: Salesforce VP of Product Marketing, Rekha Srivatsan on SMB Product Marketing

Welcome to the PMM world! ;) My approach to this would be: * Take a closer look at the particular job responsibilities. If the job responsibilities are heavy on content creation, I'd include samples of the content you've created in your marketing portfolio. * In addition, include a variety of different content pieces too. This will help the hiring team know your diverse skills as well as give them ideas on what they can do -- making you a standout winner. * You can also look at the company's website to understand their current content mix, voice, etc. And see if you can include things you've created to fit that approach. * Extra credit would be to always add things you've worked on or created to your LinkedIn profile. I usually add my interviews, webpages, videos, customer stories, blogs that I've created to my profile with some context. In summary, go for a mix of different channels/ideas you've done to give them a taste of what they can expect from you. Good luck!

You are already one step ahead about narrowing down your next move to product marketing - congratulations! 1. Product marketing roles and responsibilities are different with every company. I'd encourage you to start talking to your target company PMMs and your current company PMMs to get a better sense of their day-to-day. 2. Start aligning your current projects to map to the PMM responsibilities. For example: see if there is an opportunity to partner with your organization's PMM team on a common project. If you are from the Sales organization, partner with PMM to put together a customer-facing sales asset. That is resume-worthy and could be a good test to see if you like the PMM function. 3. Be transparent with your leadership about your career goals, so they can also help align you with the right teams when the timing is right. Good luck with your move!

You have all the right line items! In addition, I'd recommend: * Focus groups for messaging/positioning/pricing & packaging: I'm a huge fan of getting feedback from prospects and customers on any new changes. This helps to have impactful content. * Video editor/agency: Having a 3rd party video editor helps speed up content creation considerably. Plus, they can usually handle multiple projects at the same time and you can create new sales or external-facing collateral pretty fast. * Tool to track sales content adoption: Highly recommend a tool to track content adoption by your sales team. Helps you understand what kind of content sticks with your sales team to double down. 

Obviously, the target personas are different which informs the messaging, positioning, pricing, and packaging strategy. * But at a high level, in SMB, the user and the decision-maker are usually the same person. This means the ROI of a solution or feature is extremely important and needs to be highlighted more in the messaging. * SMBs are also really big on word of mouth, so use that tactic to your advantage -- a referral program is a great example. * Leverage your customers as much as you can in your marketing mix for SMBs. * Website is a great lead channel for SMBs, so make sure your website is up-to-date and has relevant SMB messaging. * Less jargon and a more conversational approach is the right voice and tone for SMBs. Explain your feature or your company like you would to your Mom or Dad. Keep it simple, always! * Break down the value of your product/feature and make it memorable. Good luck!

Obviously, the target personas are different which informs the messaging, positioning, pricing, and packaging strategy. * But at a high level, in SMB, the user and the decision-maker are usually the same person. This means the ROI of a solution or feature is extremely important and needs to be highlighted more in the messaging. * SMBs are also really big on word of mouth, so use that tactic to your advantage -- a referral program is a great example. * Leverage your customers as much as you can in your marketing mix for SMBs. * Website is a great lead channel for SMBs, so make sure your website is up-to-date and has relevant SMB messaging. Hope this helps!

My team is responsible for product messaging & positioning for Salesforce's core solutions for small businesses across our high-growth industries and customer & community marketing initiatives. On my team: * One PMM per key Salesforce solution for SMBs * One PMM leading our high-growth SMB Industry verticals * One PMM leading our customer and community marketing initiatives * One technical PMM This helps us align team members with the right revenue goals, balances the work on the team while creating individual growth paths for each team member. Its all about the revenue for us and that's a shared responsibility between my team and our campaigns/demand gen teams. 

Congratulations on figuring out what you want to do next! Project management skills are invaluable to any function, particularly in PMM. The reason being PMMs are often handling multiple cross-functional projects at the same time. Here's what I would do: * Shadow PMMs in your organization to understand closely their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. Develop a better understanding of what you like in what they do -- this will help you anchor your PMM role. * Ask for an "extra credit project" from a PMM. This will help you get a much closer look and can be resume-worthy. This does not have to be a full end-to-end project, but rather a V1 draft of what a PMM is tasked with. For example: if your interest is in messaging/positioning, the next time the PMM has to do messaging for a new feature, ask them if you can do a V1 of that first. Also, ask them for their process and you can emulate that as much as you can. * Reach out to PMM leaders in your organization to mentor you. And make it clear from the get-go that you are interested in PMM. This will help them align projects, team members with you and think of you next time they are hiring. Good luck!

Sorry, that didn't work out! Here's how I would approach this assignment: * Study Certain's website to understand their current product messaging and positioning. And make sure your draft is different from this but not drastically different. * Play closer attention to their customer stories/testimonials to understand their use cases. This gives you a glimpse of what features to highlight in your GTM strategy. * The goal is to get more leads, so take a look at their pricing and packaging to see if there can be a better approach. * Understand Certain's key competitors in the enterprise segment. How do they market, what do they advertise, their customer testimonials. * Try a peer-to-peer software comparison site like G2 crowd to understand real customer POV for Certain and their competitors. Bonus: If an interview does not work out, I'd recommend you reaching out to ask for feedback from the hiring manager. Most hiring managers will share feedback to help you grow. Good luck with your next interviews!