AMA: Shopify Director of Product Marketing, Kevin MacGillivray on Self-Serve Product Marketing

This is one of the most powerful skills you can develop as a leader and especially as a PMM. PMM by nature sits at the juncture of many, many stakeholder groups - both within product and within commercial. I wouldn't necessarily say the task is to "manage people". I would boil it down further to the nature of your relationship and what you need from that person and what they need from you. A few thoughts: Align upfront on goals and priorities for the month/quarter - this reduces misalignment and ...Read More

I have led several product marketing teams throughout my career and it is certainly not one size fits all. A couple of models that have worked well: Mirroring Product In an environment where roadmaps are tightly aligned with product and where deep context is a must, I like to set up my team as a mirror image (or close to it) of Product. That way each person on my team has a counterpart that they are accountable to and vice versa. They are subject matter experts on the product and can clearly art ...Read More

Beta releases or early access programs are a fantastic opportunity to get a sneak preview of how users/customers will interact with and use a product or feature. It is really important to capture feedback early and often and package the "so what" back to your internal stakeholder group. This includes the raw data and feedback, but also an opinionated recommendation on what should be done to address. Betas are a great opportunity to test out messaging and positioning (in A/B format or other) and ...Read More

At its core, product marketing remains focused on the same goals and outcomes in both cases. It is mostly the available tools and surfaces that differ. Things like segmentation, messaging frameworks, persona building etc. are applicable everywhere. They could be deployed in building out the right PLG experience or flow OR they could be used in building out sales enablement OR a marketing campaign. In a PLG environment, there is also a GTM component of the craft that is often required. PMM also c ...Read More

These two audiences are VERY different. And it's important to be clear on the difference between audiences and channels. Enterprise merchants often move through a sales led funnel. SMB's in many cases are the ones going through a self-serve funnel. A few nuances for each: Self Serve Users going through a self-serve experience are more likely to be looking for an "off the shelf" version of the product that can more easily be sold and explained without human assistance Sales Led Users going throug ...Read More

Sales enablement is only a small portion of what the product marketing craft entails. That said - there are definitely roles and organizations where enablement makes up the majority of the job. IMO PMM work generally falls into (3) categories: Upstream Product Marketing Includes: voice of customer, user research, competitive intelligence, collaborating with with product on roadmap, persona building, segmentation Lots of foundational work in this bucket GTM Includes: product launches, feature lau ...Read More

The short answer is that everyone in an organization should care about the voice of the customer - regardless of craft. If you feel like voice of customer is not being represented during the product roadmap process, you should take action! Getting closer to the customer and bringing this intelligence forward can often be a ticket to a seat at the table with product. If nobody is doing it, step in and fill those shoes. R&D and commercial stakeholders will thank you for it and you will be buil ...Read More

Both are very important. And in both cases the new product serves to further enhance an existing narrative. Driving adoption with existing clients can serve a few really important purposes. First - it is a safer space to test out something new with users that are already familiar with your product(s) and gather feedback in order to iterate. Second - new products and features are often built in response to a gap or something that wasn't working quite right. These users will be thrilled to hear ab ...Read More

There are a lot of great ways to collect user feedback: Focus Groups --> any time you can get a small handful of users (either individually or together) to give some of their time for an extended conversation, take advantage of it! This model works really well when you've got a meaty topic/workflow/problem to work through where you really want to get into the details and opinions. Usage Data --> usage data is great because all users vote with their actions. Getting access to how users are ...Read More