AMA: Vanta Head of PLG Product Marketing, Madison Leonard on Consumer Product Marketing

B2C PMM is all about the product itself. You're not having to go through buyers like you do with B2B - so you've got to speak to the product success.  Don't make the common mistake I see B2C PMMs make today! I see so many people just focus on output (number of blogs, that a launch happened, copy skills, etc). Talk about the impact of your work - did it help the product grow? Did you increase adoption or retention? Did you find product-market-fit?  And since it's a big company, they're going to a ...Read More

B2C product marketers work much closer to Product, so you'll need to have a robust understanding of how EPD (engineering, product, design) teams work. You'll be plugging into road mapping and developing user personas alongside your PM counterpart, so you'll need to walk the walk and talk the talk!  You'll also find these skills in B2B, but they won't be as heavily influenced in traditional sales-led companies. However, skills like marketing to individual users rather than buyer personas is absol ...Read More

Titles mean different things to different companies - so I would concentrate less on that and more on the day-to-day you're responsible for.  If you're already in charge of things like product growth, activation, retention, etc then you can easily transition to B2C product marketing.  As for non-tech product marketing, that's a different story altogether! Product marketing for a physical product will have much different metrics than for a software product.  At the end of the day, in true PMM fas ...Read More

Human attention and distribution.  These things aren't new - they just increasingly get harder every year.  There are a million apps and products out there. It's more important than ever to differentiate yourself and position yourself accordingly. Also, the days of buying consumers through paid ads are over (wayyyy too expensive and not scalable). So, distribution has to be well-thought-out.  Plus, the time to value has to be short. If someone isn't able to find value the first time they use you ...Read More

I spent some time in B2C before transitioning to B2B - I did so easily by transitioning into a PLG B2B company. My skills were more product-focused, so I was able to apply those same skills for retention, activation, and growth in a B2B company.  I would say the transition is harder from a sales-focused PMM to a consumer-focused PMM. This is because your brain is hardwired to think at the 30,000-foot view, position to buyers and large enterprises, and craft collateral and training around those p ...Read More

I look for 3 main skills when bringing someone on the team:  Can they position themselves? If they have the skill to uniquely position themselves against other candidates, you've got yourself a master storyteller.  Are they able to manage multiple stakeholders? Test it in a panel interview and see how they do with differing opinions!  Do they have a hunger to learn? This one really takes the cake. I'll usually test this theory in real time by asking them to perform a task or brainstorm in real-t ...Read More

There is no one-size-fits-all to team building. Everything should focus on business needs and impact.  For example, early-stage startups likely don't need an entire role dedicated to competitive intelligence. But a late-stage scaling company would benefit from that role, esp as they move up-market.   For an early-stage B2B company, 1-2 full-stack product marketers are great to start with. They should focus where it makes sense in the business (product or sales focused). For B2C early-stage compa ...Read More

Great question - the short answer is that traditionally Product Marketing has been seen as sales-focused rather than product focused.  In sales-led organizations, PMM doesn't play a big role (usually) in product experience, road mapping, etc.  That's soo far from the case with B2C product marketing. PMM is working closely with Product on user personas (different than buyer personas), onboarding, product growth, and adoption.  A lot of PMMs I know come from sales backgrounds, so it would be hard ...Read More

The frameworks are pretty similar. Talk with your customers, develop a narrative based on the pain points they have, and craft positioning based on your findings.  There are some cool tools out there to help with website message testing (like Wynter), in-app messaging (like Pendo), and competitive intelligence tools (like Crayon). Ultimately, the availability of these tools will depend based on the stage of the company you're at and the available budget for software.  Even if you don't have acce ...Read More