AMA: Zoom Product Marketing - App Marketplace, Sharon Markowitz on Partner Product Marketing

Key areas to focus on for alignment and success in partnerships include: prioritization and resourcing, organizational structure, partner selection, value proposition & joint partner messaging, KPIs, and analytics. Oftentimes these may be overlooked by a company that impacts the overall success of the team. Prioritization & Resourcing.Prioritization is critical at the executive level of the company and partner organization, and be properly resourced. For example, if there isn’t alignment ...Read More

A product marketing manager skill set is foundational for being a partner marketing manager, whether at a junior or senior level. The key areas that make an exceptional partner marketing manager include the ability to: build strong relationships influence stakeholders who may not be direct reports, and embrace the value of partnerships to extend the reach of a company with current and prospective customers. Before addressing the points above in more detail, the nomenclature mentioned in some of ...Read More

Opportunities exist in both product marketing and partner marketing. It's rare to find a company without some form of partnership strategy or program nowadays. However, it's important to note that this doesn't always necessitate a dedicated partner marketing role. Keep in mind that a strong partner marketer typically begins with the foundational skill set of a product marketer. With this in mind, you remain open to roles in both product and partnership marketing. I feel it’s important to do what ...Read More

There are different approaches to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and their impact on partnerships, and strongly depend on the acquiring company and strategy. Below are a few examples from my experience. At one company, the rationale for acquiring a business was to gain the customer base and therefore the need to promote an integration was not a priority. At another company, the rationale for acquiring the business was the synergy of the technology and team, and therefore, the team started ou ...Read More

As the founder of YourCareerWings, a career coaching business, and a former marketing leader in edtech at Intuit and Pragmatic Institute, I'm deeply invested in this question. I've always believed in the power of continuous learning, especially in today's ever-changing professional landscape. Did you know that the average graduate today will likely explore up to 15 different career paths in their lifetime? It's a staggering statistic that underscores the importance of adaptability and exploratio ...Read More

Positioning is a brief description of a product or service that your company offers, how it meets the target audience, the respective category and how it's different from the competition. This is typically an internal document. Messaging relates to how you will communicate the main value proposition and key benefits to the target audience. When thinking of partnerships, this should be a joint-message to the target audience. It's always best to test messaging qualitatively and quantitatively with ...Read More

Its critical to get buy-in and attention from your sales organization and the partner sales organization. Partners should be part of the solution, and therefore, an integrated effort as part of the sales motion at your company. Educating the sales team with the necessary training on how to use and collateral is key, inclusive of user stories, as well as who the target customer is, what the partnership is, why its better together (joint partner message), and key benefits. Incentives and/or leader ...Read More

KPIS for a partner marketer vary based on the maturity of the partnership as well as what the team is solving for in creating the partnership. Also, sometimes the company and the partner are focused on different KPIs.KPIs may include sales, customer growth (new segment, greater penetration), retention, awareness and usage. At an established fintech company, the focus was on awareness and usage as it was a large app marketplace, and the fintech company decided to build a specific tech stack and p ...Read More

Congrats! This is exciting. Here are some tips for developing your GTM strategy for a new partner channel: Research Talk with your sales colleagues to learn what they’ve done to date, and if they have industry experience with this specific partner channel Leverage your network, like LinkedIn, to learn how to GTM with that channel Understand with your sales colleague if it's appropriate to have an exploratory call with a contact at the partner channel (i.e. the business development, sales, or mar ...Read More

Product marketing managers should have a foundational understanding of AI technology and its potential impact on their roles and functions. So many products today have an AI component, or are prioritizing messaging around an AI component that its critical to understand given the inherent nature of product or partnership marketing is cross-functional.Several years ago, I worked for a major social network, and we were launching a new product to support heads of talent and recruiters in finding the ...Read More

Ways to continuously optimize the partner process may include: Review GTM plans against targets both leveraging quantitative and qualitative data to determine what worked and what can be improved Embrace testing as an approach for GTM, where the company and the partner can test, learn, iterate and scale or pivot. Always be learning, and reaching out to other partner marketers outside your company and industry to apply best practices. How to test and scale or pivot? I am a big fan of The Lean Sta ...Read More

Educating your partners is critical to understand a company’s vision, overall priorities, and ultimately, where partners fit to further inform how you will work together. My approach to educate the partner company is as follows: Introduce them to the company, vision, and the dedicated partner team Share the value proposition,  key product priorities (not all products within a portfolio are equal), customer target, and messaging Identify dedicated training that may be needed for the immediate tea ...Read More

Marketing partnerships may not be the right nomenclature. If a company has an app on an App Store or App Marketplace with thousands of apps, these are not considered "marketing partnerships". Think of your favorite app on your phone, there are many apps on the phone you can select, but they are not all "marketing partnerships".As a partner marketer it’s best to provide a partner go-to-market playbook to those companies that have an app on the App Store or App Marketplace with ways they can drive ...Read More