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Product Marketing
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Director of Product Marketing at 6sense
Telltale signs of success: customer buy in. If you have customers that have
tested the new feature (in alpha or beta phases), informed the roadmap, and have
provided use cases that the feature has solved for - you know your launch train
is headed in the right direction. Even better, get commitment from your
customers to use their authentic testmonials in launch assets to bring your
narrative to life and bring value to similar customer profiles. This helps
customers get activated quickly while building trust. Without customer
participation and validation, I'd be concered about launch perform...more
1 answer
Director of Product Marketing at 6sense
I would grab/cultivate any testimonials, use cases, and customer-driven artifacts from the first launch to build a more targeted and informed launch the second time around. Even better, host a webinar with top plays from the first segment of customers who benefited from the initial launch, to inform the second launch moment and accelerate time to value. Show them how it worked via customer "plays" and use cases versus telling.
1 answer
Director of Product Marketing at 6sense
I would suggest bundling the two week sprints into a larger quarterly release
cycle so you can benefit from a bigger, impactful story. If you are hitting your
customer base with new features every 2 weeks, I can guarantee you they are
going to be fatigued, saturated, and less likely to engage. People are suffering
from cognitive load, so cut through the noise and surface the features that
matter on more sustainable and customer-friendly cadence.
In terms of release and launch terminology: a release is product-owned (normally
consists of getting a product/feature into production for gene...more
2 answers
Vice President of Product Marketing at HackerOne
The first step is defining the customer journey and making sure your key functiona teams understand that journey. Then, recognizing that there may be stop gaps that need to be implemented to ensure customers can take advantage of the feature. What needs to happen on the delivery side of the house so CS and technical teams are enabled? How can we over communicate and document docs and materials for our teams and customers?
What kinds of enablement efforts do we need to account for to make sure customers understand the benefits?
Head of Product Marketing at Sendbird | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte
Welcome to the fun world of Enablement! And there are internal + external
aspects of this.
* External
* Message x Value & benefits: What's in it for your users? Migration is a
pain in the ass. Before you get to the logistics, you have to sell them on
the why
* Transition plan: What's the step-by-step guide? Is it one size fits all,
or does it require different approaches for different types of users?
These need to be documented and clearly laid out.
* Timing & cadence: Give your customers enough time to make the changes.
I'll leave the communicat...more
6 answers
Director of Brand and Product Marketing, Twilio.org at Twilio
We match internal promotion based on the level of the product announcement.
Small updates are little features that mostly existing customers are excited
about. Medium updates are larger changes that potentially open up a small new
audience or unlock new revenue potential. Large updates are major product
changes or brand new products that require significantly adjusting our go to
market strategy.
Small updates: Monthly email to sales, slack message to success
Medium updates: ^ + dedicated email to sales/success + all company slack channel
+ join sales all hands recurring meeting to train...more
VP of Marketing at Builder.io
Internal comms is sometimes undervalued, but in my opinion, it is one of the
most important parts of a PMM's role, especially because product marketing is
one of the very few roles that are extremely cross-functional and sits between
multiple teams. Here are few ways I've seen it work best:
* For major XF projects, have regular update emails so that you can make sure
you are bringing everyone along the journey and it does not feel like you are
working in a black box.
* Internal newsletters (whatever cadence works for your org). We partner with
the product team on a monthly newsl...more
Head of Product Marketing at Sendbird | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte
Internal newsletters, revenue org all-hands, relevant slack channels, and
team-specific meetings.
Of course, not every activity is shared through every channel. Depending on the
"size" of the project or deliverable, we choose which channels to broadcast
through. Thankfully we have a well-organized enablement team that manages these
channel logistics, so we're able to efficiently streamline internal comms.
On a personal level, it's critical that I provide key executives and other team
leads with visibility of what's coming, so that they get their teams' attention
and start a network effe...more
Group Product Marketing Manager at Intercom
I think this depends largely on the size of an update - and the audience.
For our largest releases, they are communicated early and often - to drum up
excitement. Through company all hands, sales trainings, slack channels, etc.
For mid-sized and smaller updates, we'll leverage the internal channels that
make the most sense for the internal audience. If its sales, we'll update via
our bi-weekly newsletter, slack channels, internal knoweldgebase docs on what to
know, as one example. Each internal audience has their own channels and
communication styles they prefer - and usually we work ...more
Senior Director Product Marketing at Fivetran
We are a slack heavy company. So we have our own announcement channel for all things Marketing that I actually started so that we could share our updates!
We also do quarterly roadmaps and retros where PM + PMMs present their upcoming roadmap and a retro on their activities from the past quarter. All of Product and PMM go - and we invite our key stakeholders across the business, including the leaders from other areas of Marketing.
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
Why do you want to communicate updates and activities?
If the goal is to communicate just the work the team has been doing, then I
don't think that you should be communicating this to a large audience. This may
be a good weekly summary email to your manager (Also, why would your manager
need it?, the manager should already know it and it should be in your 1:1 doc),
anyway, my point is communicating just WHAT you or your team is working on is
waste of time for you and the reader.
I would rather communicate the impact and how other teams could leverage the
work your team has done. This ...more
2 answers
Head of Product Marketing, VR Work Experiences, Oculus at Meta
If you have global projects or have syndicated a regional product to the global
level, I would think that experience is relevant. If you are a regional product
marketing manager and do not have a project like that to speak of then work on
getting one. This will help with your own visibility and help the company
projects succeed. If you want this experience and you’re already in product
marketing you can network in the company to try and make that happen for
yourself. Then in the interview/vetting process you can speak to these projects
and show that you do have global experience, despite no...more
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
* You must have crafted regional value props. Discuss how you approached
building those. The same framework can be scaled to craft global value props
* You must have led a regional sales enablement program: This also scales well
for global PMM teams. Your playbook will be similar just that the target
audience will be larger
* Market Intel: You should highlight this as a strength. For a regional PMM,
market intel (competitive landscape, customer insights, industry knowledge)
is crucial for their success. Share how you gathered, used, and distributed
those to your stakeho...more
8 answers
PMO at TikTok
Starting with those three functional responsibilities - insights, launch/go-to-market, and sales enablement makes a ton of sense for a team of that size. Depending on the current and future product set, I've also seen teams re-org to match customer segment (SMB, enterprise, etc.) or paired with a product manager who is either tasked with overseeing a product and/or stage of a user life cycle (e.g. acquisition, retention).
Senior Product Marketing Manager at Square
This depends heavily on the make-up of your company and your product portfolio.
Early on, I thought of our team as product marketing generalists. Each PMM
covered a wide range of responsibilites tied to the commercialization of our
product straetgy including: core product positioning, product launches and
release management, various sales enablement efforts, assisting with in-app
copywriting, executing internal product enablement (technical trainings, demo
environment, etc.). Over time, we began to further specialize.
I think the key is understanding the core needs of your main stakehol...more
Head Of Product Marketing at 3Gtms
Well, the way you have it broke down, you seem to be describing a great
researcher, a great engineer and a great writer. Three very different, equally
important skillsets.
This is just my opinion, but there is another significant difference between the
three, and one that is probably overlooked wayyyyy too often when hiring: how
process-oriented one must be to succeed. Launches, for example, are probably
best handled by someone who thrives on process. Insights is likely somewhere in
the middle, as good research requires a methodical thinker, but it doesn't have
to be someone entirely pr...more
Head of Product Marketing at Hubspot | Formerly Salesforce, IBM, Silverpop, Blackboard
Great question! Sounds like your team is really prioritizing the awareness and
consideration phase of your buyer's journey, so you're optimizing for product
intel, launches and then sales enablement/support. I think one other area to
consider, which may be in your launch team's remit, is buyer enablement and
customer stories/proof, so the experience and content you're creating to help
your buyers quickly and confidently make decisions. Outside of that, I'd
recommend you have a good partnership with your competitive team, so that those
insights can help support your messaging and GTM strateg...more
Senior Director, Marketing at National Basketball Association | Formerly Uber, Square, 1stdibs
Structuring a product marketing team is unique to every business. You could
start by asking questions like:
1. What are the business metrics that the organization needs to drive and how
can your product marketing team contribute to those top line goals? I like
tying product marketing to topline business goals because it's easier to
point directly to impact that the organization care most about.
2. What are the key outcomes and objectives for our team and what are the
intiatives, roles, and responsibilities I need to achieve those objectives?
From there you can prior...more
Executive Vice President Product (fmr VP PMM) at Snow Software
What I would do here is to partner with your manager and key stakeholders to
understand the top 3-5 problems the business needs your Product Marketing to
solve. Basedo on the responses you receive, ensure you have people in the right
roles to solve these concerns.
While there are general roles & responsibilities (e.g. Launch Management) that
fall to Product Marketing, your aim is to ensure you're team is solving problems
for the ubsiness. In your case, if Sales Enablement, Product Launches, and
Product Insights are top 3 problems for the organization then you have the right
structure in...more
Director, Industry and Product Marketing at Motive
It all depends on what gaps need to be filled in your company.
Is there a need for sales materials, marketing strategy, customer sucess and
retention, or do you need to go upmarket and dive into mending relationships
with analysts?
Across the product marketing team there needs to be four key skills:
* Messaging & Positioning
* GTM Strategy & Orchestration
* Field Alignment
* Product Alignment
With that being said, you can split up, depending on your approach.
Product Marketer 1
* Positioning
* Messaging
* Pitch Decks
* Pricing/Packaging
Product Marketer 2
* Custo...more
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
Refer to my answer for this other question here (link)
For a team of 3, I can suggest some frameworks to use-
Do you have multiple products and can 3 people own 3 product GTMs?
Do you have a team where there are different strengths and are you able align
people by functional expertise? For example: Could you have one person lead
company messaging, positioning; one lead product launches and enablement and the
other can own solutions or programs/pricing?
Do you have different GTM motions - Enterprise, product led sales, volume sales
for SMB? Can you align by that?
For a 3 mem...more
1 answer
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
Change Management: As you grow the team, you will have to restructure and assign
new responsibilities to individuals. This can be tough when you are going from a
do-it-all mindset to functional expertise. While making such a change, it could
feel like you are taking away the responsibilities from individuals. It is
important that you are able to articulate the reasons and define a growth path
for all roles as you make the change. Additionally, change management requires
communication with stakeholders. If change is not communicated, stakeholders and
the team will either start executing base...more
3 answers
Vice President of Product Marketing at UpKeep
In my experience, the most important thing to do to support focus is assess
organizational alignment and capabilities when you arrive at the decision to
build a PMM team. It's not very common for organizations to invest heavily in
building whole Product Marketing teams, but when they do, it's to support growth
through more effective market expansion or better profitability. The trick is to
understand what the real objective is, which means getting to the heart of the
corporate strategy. You need to know what the real 'ask' is. If the organization
wants to expand market share you may feel th...more
Head of Product Marketing at Benchling | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce
IMPACT. So often product marketing teams get snowed under by trying to do all the things. They focus on completeness. They want to have every box checked. But they have no idea if any of it is working. Every other team in the business will have endless needs - endless requests - of PMM, but you have to get good at calling out what metric you're focused on and how you think you can ladder into it. Get good at talking to the metrics of the business and get good at thinking about how what you do ladders into the business stategy.
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
Two things:
Build company narrative: If you are just starting the PMM function in the
company, this would be one of the first things to focus on. Most likely the
existing narrative was built out by the founding team but bringing expert
perspective and start building out a differentiated narrative for your company.
A good framework is a 3 Why funnel. I recall reading a blog about 3 Whys funnel
(Apologies that I don't recall who wrote it). Why the problem you are solving is
critical, Why they should choose you and Why should they make the decision now.
Support the lead gen engine: Ever...more
1 answer
Product, Partner & Developer Marketing Leader at Samsara
DO IT ALL -> FUNCTIONAL -> BY PRODUCT -> GRID
It depends on the size of your team and the maturity of the company. Typically
what I have seen is that -
* With 1-2 PMMs - it's "do it all" approach. These PMMs take on all
responsibilities - Positioning, Messaging, Launches, Product GTM,
Competitive, and Market Intel. However, that is doable at that size of the
company beacuse PMM counterparts are doing the same. Sales will be a small
team, the sales team won't wait for sales enablement to happen, they hustle
and build their own pitch deck. Same for the product team
*...more