Brand Strategy

Analysts will not endorse any vendor directly. Your goal with AR is to help shape their POV about the market, especially if this is a new category and ultimately get well positioned on MQs and Wave reports. Shaping their POV means showing analysts how customers are getting value from this new type of solution and what critical capabilities that are required to be successful. Do this by building a personal relationship with the analysts, sharing insights, connecting them with your customers, and keeping them updated about your roadmap and product innovation. 

100% agree with Suyog. Nothing we do exists in a vacuum and all of the positioning and messaging we bring to market should be looked at from a brand lens to ensure consistency. Ultimately, the consumer is not going to differentiate what’s brand marketing and what’s product marketing. It’s all the same to them!

Brand is promoting the company, while product is selling and promoting individual products/product lines. I've found that brand work is typically much more creative, whereas product work is about sales. The two functions should be in close contact with each other--my brand marketers are my best help in my job today.

Agree with Steve (Hi, Steve! 👋) and would like to add that there should be a push-pull relationship. Some good conversations to have with your brand marketers are around how brand and category positioning should show up within product marketing, and how product differentiation should show up in brand identity. 

It's a good place in the business to apply some consumer marketing conventions... 

"Our Brand is where these buyers find this category of product with these special characteristics to get these high value benefits." 

I would also add: Can they clearly understand the customer pain points and technical capabilities of the product, and translate that into clear marketing messages that resonate?

The folks that I've seen who stood out were able to tell a story with their presentation and were clearly outcome-oriented vs tactic-oriented. I don't want someone who's just going to go through the motions. I want a critical thinker who will think outside the box.

First, welcome to PMM. It would depend on what kind of PMM they are looking to hire. I would do three buckets. (1) a thought leadership piece or website/landing page (2) a launch plan or GTM plan (3) examples of enablement like slides etc. They want to see if you have done core PMM activities: messaging, launch, and strategy. 

I would be super metrics-dr :iven here.

Maybe show a few functions you've owned (or contributed to), from top of the funnel to middle and bottom of the funnel, with the corresponding programs and the metrics you've optimized for each.

For ex:

- Owned awareness plan - running exec programs and targeted PR, I could increase the share of voice of my company by x%

- Built strategic narrative - creating company messaging and enabling field, resulting in y% in sales velocity and z% competitive win rates

- etc.

Hope it makes sense! 

So I have done a lot of work with Profit Well, they have some great frameworks and suggestions for building Pricing and packaging. The ideal scenario for me is to find out what I am building towards, what is our goal. Is it a land grab, are we just trying to get as many people as possible or are we building towards revenue and that is the biggest driver. From there you should be able to find the framework that either brings in more registrations or optimizes for revenue in order to make sure you are hitting company goals. But if you haven't checked out profit well, I highly suggest them!

Figuring out the willingness-to-pay (WTP) by conducting research for your product with your target market/buyers is an effective approach. I've mentioned more details in a previous response.

There are lots of good articles on WTP research (including HBR). Also checkout the Profitwell/PriceIntelligently blog for some good articles on pricing. 

On the Consumer side (where I sit) we have Brand Marketers and Product Marketers. Product Marketers need to deeply understand the value prop, positioning and user needs of the product. A big part of the PMM role is Inbound - leveraging research and insights to influence product strategy. When a PMM has Outbound work they need to do, we work very closely with our Brand counterparts to ensure our campaigns are consistent with the overall Brand message, and don’t conflict in terms of timing and channel.

Oy! First, good luck! I have done the "first" before. I don't think you have the luxury of 30/60/90. I think it's more like 30 days to identify the problem and tackle easy wins. Sixty days build out a basic launch framework, then a GTM strategy, align both with leadership. Then 90 days to test and what you build and revise based on market feedback. My advice is to prioritize like crazy. 

This can definitely be a challenge whether you're the first or tenth PMM at a company. I'm a fan of working backwards from the customer, rather than starting with an idea for the product team or from the sales team. From there, I like to ladder needs/deliverables up to team goals and business goals (impact). Then I'll stackrank them based on perceived effort of the deliverable. 

Essentially, I'm creating an 2X2 grid based on business impact and perceived effort to complete the task.

No doubt, the ROI of a billboard is hard to measure. But when it comes to brand, you need to be crisp around the metrics. In marketing you'll either need to solve for awareness, demand generation or both. Brand typically deals with awareness. 

Google brand survey every year to 6 months. Attribution is tricky but qualitative. you can't measure love. 

At a high level, I think it's essential for all teams involved to understand the ultimate goal of whatever product or feature they are launching - meaning what is the problem you are trying to solve and for whom? In terms of process I have found the most success from establishing formal kickoffs, consistent check-ins along the way, and retrospectives post-launch. It's all about having several touchpoints between teams and making sure people are on the same page.