Influencing the Product Roadmap

What does your product marketing team org structure look like?
Do you simply have Product Marketers by product/portfolio? Do you have a release communications manager? Someone in sales enablement? What other roles exist in your product marketing teams today?
12 Answers
Kristen Ribero
Kristen Ribero
Handshake Senior Director of Corporate MarketingJuly 18
In my experience, it varies based on your product portfolio/customer segments... When my company had only 1 product we were separated by function (i.e. pricing/packaging, sales enablement, product launches, market research, etc.), but in other companies we were focused on segment (enterprise ......Read More
2014 Views
16 Answers
Gregg Miller
Gregg Miller
Oyster® VP of Product MarketingOctober 8
At Zapier I approached this by starting with a mission statement to describe why our team exists and the work we aim to uniquely do for the company: “PMM exists to maximize Zapier’s market opportunities by (1) clarifying where we win and (2) driving GTM strategy for product success.” I then defin......Read More
3442 Views
7 Answers
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Tailscale Head Of MarketingDecember 8
I'd start with the data! This may mean tapping your data analysts, marketing analysts, basically anybody who is knee-deep in the metrics. What I would do first is attempt to map out the funnel for the product in question (if this doesn't already exist) - figuring out how people get to your websit......Read More
1779 Views
12 Answers
April Rassa
April Rassa
Aventi Group Product Marketing ConsultantApril 2
There are probably three major questions to answer when operationalizing a GTM plan: What is the governance? Meaning who is in charge? What is the division of labor? Who holds what decision rights (e.g., decide, influence, escalate)? When do you scale? There are two broad options: launch-and-......Read More
1704 Views
5 Answers
Mike Flouton
Mike Flouton
GitLab VP, ProductJanuary 30
I always fall back on the first rule of product management - "your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant." Back your idea up with solid, detailed customer research. A good blend of qualitative anecdotes and quantitative research data will serve you well.  Also, just general good advice for......Read More
809 Views
4 Answers
Alex Lobert
Alex Lobert
Spotify Associate Director Product Marketing, Creator PromotionAugust 26
I find that the key difference between influencing a 3 year product vision vs. features for the next quarter are about the precision / availability of information. The next quarter can typically be assessed pretty clearly. You can talk to customers / do research into what their needs are now and......Read More
469 Views
2 Answers
Talya Heller G.
Talya Heller G.
Product Marketing Consultant | Ex-PMM, PM and PMONovember 3
Although the level of involvement a PMM should have on the product roadmap can vary widely (sales led or product led, is the a growth pm, how is PMM function structured at the company etc.), if there’s a PMM working there they should get a seat at the table at least. If the product team has neve......Read More
214 Views
How do you influence the product roadmap without clear monetization targets for new features/products?
It's clear there is an opportunity, but currently hard to see how big of an opportunity.
4 Answers
Devang Sachdev
Devang Sachdev
Snorkel AI Vice President of MarketingJuly 9
The goal of any new product/feature releases is to allow your business to capture or retain slice of the market. It is important to have as much clarity as possible before enbarking on any development. Monetization or value creation is easy to gauge when similar features are already offered in......Read More
843 Views
5 Answers
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Jessica Webb Kennedy
Tailscale Head Of MarketingDecember 8
Building relationships with the right stakeholders. If you want to have any influence regarding the product roadmap you need to garner respect from the people who already influence it most. The best way to build those relationships is to create consistent touchpoints and check-ins that don't just......Read More
764 Views
Have you ever been part of a launch where the eng/product team brought in product marketers or customers after work has kicked off (but before launch) and influenced feature development? What was that like?
Sometimes when product kicks off work they have assumptions about how people think about certain features. Marketing, support, and even customers can come to the table with real stories that may invalidate the assumptions product had early on in the feature dev process.
4 Answers
Mary Sheehan
Mary Sheehan
Adobe Group Manager, Lightroom Product MarketingJanuary 16
Yes, definitely. Although it’s not ideal, it can happen and you can make an impact in terms of helping them understand product feature prioritization, since they probably already have some idea of what they're building, and (hopefully) who they are solving a problem for.  If there are a ton of......Read More
1488 Views