How can you involve your product marketing team in roadmap discussions early on without being seen as intrusive or kingdom-building?

I’m sure the answer to this question varies dramatically depending on where product marketing sits within the organization - is it within product? marketing? elsewhere? At Square, product marketing sits within product teams, which operate as small interdisciplinary sprint teams composed of product management, product marketing, engineering, design, data science, research, and creative. While this is the ideal state and it’s not always practical or possible to mirror that team composition across ...Read More

Build relationships. Show up to add value; ask, remind, repeat. Bring the voice of the customer to the table. Leverage customer interviews, NPS verbatims, third-party research findings, competitive intel. Bring data to validate and strengthen your recommendations with the customer wants, needs/unmet, and motivations at the center of said suggestions. Bring your marketing calendar with you. Create shared aspirations to get as much exposure and adoption of products set to release while opening dis ...Read More

Again, I'm a firm believer that product marketing should be in lockstep with their counterparts in product. As a new product marketer, taking the time to forge those relationships and build trust with the product team is an essential first step. It's also important to align around higher-level company objectives. This helps establish common ground and ensures that everyone is working towards the same outcomes. With a strong foundational relationship and a shared goal, it's much easier to influen ...Read More

In short, relationships and process. Great product marketing can make a product manager look like a hero. But great product marketing requires getting involved early. It's your job to help your PMs understand what you need and why, and more importantly, what's in it for them. Meet with the PMs you support at least every other week (weekly is better). Bring something (anything!) of value to every one of those meetings (ie market feedback, relevant competitor updates). Ask your PM for their opinio ...Read More

Experienced product managers know that we need to start planning launch as soon as we start planning a release. Alas, many inexperienced product managers (and most product owners) assume that BUILDING is all that matters. (Sigh). They're the ones who think release and launch are the same thing.  That said, more than one marketing person has said, "We need to know what's shipping a year in advance!" Which is impossible. We know what we know when we know it.  Release is the end of a development pr ...Read More