How do you proactively identify areas of the business where PMM can add the most value and make the biggest impact?

1. Is the business taking a product to market, trying to achieve product market fit, or accelerate demand? I recognize that some teams might say, "All 3!" but if you had to pick one, what's most important? 

2. Based on the answer above, product marketing can flex towards supporting product vs. sales. I like asking each functional leader what their top 3 needs are and actually exposing that list. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise afterwards and both functions will actually request the same or relevant requests. For example, a sales team might want better messaging or training with regards to ideal customer profiles / personas. A product team might want more customer / user insights too, in which case killing 2 birds with one stone is ideal. 

3. Sometimes I plot initiatives on a matrix. The X axis = easy/low effort vs. difficult/complex. The Y axis = low vs. high impact. I prioritize 2-3 easy/high impact initiatives near-term and in parallel try to pursue 1-2 hard/high impact initiatives. 

There are four areas where I believe that PMMs can add the most value, and that’s where I usually start my assessment to identify the lowest hanging fruit:

• Product: Do we have product-market fit with our ideal buyer? Is our messaging differentiated and compelling? Is our pricing and packaging competitive?
• Demand: Are we targeting the right personas, industries, categories? Where are we winning and are we doubling down effectively? Are there untapped markets worth pursuing?
• Enablement: Are our win rates, average deal size and pipeline conversion strong? How does ARR / GRR / NRR look? Speak to your GTM teams (Sales and Customer Success) and run a survey assessing confidence levels in the pre and post sales process to identify areas of opportunity.
• Customer: Do we have effective automated onboarding and engagement programs? How are we driving expansion in the customer base?

You can’t do everything, but you should be able to identify one or two things that require attention and can have a big impact.

Great question, I look at the data to identify areas of red and strategize against those ebbs and flows overtime. It's easy to get excited by ideas, but the data we have is the most tangible means of assessing performance/needs. Beyond data assessment, I have a regular sync with front line teams to suss out what's working, their needs, and also tour competitive playing field to ensure our bases are covered. These exercises ensure I'm approaching PMM execution and priorization with an informed lens (both quant/qual information gathering is the goal).

Questions I keep for team members floating new projects:

• What sales collateral are you using the most? Why?
• If you had a magic wand and could have one new asset, what would it be?
• How will this [project] scale overtime? How will we measure success?
• How can this be done from a crawl, walk, run approach? (test our way to what good looks like)

It depends on what stage the business is at and what it's trying to do. Is the business in search of more demand? Are they trying to ensure a product launches without a hitch? Is there proper product market fit? Is there a bigger need for more strategy to properly position the product or audience in order to drive revenue? 

The answer here will ultimately gear you more towards either helping product, sales, marketing, or enablement. 

I do my best to always understand the level of complexity and difficulty for everything I take on. I try to score impact vs work needed to get the job done. At any given time, I'll take on a multiple easy items in order to make sure maintainence is happening for my given role, while picking up a few impactful items that take a bit longer in time, but ultimately drive the biggest impact and success. 

One approach to proactively identifying areas where PMM can add value is to conduct a thorough analysis of the market, competitors, and customers. This includes identifying gaps in the market and opportunities to differentiate, understanding the competitive landscape, and gathering insights on customer needs, preferences, and behaviors.

Some questions to consider when conducting this analysis include:

• What are the key trends and challenges in the market?

• What are the biggest unmet customer needs and pain points?

• How do our competitors position themselves and differentiate?

• What are our key strengths and weaknesses as a business?

• How can we leverage our strengths to address unmet customer needs and differentiate in the market?

By answering these questions, you can identify areas where PMM can make the biggest impact and develop strategies to address these areas. It's important to keep in mind that the analysis should be an ongoing process, as markets and customer needs are constantly evolving.