How does the product marketing team's placement in the org chart (under marketing, product, etc.) effect your ability to influence the roadmap?

There are pros and cons to any PMM reporting structure, with no perfect solution. My experience has mostly been with a PMM team that reports into a marketing leader and doesn’t report into product. In this case, an intentional effort needs to be put toward building bridges across teams. All levels of the product and marketing organization need to implement and exhibit a culture of collaboration that minimizes silos between groups. What might this look like? At the top: Marketing and product lead ...Read More

If product marketing is embedded within product, what that usually tells me is that marketing is a secondary function to product. If you're operating within a product-led organization, the cadence of the business will be determined by product leadership and the roadmap they set. That said, marketing can certainly influence it, but it's a shared service to product. When product marketing reports into marketing leadership, that's usually a signal that marketing is a leading function at the executi ...Read More

Our PMM team currently rolls up under the Marketing practice, which rolls up into the Customer Org (Customer Success/Support, People Science, Marketing). This means Sales reports up through another org, as does Product - and each has their own set of key objectives/priorities. As the question here alludes, sure this can play a factor in easily influencing product roadmap (never an easy task no matter where you sit). However, I've found the best way to influence the roadmap is by first, by buildi ...Read More

You would assume that being in the product organization would allow a PMM more influence. However, I’ve actually found the opposite to be the case.  For a brief period of time at Zendesk, Product Marketing reported into the product org. This let us foster very close relationships with our product counterparts. We would go to all their meetings, offsites, planning sessions, etc. and be joined at the hip when it came to launching features. As a junior Product Marketer this experience can be intoxi ...Read More

From my experience, it's less about product marketing's placement in the org chart and more about product marketing's relationship with product and cross functional teams. I've been in orgs where PMM reports into product as well as others where PMM reports into marketing and have found that our ability to influence the roadmap is more dependent on the value that product marketing brings to the table and having a seat at the table rather than your reporting structure. A product marketer that has ...Read More

I have led product marketing teams that reported into marketing and others that reported into product. I've been reorganized from one to the other twice. I don't find it makes all that much of a difference. You'll need to work harder to build strong relationships with the "other" team. Your responsibilities should be the same. Regardless of where you sit in the organization, you need to build deep rapport with both the product and the marketing leader. Building a string relationship with the pro ...Read More

If the product marketing team is placed within the marketing department, they may be more focused on the promotion and positioning of products rather than on the development of the product itself. In this case, their ability to influence the product roadmap may be limited as they may not have a direct line of communication with the product development team.  When the product marketing team is placed within the product department, they may have a more direct influence on the product roadmap as th ...Read More

I’ve been under both the product org and the marketing org and there are pros and cons to each one. In my experience, the pros of being in the product org are that you are deeply embedded into the product team, can get more insights into the planning process of the roadmap and how and why new initiatives are prioritized, UX research is more readily available, and sometimes you get a more direct line of influence as the ‘voice of the customer.’ The cons are that you are sometimes relegated to spe ...Read More