How can I start making a change in my organization to influence the roadmap based on consumer insights?

The only advice I can share is that customer insights (when shared in a clear and actionable way) are very hard to ignore. Survey users, talk to prospects, and bring customer insights to the product teams, even if they aren't solicited.  I thought I'd share a recent example from Stripe: a few months ago, one of my teammates was paired with a product group that was moving very quickly to deliver an MVP to the market. Because they were moving fast, they didn't invite marketing input. Synthesizing ...Read More

I’d first ask what’s driving this – does the company/leadership not believe in customer insights, is there a lack of prioritization to do this or is it simply inertia of how the company operates today? Your approach may vary depending on the answer but here are some thoughts to consider. Make it a habit. PMMs should be as close to the customer as possible and distill those insights for their teams on an ongoing basis. This can be done thru feedback loops (sales and customer support, user intervi ...Read More

An Engineering leader at a previous company described this to me as a tripod--decisions made based on the intersection of PM, Eng and PMM. Here PMM is representing the customer, and to an effect, also Sales opportunities. In an ideal state, you'd have this. When you don't, you'll need to understand what is driving the decisions behind what makes it into the roadmap. Is it revenue? Is it usage? Is it a PM's pride in shipping what they ideated? If its the latter, then you may not be in a position ...Read More

On top of everything that @Krithika Muthukumar , @Dan Laufer and @Lauren Culbertson have already mentioned, one actionable and practical approach would be to introduce a Marketing Requirement Document (MRD) to the product development planning process. Traditionally, a MRD should be the initial document created when proposing a new feature or product innovation, which is either based on user feedback, business needs or market analysis and data. The MRD is basically stating your idea, hypothesis, ...Read More

Data is power! Feedback is everywhere, and as product marketers we can harness that voice of the customer data to influence product roadmap. Product Managers have to balance market needs with technical requirements, and you can help them immensely by providing quantitative data around what customers and prospects are asking for. Start with the places customers are giving feedback already: online reviews, sales opportunities, support tickets, NPS surveys. Analyze the product gaps coming out of th ...Read More

That can be very tough. Similar to another answer I wrote, I think a lot of this is interpersonal which makes specific feedback tough without more context. A few ideas to hopefully help: 1. Assume best intentions. Presumably product wants the same end outcome as marketing/research.  2. Given that, meet with the relevant counterparts or leaders in the product org to understand where the disconnect lies. Do they hear you and are not persuaded? Are they not hearing your input or is it synced with t ...Read More