Please share an example of a failure when trying to shape a new narrative. What did you learn?

A common mistake I see when shaping a new narrative is failing to involve sales or other customer-facing teams in the process. The best narratives I've developed across my career have been directly influenced by top sellers and account managers within the company. And while deep customer insight is core to product marketing, there's simply no way we can replicate the experience of our colleagues that talk -- and pitch -- to buyers daily. The risk of not including sales is that you will spend a t ...Read More

When I was hired at Patreon to build and lead the product marketing function, my first big project was a repricing and packaging exercise. Among other things, we wanted to move from a one-size-fits-all pricing model to a 3-tiered “good, better, best” model.  I started out thinking that it would be a terrible outcome if we ended up calling the three pricing tiers something generic like “Basic, Pro, and Premium”. Our customers were artists and creators! As creative people, surely they would prefer ...Read More

My biggest failures have typically come down to unsuccessfully driving behavior change with the field. Even the best stories, which are grounded in research and validated with customers, aren't always adopted by the field. I've learned that working closely with enablement and sales leadership is crucial to driving success. A few specifics: Include well-respected members of the field in crafting your story. Ask for their help and support not just in developing the narrative, but in lending their ...Read More

Many years ago at Infer we attempted to build a product which seems to be all the rage nowadays. What we built was a sales enablement tool that let you sync all your various systems, append data, and then build segments of personas that you could then push back out to your systems to run campaigns against. What I’d say I learned from that experience is that we were trying to shape a narrative for a very small/niche set of revenue ops/marketing ops people who didn’t really exist outside of maybe ...Read More

A common failure when shaping a new narrative is ignoring where your company fits in the competitive landscape. Too many stories stop at “here’s your problem, here’s our solution.” That’s table stakes. Strong narratives acknowledge the full market conversation — what buyers already believe, what alternatives they’re evaluating, and why those fall short. The best PMMs turn competition into context. They simplify the landscape into two to four recognizable groups, naming where each wins and where ...Read More