What are some effective strategies to inevitably influence the product roadmap rather than simply bringing that roadmap to market?

The most important thing to keep in mind is this: having the product marketing title doesn’t automatically mean you get to influence the roadmap. You have to put in the work and show your value to get a seat at the table. There are three big levers to pull here to help you shift the way product marketing works from a team that’s just responsible for the launch of a product to one that’s involved in the entire product process. 1. Create a partnership with your PM: When you’re thinking about how t ...Read More

"Influencing the roadmap" is a phrase that you'll hear often at tech companies as an unwritten goal for marketing, sales and research teams. It's also something that should be approached thoughtfully. You probably won't get very far if in your first meeting with you PM counterpart you say something like, "I'm really excited to influence your roadmap!" Influencing the product roadmap requires you to build trust and confidence with your respective product peers. Here's how I've typically approache ...Read More

At HoneyBook we have established a product feedback process between Sales/CS/Product. We meet every 6 weeks and share customer feedback. We prioritize feedback based on number of requests, which we track in Salesforce and with an internal system. But what has really made a difference is that instead of sharing 20 feature request, we dive deep into 3 of them. We tie the request back to our key value props, so product understands how it's affecting the user experience. We bring lots of quotes and ...Read More

Use customer insights and data to your advantage.  Your customers should be the “why” behind your product vision and at the end of the day, there shouldn’t be anything that goes on your roadmap that doesn’t help address customer pain and solve their problems. Maintaining customer focus within your roadmap also means not wasting your team’s valuable time and resources on features that will have no impact. Investing time into meticulously prioritizing your customer’s needs and coming up with real ...Read More

As product marketers, we can move from "tactical roadmap executers" to "strategic roadmap influencers" by leveraging the most important role we have: acting as the voice of the customer. It is our job to stay deeply in tune with what customers and prospects need, how our existing solutions meet those needs, and where we have gaps that can be filled by changes in product, pricing, positioning, or customer experience.  I've found it easiest to partner with Product Management and influence real roa ...Read More