What are some unexpected challenges when it comes to influencing and creating a product marketing strategy with a global team?

Expected: Working with multiple timezones Language barriers/poor translations Cultural issues Getting individuals to focus on the team dynamics so we can work as a global unit Countries/regional teams coming up with their own narratives and strategies. Unexpected Distributing the work so each person on your team can shine with a strong project to drive visibility, especially if they're not inherent good ways of working in the region.   Memes are incredibly quick to spring up and hard to squash. ...Read More

The biggest thing Ive seen is a Product team that does not have awareness or subject matter expertise in GTM fundamentals, or genuine curiosity coupled with critical thinking / first principles for assessing the market. If PMs think PMMs job is to just release product and don't understand the complexity involved in integrated launches then it's a real struggle. If PMs and EMs dont understand the fundamentals of the business – GTM models and motions, target audiences, and team roles and structure ...Read More

The biggest challege (for me) is certainly managing alignment across product and product marketing. As teams grow and scale broadens, working in a distributed manner across the globe makes it hard to stay in touch/row in the same direction. The best way I've found to influence the global product marketing strategy is to make time (early mornings/late evenings) for 1:1s with your global peers. During this time, ensure you have tangible assets for them to review (related to your strategy/philosoph ...Read More

Every market is likely facing different challenges. A more mature market may be tapping into new audiences to drive growth while a newly launched market lacks awareness or feature parity. When creating a global strategy, it's important to recognize the unique challenges of different markets by staying close to in-market experts, such as Customer Success and Sales, and look at all of the GTM challenges to prioritize.  Another challenge is developing content/campaigns for scale -- for my team, it ...Read More

Let's start with the expectations:  Properly understanding cultural appropriations and cues  Working in different timezones  Evaluating product marketers strengths when hiring for that particular region - depending on the region, you may want to underly the right skills  Fostering the right work/life balance - especially abroad, truly understanding working styles and the best method of communication  Unexpected:  1. Ensuring the product marketers in each region have a best in class way to commun ...Read More

When it relates to global teams, it's very important to understand the differences between each region. The biggest challenge supporting global teams is usually that they want something very different than what you have available in HQ. And the key question to ask your global team leads is this: do you want content/programs bespoke for your region or do you want to leverage the key programs we're driving from HQ? In my experience, if it's a small team, you have to leverage what's being done in H ...Read More

Any effort that requires a global scope comes with several challenges: Culture and language differences: This might not seem as unexpected but believe me it is a challenge, especially when your product usage relies deeply on cultural preferences. Make sure to give enough context on why some cultural traits could influence the overall product strategy.  Regulatory and legal: Aligning global teams on local regulatory requirements also represents a challenge and commonly long legal discussions and ...Read More