What are the biggest mistakes product marketing teams make when focusing on partnerships?

Honestly, having worked in both product and partner marketing, I don't think product marketing teams focus enough on partnerships. Product strategy to me is simple, it involves three components: "build, partner, buy". Based on my own experience, product marketing teams are great at executing the "build" aspect of the strategy - new product launches and adoption of new features. However, as companies and products mature, features in new releases become more incremental, so it's important to tell a broader story around your ecosystem. Most product marketing orgs will dedicate a specific role for an individual contributor to build content on product integrations, but the content is usually really dense and heavy - and doesn't do a good job telling the story of a partner ecosystem. I'd rather have someone in product management create those technical documents and presentations. I would really encourage product marketing teams to think more about how they can generate more awareness of their products and solutions through a partners' channels.   

Key areas to focus on for alignment and success in partnerships include: prioritization and resourcing, organizational structure, partner selection, value proposition & joint partner messaging, KPIs, and analytics. Oftentimes these may be overlooked by a company that impacts the overall success of the team.

1. Prioritization & Resourcing.
   Prioritization is critical at the executive level of the company and partner organization, and be properly resourced. For example, if there isn’t alignment at the top, it will simply be hard to get things done. If there isn’t a dedicated marketer at both the company and partner to work with, that’s typically a red flag.
   

2. Organizational Structure.
   Some companies operate based on how they are organized. Therefore, where partner marketing is in an organization does matter. It's important that the partner marketer is well embedded into the team, not a siloed group from a customer and GTM lens. This may imply it fits in the marketing organization or the sales organization. It depends.
   

3. Partner Selection.
   Not all partners are equal, and having the right partners is critical. A strategic approach with clear criteria aligned cross-functionally is paramount. A tactical approach will lead to confusion, mis-alignment and reduced success. Note, many companies do tier partners internally, to allow visibility on partner selection and prioritization.

4. Value Proposition & Joint Partner Messaging.

   The joint partner messaging should layer up to the company value proposition otherwise there is a disconnect at the outset.
   
   

5. KPIs.
   KPIs are critical, and should ultimately layer up to revenue. It sometimes depends on the maturity of the relationship and the nature of the partnership. Some examples of KPIs may be sales, retention, net new business and/or leads, or awareness & usage.

6. Analytics.

   It's amazing how often that teams do not focus on analytics and have the right infrastructure in place to avoid ad-hoc requests and/or non-intuitive dashboard. If resources are tight, I recommend understanding what action one would take if you had this data to refine what the request is overall for tracking.