What are the top 3 potholes to AVOID when establishing or building out the Product Marketing function at a company?

Great question, here are 3 potholes to AVOID when building 1. Not becoming the undisputed expert on your product, market, and audience:  Great PMM teams form strong opinions through rigorous research across market, product, and competition Focus on three areas: market/persona understanding, competitive intelligence, and deep product knowledge My favorite research methods: win/loss analysis, paid expert interviews, Gong calls, customer interviews, using competitor’s products, and podcasts 2. Not ...Read More

I can't think of three good ones right now, so I'll give you two of my favourite: Saying yes to everythingWhen you come in as the first PMM, people are going to be throwing projects at you left and right. It's easy to say yes to everything, after all, who wants to say "no" in their first month on the job. But it's important to set the precedent that everything can't be your top priority right away. At Klue, I'm hopping on calls with as many people as I can and asking them for their top prioritie ...Read More

Top three things to avoid when establishing or scaling PMM: Working in a silo. PMM is a highly cross functional role, so make sure you are in continual communication with xfn partners and that you are in lock step on priorities and plans. Err on the side of overcommunicating and providing as much transparency and visibility as possible to establish trust.  Too much ambiguity for roles and responsibilities. A bit of gray area is totally fine – and it is also good to be nimble and evolve the PMM r ...Read More

The biggest mistakes I see product marketers make are: Not talking to customers enough - If you're not talking to a few customers every week (or month if you're at a bigger company) you're missing out. From message testing to hidden opportunities for workflow improvement to whatever else you're looking into after ~5 conversations you will likely start to see a pattern. Not using the product and its competitors - It's hard to develop empathy for your customer if you don't use the product or if th ...Read More

Three things to avoid when establishing Product marketing would be: Assuming what worked before will work here: Every company, industry, market, etc. functions differently. What you found successful in your last organization may not be successful in your new one, even if in the same industry. Bring your templates and check your ego. Be willing to adapt and admit something doesn’t work. Test and refine. Don’t be a Yes person: this is hard, but if you’re standing up a new function, you’re likely t ...Read More