Whenever you are new to a PMM role, what are the top 3 things you look for in the work that has been done before you arrived? (e.g. personas, messaging templates)

As I mentioned in the question regarding your first 90 days, the first 30 days are all about establishing a baseline and assessing the current product marketing status. The first 3 things that I look for when onboarding are: 1) Audience strategy and research. Here I want to understand what’s known about the customer and their jobs-to-be-done. Specifically, personas and segmentation as well as any research related to acquisition and why customers purchase the product. This may also include any pr ...Read More

Positioning Messaging Personas / Competitors Always focus on the top 2 first, as this will impact how everyone talks and writes about your company – which ultimately brings in users and wallet share. Good templates for positioning and messaging are here. And these are different, PMMs control positioning through our messaing. Positioning creates an image of our product in the mind of customers. Messaging uses words that help customer understand our value, brand promise and desire for our product. ...Read More

There are a few things I do before I accept a new PMM role and a few things I do within my first 30 days. Before I accept Talk to customers - either by asking the company for references or working my network to find users Read what people are saying about the space and the company - how competitive is the company, what is their positioning and how differentiated is it Ask the people on the PMM team and others that I'd be working with what the biggest challenges and opportunities are My first 30 ...Read More

When you are new to a PMM role, take the time to understand the product, business, people, and customers. For the first 30 days just take the time to do a listening tour from your key stakeholders to your customers. Be diligent about it and this will be the biggest foundation of your role. Gather your notes, and when you go through them, you will learn everything about your target market and how you can serve them better. Once you have that foundation, dive into the messaging. You have a fresh p ...Read More

Ideal customer profile (ICP), buyer personas, use cases/sales plays (what problems do you solve for customers and how), and customer journey (what path do these folks take through the funnel to buy from your business Positioning (brand down to features). This includes website copy, pitch decks, one pagers, messaging frameworks, vision/mission, marketecture (platform/product positioning), competitive positioning (battle cards, VS landing pages, one pagers etc) Partnership with product (is there a ...Read More

This would depend on the business and where the gaps are. But generally, I’d look at: 1. Messaging and positioning consistency I always start by reviewing the core messaging and positioning. I want to see if the product’s value proposition is clearly defined and if that messaging is consistent across all channels—whether it’s the website, sales materials, sales calls, or customer communications. If there are inconsistencies or a lack of clarity, that’s typically one of the first areas I work to ...Read More

- Retros on strategic projects, especially those with cross-functional teams so you can identify previous learnings and opps for improvement, and quickly get up to speed on legacy experiences  - Centralization of customer feedback; can you do some quick analysis and theming of it to start to form an objective opinion on customer experiences based on data  - Pricing history; what has happened in the world of monetization before you to understand if there's revenue opportunities on the table as ea ...Read More