Who owns messaging and positioning in a product marketing org?

With a team of two product marketers, I'd opt for collaboration. Why? Well, product marketing teams are small, but collaboration is how we make 1+1 = 3. Differentiating your roles by function on a small team doesn't make sense, especially for foundational, strategic exercises like positioning and messaging. Even if one PMM takes the lead on drafting the positioning and messaging, I suggest the other PMM follows fast with feedback, and both partner closely to finalize and align on the output. One ...Read More

At Fivetran, product marketing owns it. One of the main reasons is because our buyers and users are very technical folks who are turned off by fluffy marketing. As a result, our messaging must be very straight forward, factual, and concise. So it makes sense for that to originate with our Product Marketing team who knows the Product well and are constantly in communication with customers. We are only now developing more of our brand messaging - and even then Product Marketing is heavily involved ...Read More

I'd ask: What is you most significant marketing effort where you have to align on messaging and positioning? Is it your website? Is it sales kickoff? Is it a brand campaign? Look for the place where your most important stakeholders are organically engaging, whoever is most critical in this effort, should also own your messaging and positioning. It's very hard to create energy and momentum for messaging without a compelling event or tactic. Use that compelling event and date....and whoever is ali ...Read More

I would first define ownership of each product marketer - whether that is by product, solution, vertical, etc. depending on your business and market. I would then work on positioning guardrails together to collaborate on how you will and will not tell the story of your products. At the end, the most important thing is that your product narrative is consistent across all channels and your audience should see it as coming from one cohesive voice. Collaboration is important, but just as important i ...Read More