Platform and Solutions Product Marketing

Of the three, product and solution have the most overlap. In a technology context most often the difference is that a solution involves more than just a piece of software. The whole solution may also include the software plus bundled content, professional services and an ecosystem of integrations, for example.   Personally, I don't find this dinstinction particularly useful, and mostly use product and solution interchangeably. A product is useless if it's not solving a problem (hello, Kickstarter!), so most PM and PMMs think in terms of "whole product," which includes everything needed to...

For more info on what Mike mentioned about the "whole product" I'd highly recommend reading the relevant chapter in Crossing the Chasm.

I'm going to focus on just one part of that equation: Solution. This is an often misrepresented piece of the product marketers toolkit. I have found that so many companies put together a list of products an call it a solution, I would consider this a 'bundle' 'package' or 'toolkit.' A solution, as the name implies, should SOLVE a very specific set of problems for a specific audience type. It will generally include both product, services, and even best practices or expertise from the offering company. 

To me, a solution is a prescriptive collection of products and features that solve a well-defined problem for your customer. A product is anything you could conceivably sell on its own, but a product can also be a collection of other products. A feature is a component piece of a product that adds to its value but cannot be sold on its own.    Products, features, and solutions tend to get different levels of attention from PMMs. Products will naturally get the most, solutions are really just collections of products and are therefore more an exercise in packaging and pricing. Features get a...

Great question–tough to answer without getting too specific about Intercom and what works for us based on our own situation and approach in general. But, here goes. :)   For us, a product is a container for a set of mutually exclusive features that enable specific workflows to be completed. For example, our Engage product has a set of core features (available on Engage Lite) that make it possible to send targeted messages to leads and customers. Some of these features are audience targeting, auto messages (email, in-app, and push), and smart campaigns to name a few. There is an optional a...

Product: This is your product or platfrom (e.g. Salesforce Sales Cloud) Feature: This is a specific part of the platfrom that customers can use (e.g. Contacts, Leads, Accounts, Opportunities) Solution: This is a use case for your product - by need, industry, or persona (e.g. I need to track sales, SFDC for Financial Services, SFDC for VP of Sales)

It's a difference with little distinction. From a buyer's POV it's the thing that solves their problem or satisfies their need.  Some sales VPs want to use the word 'solution' because they believe they can sell bigger deals. OK. Whatever. The underlying thrust of using the world 'solution' is because it gets everyone thinking about problems. As in we have a 'solution' to 'problem X'. 

Interesting question for sure. I feel that most of these answers do a great job of highlighting the distinction, but something I would add is that the product is essentially the vehicle for the solution. You can't have a solution without a product, but you can have a product that doesn't offer a solution.  A feature is merely an additional part of the product that may create a quicker solution, a new type of solution, or just be a meaningless add-on.  Of course, there is a lot of contextual elements that go into this, but I would say that the summation of these answers gives you a cle...

It's easy to use the words product, feature, and solution as different options. As product marketers, it's important for us to understand the subtle differences. * A feature is the smallest element or component that solves a specific job.  * A product includes a set of core features and functionality that solves for unique needs.  * A solution solves a business need and is typically tied to a target segment by market size and/or industry.

The distinctions between what is a product, feature, and solution can be somewhat subjective and can vary depending on the specific context and perspective. My POV: * A product can be thought of as a standalone offering that provides value to the customer and can be sold and delivered independently.  * A feature is a specific component or aspect of a product that provides a specific benefit or capability, and is typically part of a larger product offering.  * A solution is a combination of products, features, and services that addresses a specific customer need or challeng...

Great question! You actually squeezed 3 topics in here, which are all inter-related and important to buyer journey maps. In my experience, I start with segmenting my audience (total addressable market by country, company, vertical/industry, etc), identifying personas within my target audience (buyer/user), mapping the journeys for each persona, and then testing which content formats/channels work best. This means if I'm selling to Enterprises vs. mid-sized companies, IT vs. Finance buyers, I should understand the different journeys, budgets, and decision making processes and plan my content...

I'd first understand the personas you are targeting-what problems do they have, how do they like to consume materials and find answers to their problems. You can have multiple personas, but for your home page, I'd stick to just one clear message that describes what problem you solve for your target persona. This is a good resource I've stumbled upon recently - Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller.  Using SEO optimization, digital advertising and sales outbounding, you can focus on other personas and direct them to landing pages and content that is specific for them.  In thinking th...

What an exciting opportunity this is for you! I’m thrilled that you’ve earned this chance. When I joined Hims & Hers, I was in this exact position where I got to build out the Product Marketing team from scratch. It was one of the most valuable learning experiences of my career so far. Your list of questions is great. If you’re able to get through all of these in the time you have allotted with the founders, that’s fantastic. You might find that the answers to these can be substantive, though, so you may need to prioritize the highest leverage questions that will give you the most inform...

1. What is your mandate for product marketing ? Note: Open ended question. Really important to hear the founders vision behind this function. Always a best practice to start with open ended questions 2. 12 months from now, how will I know that I am doing an amazing job ? Note: This is a take on the common question - what does success look like ? I suggest keeping a defined timeline of say 6 or 12 months. Also, the words “amazing job” or “knocking it out of the park” is a way to demonstrate that you want to be very successful in this role 3. Who will I be reporting to ? (options coul...

I wouldn't look at asking "mandatory" questions but rather asking them what their vision is for the product marketing function and coming to a mutual understanding of what product marketing does and doesn't do. I'd guide the discussion with a visual and/ or data (a couple of useful links below). Agree on a 30-60-90 day plan and success metrics. Agreeing on positioning and messaging should be a top priority. Leave with a process and hopefully time set up for your first discussion.  Gartner eBook on product marketing priorities: https://www.gartner.com/en/industries/high-tech/tech-marke...

This feels to me like a loaded question and I'd love to hear more background in order to answer better. Are you "interviewing" leadership before joining the company or are you asking about how to approach them on a day-to-day while building the function or something else? The answer is different at every stage. 

I have taken the certification offered by Pragmatic institute foundations and launch certification. I found them to be good courses for PMMs in enterprise companies. They have used their generic framework for GTM. I got some clarity on a few concepts, but overall I was expecting to come back with many more actionable frameworks, learnings from instructors' experiences. I am looking to engage with an alternative program that may be focused on PLG and low touch sales programs where we can learn about how marketing has influenced growth more comprehensively.

I am aware of just a few 1. Pragmatic institute - I took it. However, I found that to be specific to B2B enterprise sales. 2. 280 Group: I recently found out about this institute, I am looking to connect with someone who has been to this program. 3. AIPMM: Seems to offer courses similar to Pragmatic Institute. I am looking to connect with someone who has been to this program to understand more. Outside of these, I am looking for more engaging courses, especially where we can learn how to influence PLG in low touch product environments, and contribute to strategy comprehensively.

I am not aware of any one key certification for product marketers. I work with PMMs that come from backgrounds in campaigns, sales, engineering, and product management. Each of those backgrounds lend themselves to a specific function in product marketing.  In my experience, there are three types of product marketers:  1. Technical PMM 2. Market Programs PMM 3. Go-to-Market PMM.  An aspiring product marketer should identify their entry point into one of the aforementioned functions. If there was one skill that unites each type of PMM, it is their ability to diagnose a market, create ...

I'm a little biased here, but I don't believe that there are courses or certifications that are a prerequisite or requirement to jumping into product marketing. If you haven't done any marketing before, or worked alongside a good marketing team, Pragmatic Marketing by the Pragmatic Institute is a solid framework for twisting your head around what marketing is really about.  But the best way to learn is on the job. If you have a PMM function at your current company, get to know them. Ask about what they're working on, why it's important. What are the biggest challenges they're trying to o...

Courses, certifications, and books can definitely help transition into product marketing, but the best way to learn is by doing. I would see if there are side projects you can take on with the PMM team, in addition to self-driven learning.  For courses and certifications: * I typically recommend the Product Marketing Alliance: https://www.productmarketingalliance.com. They have a variety of programs depending on how broad or narrow you want to go, and how much time you have.  * I've also had great experience with General Assembly (https://generalassemb.ly); depending on your ...

* Regular catch-ups (1-on-1s): These are important opportunities for specific line-of-business (LOB) / product leads to share top priorities & initiatives with those who operate more cross-functionally across PMM, and vice versa. In addition to 1:1s, these can also be in the form of quarterly roadshows between partnering teams.  * Regular readouts (1-to-many): Whether its giving visibility into the planned campaign calendar, or sharing recent research, finding a cadence and channel to regularly socialize the work being done across different teams within PMM helps cros...

This is a common model at enterprise focused companies. . I can share a bit from my experience at Microsoft and Qualtrics  First- the industry PMM is the subject matter expert on that industry. They know the industry buyers, trends, competitive dynamics, pain points, use cases uniquely well. They are closest to the industry's customers, in-charge of those industry specific advisory boards and case studies, spend more time with industry specific sales teams (assuming there is some specialization there). The entire company needs to recognize this expertise Second- we built deep collabor...

This is something we would like to get better at within our team. We aspire to be persona-led and data-driven, but don’t have processes/tools in place to perform the right testing for messaging and positioning. Today, we are able to test messaging and positioning with the sales teams(joining customer calls for customer feedback), Customer advisory board. We have identified champions across sales, presales, etc. for focus areas or use cases (by solutions/products/industries) to help us test the messaging with biweekly guild meetings. We would like to put more processes and conduct surveys to...

100%. It’s a great option when you either 1) don’t have a direction and need to narrow your field of view or 2) you have very similar finalists for messaging and are hoping to choose a winner. Note that surveys rarely have crystal clear results. You’ll still need some amount of qualitative or other insights to help you make a final choice.

Yes! We can and we do - surveys, interviews, localization checks, experimentation, and instructor advisory boards. Some of these are a heavier lift than others, so it’s important to ensure you are really thoughtful to marry the content and desired outcome to the testing approach, to ensure you can glean as much actionable data as possible.

Sure do! I like to start with some qualitative research first to help get at any nuances in messaging, especially across different audience segments. Then, run a survey (max diff is a great technique) to understand what resonates most with your different segments. If you also have the budget and/or time, running your messaging by focus groups is another good option, so you can get a deeper understanding of their reactions and sentiment.

All the time! Again, I'm lucky to be a product marketing leader working on a market research product, so I have unlimited access to our own message testing solutions. We approach quatitative message testing a couple different ways: - Our live marketing assets provide a great testing ground for messaging: you can A/B test things like ad copy and email subject lines and copy. Click-through rates can be a great indicator of what resonates. (Keep the visuals the same so you know results are only related to the copy/messaging itself) - We also run copy tests on high-traffic webpages, like o...

Yes! Glassdoor, under the leadership of Bonnie (Head of Market Insights), established two market research online communities (MROC): one for consumers (B2C) and one for customers (B2B). We regularly field message tests to these two research communities to get quick, detailed feedback on messaging. This is what Bonnie had to say about MROCs: 1. MROCs make message testing easy, efficient, and effective! Once your online community is fully recruited, you can send them a survey and usually get a sufficient number of responses back within 48 hours. Automatic reporting dashboards ma...

Where to start? Every company has different policies for promotion criteria, but ultimately it needs to take into account 2 things: merit and business need. Business need has to come first. It means that there's a larger scope of a role that needs to be done - more responsibility and complexity within an org / team - and there's now an opportunity or need for someone to fill that. If that doesn't exist, promotions shouldn't be happening arbitrarily. I recongize that especially within startups, individual contributors want to grow and should be recognized for their efforts, but when merit su...

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have become a popular way for companies to clearly define goals and measure progress against them, at the employee, team, and company level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR There's lots written about these that you can reference elsewhere, but it's a really helpful frame work that allows you to measure, quantitatively and qualitatively, how you're tracking against the "key results" that you've defined. The common expectation is that you'll hit about 70% of your OKRs - idea is that you're including stretch goals so missing 20-30% doens't mean you're perfo...

If you're on this forum as a PMM, you know that one of the biggest challenges for the PMM org is "What the hell do we measure!?" - an age-old conundrum that PMMs always struggle with. This is especially pronouned in an enterprise B2B environment vs. a fast-moving B2C environment where immediate usage/feedback may be available.  To me, the most primary thing I'm looking for is how effective the person is in relationship/ stakeholder management. In Product Marketing, you have many constituents across Sales, Product, and customer teams, as well as within Marketing itself. It's easy to get p...

This varies by company and role, but I generally think about the path to promotion on the two key vectors: ownership level and degree of autonomy.  Strong performance against OKRs or KPIs is a core underpinning to that. When considering promotion I start there and then look at how the person has demonstrated rising levels of ownership and autonomy across the following: * Strategic Direction: As an associate, I'd expect you to own a feature set fully and demonstrate the ability to bring insights into the go-to-market under direction. As you rise in the organization, I'd expect you...

The best way for a product marketer to get promoted is by demonstrating the impact of their work. To do this, I incentivize all my PMMs to befriend data and tie their deliverables to key business and customer metrics.  To me, the two most important categories of metrics are: 1) Customer insights a. Number of actionable insights that helped drive product development b. Number of actionable insights that informed a business strategy/service 2) Customer engagement a. Product adoption: This is the % of customers that adopted a new service or product launched by PMM. b. Customer lifet...

I'm not a fan of connecting metrics to promotions for a role like product marketing becuase there are so many other dependencies that can't be controlled. Rather I like to establish some expectations of responsibility for each seniority level. Seniority levels can usually be attached to the level of responsiblity you can assign someone. Can they run a launch end to end? Can they take a new offer to market? You can use success of some of those outputs to make a determination of how and when to promote.

PMMs often are measured by output, since most of what we provide are tied to other metrics. I would focus on delivering tangible assets on a regular cadence (case studies, one-pagers, pitch decks, etc) and in parallel - measuring utilization metrics like: product activation, MAUs, reactivations, attach rate, conversion velocity etc. These two streams (tangible output + metrics) cover your bases, establish influence and prove growth (worthy of promotion).

From a messaging perspective, you need to consider what's the "1+1=3" story. Part of this entails understanding when in the funnel to message on platform/solution-level benefits vs. more product-specific benefits, i.e. developing campaign messaging hierarchy so there's a red thread narrative that ties it all together. This also needs to be reflected in a holistic approach to pricing & packaging, otherwise you risk the perception of nickel & diming your customers with add-ons. Consider campaign messaging frequency -- Look to optimize the customer experience by streamlining communication, in...

Category creation is a unique messaging and positioning initiative when your startup is providing a differentiated value that doesn’t exist in the industry today. When I think about new markets like the subscription economy or SaaS platforms, these categories didn’t exist a few decades ago.  Every startup should look at existing categories and NOT try to fit into a category if that isn’t the value for customers. Often times, customer advisory boards help guide and share perspectives on the ecosystem and act as a sounding board for value creation for a new category.

In my experience, category creation requires two things at the start: * Point of View - which articulates your perspective on the problem(s) your target market is looking to solve [why is the problem worth solving, what are the key steps in solving the problem, what kind of tech solutions will help you to solve the problem].  * Positioning - which articulates your unique value proposition for your target market The messages and stories that flow from this become the basis for your campaigns. Generally, you’ll create thought leadership content designed to educate the market ...

Winning your category and taking control of it can be a super powerful strategy. However, I think too many go straight to creating a new category. We should first strongly consider how we can redesign a category that exists and win by renewing how people think about the category. Category creation isn’t for everyone. It is really hard to do. While it can be powerful, it can also be really difficult to pull off, take a long time, get expensive, and become a major distraction for your team if it’s not the right approach. I have seen a lot more success with redefining a category that has ol...

If you're building demand for a new category, it's ideal that there's runway for a platform and not just a handful of features. Can you start in one area that you're uniquely positioned to own and then grow to serve different sizes of customers (SMB to mid-market to enterprise) or different stages (expand from checkout to post-purchase or discovery)?  It's important to prioritize where to focus initially and where to expand. Internal prioritization is great, and don't forget to talk to customers and prospects so you can understand where the demand is and where needs are unmet.

I came from a background in brand and so my natural instincts served me most well on the outbound side of product marketing. I had my fair share of imposter syndrom in the early days when I looked at my peers and realized that I'd never done the traditional inbound work of a PMM. I spent more time than I should have in those early days being afraid to ask for fear of not being able to meet the bar. It took building a relationship with a peer whose work I admired to admit that I was really learning on the fly and to my surprise, they were too!  We all have strengths and areas where we ...

I spent a lot of time in my early career worrying about getting to the next promotion and how I was progressing versus my peers. Looking back now, this was all wasted energy. I wish I had been more focused on learning and picking up as many skills and experiences as possible. I also wish I had been less worried about making mistakes. I think I would have been able to take more risks and push myself to try new things that would have ultimately helped me to build more skills. I also wish I knew how to prioritize better early in my career. I worked a lot of late nights and weekends in my earl...

One thing I wish I learned earlier is the most powerful product marketing you can do is always centered on a shared human truth. When I look back on my very early PMM GTM work, I focused primarily on communicating about the product and the benefit derived from the features themselves. But the product features, however innovative, were only half the story. Connecting the Product to the Customer Need is where the true magic lies. Find the truth we all share (an experience, an emotion) and connect that to the new experience the product provides -- that’s where your message takes on real meanin...

There is one key learning: Actively plan & manage your development. Here is what is involved: * Know the menu: Since Product Marketing is such a broad discipline, its important to understand the various functional competenices that comprise it. This way, you can assess where you have strengths and where you want to develop. These competenices span target segmentation definition, messaging & positioning, content development, sales enablement, pricing/packaging, PR/AR and more, they are quite different and require different skills. * The market will evolve: There are als...

When you're starting out your career as a PMM, it is very important to remember that your value promise is to customers and not internal stakeholders. I don't mean to say that internal alignment and buy-in isn't important but it should never take priority over serving your customers. In my early days, I spend 80% of my time trying to understand what were the needs of my internal stakeholders and ensuring I was supporting them fully, leaving little focus on the customer. The moment I started prioritizing customer needs over internal stakeholder needs, when I started to champion customers int...

* Don't box yourself, ever!  * Don't always stick to how things are always done.  * And ask questions more.  * And observe and take notes.  * And don't pretend to know it all!  Here's the thing: When you are early in your career, you are often embarrassed to ask questions or ask "why?" But asking those questions more would help you understand things wayyyyy better. Some of my best learnings have come from asking questions to understand things better. Think about it — if you can't understand a feature as a marketer, chances are that your customers won't. That's your biggest advantage; ...

As someone with a tech background and self-education in marketing, I learn everything in practice. I wish I knew more about the importance of user research and CI at the beginning of my PMM journey: - User research: back in 2015, we released our first startup product which dramatically failed. We spent one year of development without proper user research, without defining the customer journey, or even having personas. That taught me the importance of knowing your users and their needs :) - Constant competitive analysis: somewhere in 2018 a competitor copied our startup features and ad...