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Platform and Solutions Product Marketing
Platform and Solutions Product Marketing
7 answers
Sr. Director, Head of Product Marketing, DoorDash • March 31
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 ...
Head of Talent Acquisition, Strategy & Operations, Asana • October 15
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...
Senior Director, Product Marketing, Instacart • June 2
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...
Chief Marketing Officer, Zeplin • July 7
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...
Vice President of Marketing, Albertsons Companies • March 24
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...
VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • August 9
* 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; ...
Head of Product Marketing, LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • August 16
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...
4 answers
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.
Vice President, Product Marketing, Braze • March 10
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 ...
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki, Cisco | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • August 16
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...
3 answers
Vice President of Marketing, Albertsons Companies • March 24
The most important thing you should expect from your new manager when you first
join an organization is a detailed onboarding document with a 90-day plan. The
document should provide background information on the company, industries, and
competitors with links to source files and documents. It should also outline the
company’s vision, the annual operating plan for the business and the department
OKRs or goals.
As part of your orientation plan, your boss should identify a list of key
individuals for you to meet with topics to cover in each meeting. The document
should also contain links ...
Director Product Marketing, SAP • June 10
Every time I join a new organization, I ask for the same things:
* List of key contacts in the sales, marketing, and product teams
* Key buyer/user personas
* Existing product materials
* KPIs for the team
From there I construct a 30-60-90 day plan to meet people, learn the products,
and craft a strategy for the products that will lead to measurable success.
VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • August 9
I am familiar with this situation as I was here not too long ago. ;) Here's what
worked well for me:
* As a new leader, establish your 30-60-90 days goals with your manager. Align
on the big bets, so there are no big surprises.
* You are also likely to re-org the team to make it more efficient. Chances are
that your manager might also have a few thoughts/ideas. Pick their brain
earlier to understand more, so it can influence your plans.
* Ask your manager for the critical stakeholders for you to build relationships
across the organization and genuinely pursue that.
* As...
3 answers
Vice President of Marketing, Albertsons Companies • March 24
Product marketing is the process of taking the right product to the right market
with the right narrative to the right audience and at the right time. More
specifically, a product marketer is the voice of the customer, helping
organizations uncover insights that can inform product and marketing plans. The
best way for you to convey the value of PMM is to fight for your customers. A
lot of times, PMMs will face the dilemma of supporting internal goals vs meeting
external customer needs. No matter what, always represent your customer
interests, be their voice internally. It may make you feel ...
Director Product Marketing, SAP • June 10
In smaller organizations, I've found this is much harder. The marketing team,
sales team, and product team might all sit very close to each other. Small
organizations essentially require everyone to have a technical/product expertise
that just doesn't happen in larger orgs. The sales teams will just ask the PM
directly, and the marketing teams will focus on the key messaging for the
product(s) that drive the company.
As the company grows, the roles required within marketing, sales, and product
get more specialized and the spaces between them grow. There might be multiple
products, geogra...
VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • August 9
Product marketing is the core of any organization. We are the product experts,
which means:
* We work closely with the demand gen teams to create compelling ads in the
market.
* We partner with the awareness teams to hype the product / upcoming features.
* We align with the product teams on feature prioritization and the right
short-term and long-term product strategy.
* We work with the field to arm the sellers with the latest product innovation
and how to sell them.
* We work with the AR and PR teams to ensure we stay relevant in the market.
Can you name another team t...
8 answers
Director of Brand and Product Marketing, Twilio.org, Twilio • July 16
You nailed why platform products are difficult to message. This is also why I
think they are more fun than working on “point solutions.” (Please forgive me
for using that heinous jargon.)
In the best-case scenario, you can identify an overarching value proposition for
using the platform that resonates with your primary audience and helps them
quickly understand the space you’re in. Then you prioritize use cases/solutions
based on how frequently customers adopt them or their revenue value to your
company. You want to make it easy for each customer group to be able to find the
relevant use...
Director of Product Management, Speech and Video AI, Cisco • August 2
Thank you for some wonderful frameworks and inputs on messaging and positioning.
I have seen a trend especially across many segments - particularly in enterprise
- to move from products to solutions to platforms. I had written a blog last
year what that means, especially if the goal is to position a "platform" versus
point products or point solutions.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/products-solutions-ecosystems-why-what-how-savita-kini/
In order for a "true platform" -- there needs to be an ecosystem approach in the
go-to-market where you can allow other companies / startups/ISVs to build...
Senior Director of Corporate Marketing, Handshake • October 29
This will depend on what your product/service/platform does and who the target
audience is. For instance, in one of my previous roles, we had one product for
one audience. Of course the platform was extensible, had different feature sets,
but the value was easy to articulate to one audience. On the other hand, in my
current role at Handshake, we have a three-sided talent marketplace with very
different products and audiences. We tackle this by having one company value
prop and then tailor specific messaging to each side of the business.
Remember that messaging should not be a feature list....
Often times, we say our platform has unlimited possibilities, it's the art of
the possible -- because it truly is. But it doesn’t help the customer understand
our unique differentiator vs any other option in the market. Starting with
themes has been helpful to simplify the messaging hierarchy. We need to simplify
the message, so it’s memorable. If we cannot do that, no matter how great the
messaging sounds, it will be forgotten the next second.
We developed a messaging and positioning framework to help articulate customer
needs and our value proposition across 4 main themes - Connect, Mode...
Head of Marketing, Retool • December 19
We now offer upwards of a dozen products on the Stripe platform that go way
beyond payments processing—from products for incorporation and billing
management to fraud prevention and managing corporate spending. To manage the
growing complexity, we introduced the concept of Anchor Tenants at Stripe this
year. (This term comes from American malls, where there may be a large store
that draws customers and traffic for the smaller stores.)
For us, those are our core products: Payments (payments acceptance), Connect
(marketplaces and platforms), and Billing (recurring revenue and invoicing).
The...
Head Of Product Marketing, 3Gtms • February 27
I generally look at it like this: Use Case -> Business Case -> Story.
Starting with the use cases, I think about what people actually do with this
platform (cue the "two Bobs" from "Office Space"). Then I think about how those
capabilities translate into solutions to real problems, as different
stakeholders experience them (that last part is absolutely critical, by the
way). Those are my business cases.
Once I have my business cases, I can do one of two things. Either, I can see
that one, more than any other, represents the primary value of the product, both
now and likely into the f...
Developer Marketing Lead, Google Assistant, Google | Formerly DocuSign • January 18
In my opinion, the most important thing in prioritizing your messaging is
finding the common denominator across your platform. Does it create a new
output, or solve a new problem, or enable a new style of working, for example.
Then you prioritize that in your messaging hierarchy, and use the various things
that your platform does as means to support that new narrative. For example,
DocuSign's platform is composed of our ecosystem, our developer tools, our
foundational infrastructure and our security and compliance. It allows a
customer to control their own roadmap for agreements, because cu...
VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • August 9
Great question! You can consider your target buyers and prioritize messaging
based on your top personas. This will help your field tremendously too. You can
also identify common customer outcomes and make sure you map your buyers to
expected outcomes to the general vision of the platform. Aligning all of this
will help you really synthesize the top value prop of your platform.
8 answers
VP Marketing, Cameo | Formerly Uber, Fivestars, Electronic Arts • December 12
Great question! I think about this one a lot...First off, it’s important to
callout that there is no perfect org structure :)
In general, you have to identify what you’re optimizing towards and what
structure will give you the highest chance to get there. For Eats PMM, we’ve
always kept a fairly tight PMM to PM relationship, so we map PMMs directly to
their Product counterparts.
Product is broken down by audience - ie., Consumer, Restaurant, Delivery Person
so we have leads within each audience and typically, sub-groups within that
focus on either Growth (getting users from 0 → 1 tr...
Senior Product Marketing Manager, HomeLight • January 16
This all comes down to how is the rest of the business organized. If you're
organizing in a way that's incongrous to everyone else in the org, you will not
be setup for success. With smaller nimble teams it's likely just based on
bandwith and who has room to take things on. With larger teams, or as a team is
being built out, it's best to align with your core cross-functional partners
such as Product. There is usually overlap with PMMs working with 2-3 PMs. I've
organized teams by product area in the past which aligned well to how Product
was organized.
Director, PMM - Support & Platform, Intercom • November 8
In general, PMM roles at Intercom are more of the 'full stack' variety - i.e we
cover the whole journey from feeding into the roadmap to launch, including
competitive research, buyer/persona/market research, GTM strategy, positioning
and messaging, enablement, launch planning etc.
Our team sits in marketing and reports into a Senior Director of PMM. Our team
structure has shifted several times in the time I've been here, based on changes
to the company strategy, product team structure and where we most need to focus
resources,. Currently, we're split into 3 'groups' based primarily around
...
Head of Marketing, Cloud Enterprise & Platform, Atlassian • December 22
The structure of the PMM team is usually a function of the size of the company
and it’s GTM model. The “typical” SaaS PMM team has a set of Core PMMs that are
focused on product, and usually a sister PMM team in the form of
Industry/Solutions Marketing that is focused on solutions for specific verticals
or segments.
At Atlassian, since we have a flywheel model, PMMs have a lot more focus on
activities that deal with acquisition (self-serve), cross-sell, and upsell. So
while our PMM teams are organized by product (e.g. Jira, Confluence, etc.)
individual PMMs on a product team can focus on c...
The PMM team structure depends on the size of the company, how technical the
product is, and the GTM model.
* Company Size: As the company grows and scales, PMM tends to fall under the
Marketing org and they may segmented by Core Product PMMs where they focus on
the overall messaging and positioning, Industry/Solution PMMs that focus use
cases for those specific industries ,and solution areas, and there may be
PMMs that will focus solely on sales enablement, competitive intelligence, or
pricing. For smaller companies, PMM teams will play a more 'full stack' PMM
role. For...
VP of Product Marketing, Oyster® • September 28
Our team is structured by audience type and discipline. We have one part of the
team focused on our end users and prospects, another part of the team is focused
on our partners, and a third on market research and market strategy. That said,
I strongly believe it's important for PMM teams at hypergrowth companies to be
nimble in terms of their structure and be willing to redefine roles and
responsibilities as company strategy and the needs of the business shift over
time.
Developer Marketing Lead, Google Assistant, Google | Formerly DocuSign • January 25
At DocuSign, there are product marketers across our main product categories, as
well as industry and audience teams. Every company I've ever worked at has
grouped their teams differently, so I tend to consider new roles based on
mapping skills to company needs. If the largest TAM is in a vertical that is
specialized, perhaps you'll need an industry PMM. If the biggest gap in company
need is relative to product launch materials, maybe you need someone focused on
building a great bill of materials. Etc.
VP of Product Marketing, Salesforce • August 9
I've done it in so many different ways! Few quick pointers:
* The most important thing is to ensure every team member has a good swim lane
and growth path.
* Take your revenue goal and slice that evenly across the team to see what
makes the most sense — product line, segment, or objective.
* If you have a big product organization, try aligning your team with leaders.
This will help you ensure PM-PMM alignment for a stronger product strategy.
* If you have several SKUs/product lines, it might be worthwhile to have a
person or a team dedicated to overall messaging and nar...
9 answers
Global Head of PMM and Content Marketing, TIDAL, Square • March 24
I don't actually use market research for that, is the short answer. If we
believe that our solution is well suited for a particular vertical, we have the
budget to invest in GTM to capture business in this vertical, and the vertical
is fragmented / doesn't have a real clear winner, we will go for it.
Additionally, you should look at your own customer data and overlay it with your
product. For example, if Square is has developed a number of features that are
suited for Restaurants, we will prioritize this vertical. If after a couple of
months we are not well penetrated here, we have a pr...
Product and marketing consultant, former industry strategy PMM at Adobe, Founding Team and VP PMM at Livefyre (acquired by Adobe), Adobe • December 29
There are a few questions you need to answer to determine if it's worth
targeting this new vertical:
- Do you have product-market fit? Are you solving a real problem for this
vertical?
- What is the size of the market opportunity for this vertical? How will it grow
over time? (their industry growth and your product growth) How does it compare
to markets you are doing well in?
- How similar is the vertical to existing verticals where you have success?
Would you have to do much to change your value proposition or messaging?
- Are there known competitors targeting this vertical? How do you...
Vice President Product Marketing, Amplitude • February 4
Ensure verticalization aligns well with core competencies, market perception,
ability to deliver and differentiation. If you do not clearly understand the
definition of the target vertical, the trends in that vertical’s consumer or
enterprise user market as well as the size of the opportunity, it will cause
internal and ultimately market confusion that hinders speed and success.
Assuming that you've determined this is an attractive vertical to pursue, here
is a list to consider at the onset of prioritizing verticals and viability of
entrance:
- Current capabilities (such as how capable...
Senior Director, Product Marketing, Twilio • December 2
When looking to identify target verticals, I always prefer a data driven
approach. I'd work up a detailed analysis exercise and build a vertical based
TAM. I have a go-to bubble chart that I like to develop which is based on the
growth rate of each (CAGR, y axis) vs the revenue opportunity (x axis). It gives
you an easy visual that shows where the optimal use cases/verticals will be - up
and to the right.
Here are some other questions you can ask to focus your efforts:
1. Do we know how much revenue opportunity is out there in the key verticals?
2. What are the top five verticals based...
Developer Marketing Lead, Google Assistant, Google | Formerly DocuSign • January 19
Market research is a pretty valuable data point in terms of prioritizing
verticals (or any other segmentation slice), but so too is your product
ownership point of view and your internal usage data. So you don't need to lean
on external research, but it can certainly augment your other efforts. I think
there's value in looking at 1p, 2p and 3p input sources in coordination with
each other.
Where we have used external research towards our segmentation processes is when
we do message testing measured across different user groups and then review any
consideration or preference gains we see ac...
Head of Product Marketing, VR Work Experiences, Oculus, Meta • February 3
Instead of a "vertical focus" go forward with a New Audience focus so you can
leverage the 5A GTM framework , and ensure you're thinking through a consumers'
need.
Also, if you focus on a new user, you can also employ the "Job to be done"
framework, which can help narrow what the customer really wants to get done and
how your product can satiate that need. After you establish those jobs (UXR) you
can use market research and even analytics to scale out the size of these jobs
and what could bring in the most users. Always put people first.
Market research, user research and analytics (dat...
Head of Product Marketing - Security, Integrations, Mobile, Salesforce • April 4
Making the assumption here that vertical = industry.
1. Industry definition - which taxonomy are you using. NAICS, SIC, propietary,
DUNS, Clearbit? This is important because there is a lot of nuance hidden in
sub-verticals, so getting your language aligned is key
2. TAM - what is the actual addressable market for your product or portfolio or
launch? This can be based on historical win rates by industry/sub industry
for an existing product, or can be based on focus groups/survey data of your
prospect base (how likely are you to buy X)
3. Product market fit - what are ...
Vice President of Product Marketing, GitLab • July 12
I believe that market insights are the #1 core product marketing capability.
Literally everything – from positioning and messaging to the products and
capabilities you deliver to the market – flows from insights that you generate
via smart, well-run market research.
I’ve worked on dozens of products at every stage of maturity and, while most of
these can be applied horizontally across several industries, it has been helpful
to leverage market research to identify which verticals to target and how to
tailor my positioning strategy. This type of insight has been beneficial as I
move a prod...
Group Manager, Product Marketing, Lyra Health • August 1
Market research is near and dear to my heart and at the core of any strong
product and go-to-market plan. I have many examples of how you can use research
to inform vertical strategy, but my first tip is to just get started. If you are
on a small but mighty PMM team (or perhaps you're the only PMM), any data is
better than none.
Verticals might mean prioritizing based on industry, company size, persona (or
often a combination). I recommend trying to define what an early adopter looks
like in your industry and prioritizing them early. My experience is primarily in
B2B, but much of this ...
11 answers
Head of Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing, Airtable • October 8
Everyone’s definition of soft and hard skills differs, but here are the nine
skills that I think are the most important for a product marketer to have. I've
used these skills as a compass to help me grow in my own career and have turned
them into a success guide for my team at Envoy to use:
Soft skills:
* Cross-functional excellence: As a PMM, you have the opportunity to lead
without being a manager of people. A strong product marketer is someone who
takes others along with them, rather than telling people exactly what they
want them to do. They’re able to create strong relation...
Vice President, Product Marketing, Braze • March 10
The number one skill is influencing without authority. More specifically,
influencing authority in a matrixed organization. By design, product marketing
sits at the intersection of a multitude of functions, each with their individual
KPIs. Your job is to balance the needs of your various stakeholders to drive
revenue and adoption for your product(s). If your company has one product, then
this task may be fairly straight forward. If your company has multiple products
or multiple portfolios, then the task becomes exponentially harder.
The most important hard skills are positioning and mess...
Sr. Director, Head of Product Marketing, DoorDash • March 31
Hard skills may vary by company, but I think there are two that are critical:
* Insights. Know the difference between an anecdote and an insight. This is
especially critical when you work on a service at scale. Your best (and
sometimes most challenging) users tend to be the loudest, so make sure that
you're helping the team hear from a diverse array of customer voices. I find
that one of the most important parts of any study is the recruit/target
audience. Spend time getting the team aligned on who you're going to hear
from.
* Analytics. Spend time not just understandin...
Head of Product Marketing, Nextdoor • January 13
Top 3 Soft skills
* Be collaborative: Be open to new ideas, raise your hand to help, lean in to
new areas, and have fun while doing it.
* Build strong relationships: Invest in your cross functional partners, get to
know them personally and professionally, know what is most important to
them.
* Develop a point of view, clearly communicate your point of view, and
influence others with your point of view
Top 3 Hard skills
* Analytical <-> Creative: Navigate this spectrum to be both analytical and
creative in your problem solving, go to markets, and develop recommendati...
VP of Product Marketing, Observe.AI | Formerly Clari, Vendavo, Amdocs • January 27
Strong PMMs are good writers, know their product inside and out, experts of the
competitive landscape, messaging geniuses and storytellers, BFFs with the sales
team, GTM architects and excellent project managers. I like to think about a
good PMM as a:
* A psychologist who can develop a deep understanding of the fears,
aspirations, hopes, and dreams of buyers and target personas.
* An explorer seeking to learn more, discover more, and do more; bringing
curiosity and some risk taking to product messaging and positioning.
* A teacher who can inspire an audience with subject matter k...
Senior Director, Product Marketing, Instacart • June 2
PMMs are (and need to be) masters at many things but if I had to pick the most
important:
1. (Soft) Cross-functional Collaboration: PMM is a highly cross-functional
role. On any given project, you’ll work with Product, Design, Engineering,
Research, Marketing Channel Experts, Operations, Legal… and the list goes
on. A product campaign can’t get done without many partnerships. So you have
to be great at working across different teams and getting them to share in
your goals.
2. (Hard) Data Driven: Product and business decisions are most times made based
on quanti...
VP of Marketing, Blueocean.ai • July 8
1. Messaging and storytelling: this continues to be the hallmark of a great
PMM. In particular, really leaning in on differentiation and value to the
customer (not speeds and feeds) while also simplifying concepts down in a
memorable way that makes it easy for sales to land, marketing to build copy
and content, and ultimately, the customer to understand. I sometimes joke
that PMMs like ALL the words...but we don't need to use them ALL the time.
Being able to really tell a compelling story that connects with the
customer, and romances the product in the way that ...
Head of Product Marketing, Prove • September 7
One of the main skills I see to success in PMM im Empathy. Empathy in the sense
of being able to to put yourself in other people's shoes. You are the customer
and market advocate internallt and the product advocate externally, so
understanding those different perspectives can help a LOT in any PMM materials
you are developing, from slides to demos to websites to campaigns.
Vice President of Marketing, Albertsons Companies • March 24
Successful product marketers are both right and left brained. Thus, in addition
to the hard skills, they must possess soft skills to rally teams behind their
ideas.
There are five fundamental soft skills that product marketers must demonstrate:
* Passion
* Adaptability
* Cross-functional leadership
* Prioritization
* Executive presence
I wrote a blog post about these key PMM soft skills here.
For Hard Skills, from my experience the most important skills are:
1. Market Sizing - Total Addressable Market (TAM)
2. Customer Segmentation
3. Narrative Design
4. Go-to-Market Strategy...
Director, Product Marketing, Gong.io | Formerly Salesforce, GE • April 13
I talked about soft skills in another question, so let's laser focus on the hard
skills needed to succeed in PMM here. Here are 3 hard skills you can focus on
right now:
1. Data-Driven Decision Making: I actually teach a dedicated course on this
topic at Loyola Chicago because I believe in it so much! Data helps with
identifying and speaking to your target audience, defining the value of your
product and ROI, market sizing, predicting buyer behavior, validating success in
the market, and so much more. Even if you don't fancy yourself a "numbers
person" - it is important to get into eno...
Director Product Marketing, SAP • June 10
This is an interesting question. In my experience, the most important soft
skills needed for PMMs are influence management, and public speaking skills.
Influence management would be getting people from outside of your department or
team to work on your project. Good influence management is not just asking
people to help, but making sure they understand the value of the work they're
doing. If someone says they can't help, going to their manager to help with
priorities needs to be done with a soft touch. Being a tyrant to get your
projects done won't get you far in the long term.
Pu...
1 answer
Director of Product Marketing, Indeed • July 25
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...
6 answers
PMO, TikTok • August 13
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...
Director of Product Marketing, Zenput • March 23
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...
VP of Growth, Verifiable • March 26
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...
Sr. Director, Head of Product Marketing, DoorDash • March 31
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...
Vice President of Marketing, Albertsons Companies • March 24
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.