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
Influencing the C-Suite
10 answers
Head of Marketing at Discord | Formerly Uber, Fivestars, Electronic Arts • December 13
Product Marketing Lead at Atlassian • January 17
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 te
Director, Product Marketing at Intercom • November 11
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 re
Head of Product Marketing, Platform & Commerce at Atlassian • December 23
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
Product Marketing at Fiddler AI • March 17
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 an
VP of Product Marketing at Oyster® • September 30
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
Product Marketing Lead at 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
Vice President Product Marketing at Salesforce • August 12
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 evenl
Sendbird is an in-app conversations platform, where we help improve customer
retention and conversion through chat, voice, video, and livestream APIs. Our
team is structured as follows: GTM excellenc
Former CMO at Dejero | Formerly ON Semiconductor • February 24
It depends on multiple factors, as others have pointed out, including company
size, number of markets served, number of products/solutions, GTM model, and
alignment with the rest of the organization (
2 answers
Vice President, Marketing at Glassdoor • March 18
It starts with making sure the c-suite knows where you fit in to business
outcomes. What are your OKR’s for the quarter, for the year? Is there a straight
line between your priorities and the key oppo
See my other answer on frameworks for building intluence with stakeholders.
Influencing the c-suite to get resources is about influencing the c-suite, which
is really about influence, period. Think
1 answer
Influencing any stakeholder (whether internal or external) comes down to two
factors. Think of any stakeholder as a customer you'd like to market to. You
need to know 3 things: What does your stakeho
7 answers
Vice President & GM, Global SMB at Braze • June 17
Startups are unique because (virtually) every employee is also a shareholder.
Which means that every internal meeting is also a shareholders' meeting. Now,
unlike companies where you are a passive sha
Director, Product Marketing at Intercom • November 11
This is a tough one! It can be really difficult when you have exec stakeholders
who aren't aligned. Ultimately, it's on them to get aligned and provide clear
direction 'down the chain' but a few thing
VP, Product and Growth Marketing at 1Password | Formerly Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn • February 12
This is where DACIs (or RACIs) decision-making frameworks are critical. At a
projects inception, it’s important to agree with senior executives on who the
single final approver should be. Who is accou
Head (VP) of Global Enablement at Benchling • March 10
Goes back to the shared goals - which at a high level, are hard to argue with -
revenue, cost savings, customer success, etc. Once you get that common
agreement, then it's about the strategy / the "h
Vice President, Marketing at Glassdoor • March 18
Getting senior alignment is a key strategic role for PMM - we can be powerful
bridges and connectors. Whenever there is a clear difference of opinion the best
thing I’ve found is to bring the customer
Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • August 2
This is definitely a challenge most PMMs see themselves in. I typically find
success when I work the challenge from both ends. If the executives cannot
disagree and committ while in the same room, spe
Oftentimes, disagreements are simply differences of opinion, which exist because
there is a lack of data. In this case, PMMs are great neutral third-parties who
are well-positioned to close that data
1 answer
There are 3 main ways I interact with the C-suite: Regular leadership meetings
where we discuss product roadmap and GTM Project-specific interactions Regular
1:1s (this will depend on the size of you
9 answers
Director of Brand and Product Marketing, Twilio.org at Twilio • July 17
We match internal promotion based on the level of the product announcement.
Small updates are little features that mostly existing customers are excited
about. Medium updates are larger changes that p
Internal newsletters, revenue org all-hands, relevant slack channels, and
team-specific meetings. Of course, not every activity is shared through every
channel. Depending on the "size" of the project
Director of Product Marketing & Customer Marketing at Mode Analytics • March 18
I think this depends largely on the size of an update - and the audience. For
our largest releases, they are communicated early and often - to drum up
excitement. Through company all hands, sales tra
Senior Director of Product Marketing at Fivetran • April 14
We are a slack heavy company. So we have our own announcement channel for all
things Marketing that I actually started so that we could share our updates! We
also do quarterly roadmaps and retros wh
Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing at Samsara • July 1
Why do you want to communicate updates and activities? If the goal is to
communicate just the work the team has been doing, then I don't think that you
should be communicating this to a large audienc
Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29
It depends on the size of your company. This will become more challenging as the
size of the company scales. At a company with less than 200 employees it is
pretty easy to maintain relationships with
10 answers
Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • May 29
Oh boy, this is a great question. In my experience in working with various
different startups in the valley, I've seen this dynamic in many places. Sales
and marketing tensions are not a 'thing' for
Vice President & GM, Global SMB at Braze • June 17
As I wrote in another answer, the market will reward some kinds of tension,
especially if there is substantive disagreement between leaders or functions on
a critical topic (e.g. pricing and packaging
Director, Product Marketing at Intercom • November 10
As I said in another answer, being a successful PMM relies heavily on being able
to build relationships and trust with your cross-functional stakeholders. The
tips in that answer about building relati
Head (VP) of Global Enablement at Benchling • March 10
We're all human after all so taking the time to understand the baggage but also
find a path forward. Find a champion on both sides willing to go on the journey
with you and who is as vested as you ar
VP Product Marketing at Box • July 23
First of all: patience. Lots of it. :) As you start to unravel the history of
the relationship, you’re likely to find norms that were established so long ago
that no one knows why they’re there. And w
VP of Product Marketing at Oyster® • September 30
Oh man, this is a tricky one! It's important to start by first identifying the
source of tension. Is it due to leaders of those teams (or the leaders of those
leaders) not seeing eye to eye and their
Global Head of Product Marketing at Eventbrite | Formerly Amazon, Ex-Amex • February 11
At the core, these situations are about finding the product-market fit for the
product marketing function in your organization. You are trying to establish a
conversion thesis that will make them a fu
Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • September 3
What a great question! Sometimes the smartest people on the planet can not
figure out how to work together. It's challenging and, at the same time, it's
rewarding to nurture the culture of cross-fun
2 answers
Vice President, Marketing at Glassdoor • March 18
Your founders will have a stronger org when they eventually trust product
marketing with more control over messaging. If you can, start with research.
Talk to prospects and customers and show how they
Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29
Don't frame it as a way for "product marketing to get more control over the
messaging". Frame it as a way to bring the voice of the customer into your
messaging. Product Marketing should be the voice
2 answers
Vice President, Marketing at Glassdoor • March 18
Product marketing is so often misunderstood, and a lot of CMO’s didn’t grow up
with it so they don’t particularly understand it. Still other CMO’s struggle
with the PMM orgs that seem to spend more ti
Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29
Your executive team and CMO should be looking to you to prioritize your
workload.If you wait for someone to prioritize your workload for you, you'll end
up working on things that skew completely in th
16 answers
Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • September 9
It's hard. Real hard. Many PMMs make the mistake of starting with messaging.
This is a no-no. Messaging comes last and just puts words behind what was
already decided. You have to nail this in sequ
Product Marketing at Cohere | Formerly Adobe, Box, Google • September 29
It's key to align around a high-level story that powers success—in sales,
marketing, fundraising, product development and recruiting—by getting everyone
on the same page about strategy and differentia
Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Brex • December 3
I see three parts to driving alignment, both with execs and among all other
stakeholders: First, bring them along for the journey. Messaging cannot be done
in a silo, and it’s difficult to properly
Vice President, Marketing at Glassdoor • March 18
To drive alignment, make something that execs can respond to. Recently, I
created an example “future state” pitch deck to articulate a future narrative
for Glassdoor. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped
Head of Product Marketing at Calendly • August 11
I feel fortunate that I’ve led positioning/messaging workshops since I graduated
college because I worked for an agency that mandated them for every project we
worked on for tech clients. Getting an
Head of Product & Growth Marketing at Qualia • August 25
At the end of the day, Product Marketing owns messaging, and there should be
general alignment around that. I think that's a really important place to start
because literally everyone has an opinion o
Head of Product at Prove • September 8
This is an iterative process, and always better to over-communicate than
under-communicate, so we can get everyone's feedback and input and people feel
they have been heard and their input taken into
Head of Product Marketing at Cortex • September 14
I start with personas. I develop a thesis about core personas based on sales and
customer success feedback, and then conduct user interviews to validate or
invalidate those ideas. That's probably the
Head of Product Marketing, Core Product at Gusto • October 1
Start with data. Ground your messaging in first and third party data that
illuminates what is important to your target customers, key pain points,
aspirations, how they like to be messaged to, languag
Director of Product Marketing at Sentry • October 7
Here's my process, I Conduct customer and prospect research (exec team will be
more likely to be bought in with data - especially from your key personas and
customers) Consolidate findings and prepa
Chief Strategy Officer at Circana | Formerly Microsoft, SAP, McKinsey • October 8
We typically prepare and validate a strong Messaging and Positioning Framework
(MPF) document first. Our template typically includes things like the market
context, objectives of our messaging (i.e. w
Director of Product Marketing & Demand Generation at ESO | Formerly Fortive • November 2
First, start with data-driven positioning. Who are you in the marketplace? Where
are you heading or trying to become? How do you think your competitors are
moving in the space? If you skip this step,
VP, Industries & Platform Product Marketing at Okta • November 3
Every executive team is different, so I would encourage you to think through the
culture (and sometimes - quirks!) of the members of that team as you craft your
own approach. That said, I've found a c
Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • July 29
This requires having a strong relationship built on trust with your executive
team and, depending on the size of your company, the CEO. Get the executive team
involved early and often, and be willing