Influencing the C-Suite
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...
6 answers
Vice President & GM, Global SMB, Braze • June 16
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 shareholder (Grandma bought you 10
shares of McDonald's, for example) but have no way to influence day-to-day
decisions, you get to make a big difference at the company where you work. Every
day at a startup is a chance for you to make an impact that will increase the
value of your (and your colleagues') shares. It's a meaningful opportunity.
What does all this have to do with ensuring alignment...
Director, PMM - Support & Platform, Intercom • November 8
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 things that could help:
* Understand where the misalignment is - is it the whole strategy, or specific
parts of it? Is there a compromise you could propose that would help get
alignment? What are the main concerns of whoever isn't on board, and can you
ask questions to better understand what is driving the concerns - and can you
then address those?
* Provide additional research/ev...
VP, Product and Growth Marketing, 1Password | Formerly Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn • February 8
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 accountable for the success of the
project (ie. whose job is on the line if it succeeds/fails)? Agreeing on the one
approver in the beginning should prevent downstream conflicts.
If you are stuck in the middle, the best you can do is offer objective data for
both sides of the argument and leave it up to the decision-maker to understand
the trade-offs being made with the decision. (In some occasions...
Head (VP) of Global Enablement, 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 "how" to get there. If there are
disagreements here, I would start with trying to understand why and seeing it
from both of their vantage points. Then trying to see if you can get them 1:1 to
understand the other point of view or better yet, get them to talk to each
other. Ultimately though if all that doesn't work, you may need to get a tie
breaker that's someone else and who they will listen to.
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
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 more fully into the room. Bring
research to bear on the problem. You can be a powerful tiebreaker if you can
couple your opinion with insight and data.
Head of Product Marketing, 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, spend time with each one
individually. Understand their concerns, their perspective, and their
reservations on an indiviudual level. I find that often many people are speaking
"different languages" and the disagreement is somewhat superficial. It's your
job to frame the strategy in a way that appeals to both. It's not easy but it's
possible. Good luck!
2 answers
Vice President, Marketing, 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 respond to different
approaches. And test and learn. If you have an existing audience base, you can
try different approaches to a/b testing messaging through various marketing
channels (i.e., digital advertising, email, website, etc.). Identifying quick
ways to validate and challenge hypotheses on messaging will help shape a
perspective to share with your founders when you don’t have a huge bu...
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • July 28
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 of the customer within the
organization and the VoC should deeply influence the messaging. It's not easy
for founders to release control, so they may still want to be involved and that
is NOT a bad thing. Use their insights, along with the voice of the customer, to
develop messaging and measure its success. Be transparent with what is working
and what isn't.
2 answers
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
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 time on things they can’t see or
aren’t held accountable for inside their own marketing org. And, like you said,
while pmm plays a cross-org glue role, it can leave it stretched way too thin as
a result.
I think having a charter for your team is a really important place to start. It
should last you a good year or two or more, or at least until your company hits
another important milestone. On to...
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • July 28
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 the wrong direction or may be
overindexed on a particular metric. PMM has many stakeholders and its important
to balance priorities across sales, CS, product, and marketing. Always defer
back to the company-wide objectives. How can you best serve those objectives and
drive impact? How can you make a measurable impact? How can you build for scale?
These are all important things to consider when pr...
16 answers
Director of Pricing and Packaging, Twilio Flex, 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 sequential order.
1. First comes strategy
2. Then comes positioning
3. And finally comes messaging
Your CEO owns the strategy. Period.
If they don't know where you are going, the positioning will be unclear or may
work for a little while until the market or your product evolves.
I recall a meeting in a prior company where I aligned with the positioning of
our chatbot/customer service...
Former Vice President of Product Marketing, HackerOne | 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 differentiation.
Alignment is difficult. If you can start with your CEO, that is key. Ultimately,
your CEO is yuor ultimate storyteller and if she is bought in, then its easier
to get the rest of the executive team aligned.
The story is the strategy and that should be your starting point. What’s driving
your story in the market? New features and functionality … or a bigger promise
to your customers?...
Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Brex • December 2
I see three parts to driving alignment, both with execs and among all other
stakeholders:
1. First, bring them along for the journey. Messaging cannot be done in a silo,
and it’s difficult to properly adopt if not everybody feels bought in.
Interview your execs and stakeholders to learn their perspective, where they
feel the company or product is differentiated, what customer pain it solves,
what benefits it delivers. The answers will vary and will be meaningful
inputs as you craft and test your messaging.
2. Second, set regular check-ins and milestones with execs a...
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
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 drive discussion and alignment
on overall company positioning and direction.
But in general, make something for folks to respond to. I think it is so
important for product marketing teams to establish credibility and expectations
that PMM owns specific artifacts that ultimately help the company make smarter
decisions. We have a toolkit of go-to templates that we try to work from for
whatever b...
Head of Product Marketing, Calendly • August 10
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 exec team to agree on a document outlining positioning and messaging
isn't the hard part in my opinion.
The difficult part is to get the messaging to stick once you put it out in the
world: on a homepage, in a blog post, an ad, a slide deck for sales, etc.
When positioning and messaging is put to use, execs start to realize what they
signed up for. “Wait, we’re going after that job title in ...
Head of Product & Partner Marketing, Qualia • August 22
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 or point of view on messaging, but
someone ultimately gets to 'own' it. If in your organization, that's PMM, there
should be and understanding across the organization that it's the responsibility
of PMM/Marketing to come up with product positioning and messaging. If you're an
exec / leader in Marketing, you should be building relationships with other
execs to create alignment around that; if you...
Head of Product Marketing, Prove • September 7
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 consideration. Even if you do
not end up going in a certain way, be able to explain why not and why that input
was still helpful.
Director of Product Marketing, dbt Labs • 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 most important bit–my job isn't to
just synthesize learnings from within our business, it's to continually test and
validate those learnings externally. I then circulate research + personas with
key executive leaders (CEO, Head of Product, Head of Sales), until we agree on
the shape of each. Then I create a messaging house for the business, and each
product line, according to the primary person...
Head of Product Marketing, Core Product, Gusto • September 30
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, language they use, etc.
Show your work -- don’t just include the suggested messaging in the doc; add an
appendix or reference section that demonstrates a thoughtful approach that is
grounded in the data.
Next, see if you can get some quick feedback from target customers on your
messaging to further validate the approach before showing it to your exec team.
This can be a great use of a CAB (customer ...
Ha! this skill is probably the hardest. When it comes to messaging, everyone
will have an opinion. Before you drive alignment on the messaging, align on the
problem and solution. That is 50% - 60% of the battle. The rest is just
wordsmithing. Depending on the level of messaging, I would incorporate them into
the messaging development process.
Director of Product Marketing, Sentry • October 5
Here's my general approach:
* Do 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 prepare a messaging brief using the framework you
landed on.
* Present those findings to and get feedback from key stakeholders - including
marketing leadership, sales, and product team - and (most importantly)
customers
* Incorporate feedback into the final messaging brief
* Present messaging to leadership along with the data and the 'why' behind the
messaging. Presen...
Sr. Director, Security Product Marketing, Microsoft • October 5
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. what we hope to drive/influence),
quick single-sentence description of the product etc. Once we have this
document, we circulate it among the exec team (typically months in advance of a
launch to give everyone enough time to reflect and comment). We also typically
have multiple live discussions on the topic (depending on the complexity of the
product/launch) and use the MPF document to drive ali...
Director of Product Marketing, Sentry • October 6
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 prepare a messaging brief using the framework we
landed on.
* Present those findings to and get feedback from key stakeholders - including
marketing leadership, sales, and product team - and (most importantly)
customers
* Incorporate feedback into the final messaging brief
* Present messaging to leadership along with the data and the 'why' behind the
messaging. Present ro...
VP, Industry Solutions, Okta • November 1
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 couple things particularly effective in my
experience.
* Bring along key lieutenants for the ride - once you get to the exec team, a
number of important leaders should have been part of the ideation and review
process. Individual sales leaders, product owners, customer success leads
should all be stops on your journey to craft the right message. That way -
one of the first slides ...
Director of Product Marketing & Demand Generation, 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, you'll lack differentiation in your
messaging, and you'll get a lot of resistance from executives who think in
visionary terms.
To build the most effective messaging, you need to start with a deep
understanding of how your customers think about your company and why they are
buying it in the first place. Draw on insights gleaned from customer blueprints,
interviews, surveys, focus groups, looka...
Head of Product Marketing, Narvar | Formerly Iterable, HubSpot, IBM • April 7
This is so important, and not focused on enough so I'm glad you asked! A few
thoughts around this:
* Get your CEO and CMO involved early. Ideally you can get early drafts to
them, and also get them bought into the importance of the process and value
of this effort which will make every aspect of this a lot smoother.
* Have a consistent review process. Depending on your size and stage of
company, it's unlikely that your executive team needs to see or review every
piece of messaging. If you're working on a minor "enhancement" to your
product and some lightweight messaging, t...
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • July 28
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 to disagree and commit. Come prepared
to conversations with data, market insights, competitive intelligence, and
anything else that will help them understand how critical the work you are doing
is. Help them buy into "why this messaging" and "why now" by anticipating their
questions, bringing a lens of customer-focus, and a broad understanding of the
crossfunctional strategic impact.
8 answers
Director of Brand and Product Marketing, Twilio.org, Twilio • July 16
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 potentially open up a small new
audience or unlock new revenue potential. Large updates are major product
changes or brand new products that require significantly adjusting our go to
market strategy.
Small updates: Monthly email to sales, slack message to success
Medium updates: ^ + dedicated email to sales/success + all company slack channel
+ join sales all hands recurring meeting to train...
VP of Marketing, Builder.io • January 19
Internal comms is sometimes undervalued, but in my opinion, it is one of the
most important parts of a PMM's role, especially because product marketing is
one of the very few roles that are extremely cross-functional and sits between
multiple teams. Here are few ways I've seen it work best:
* For major XF projects, have regular update emails so that you can make sure
you are bringing everyone along the journey and it does not feel like you are
working in a black box.
* Internal newsletters (whatever cadence works for your org). We partner with
the product team on a monthly newsl...
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 or deliverable, we choose which channels to broadcast
through. Thankfully we have a well-organized enablement team that manages these
channel logistics, so we're able to efficiently streamline internal comms.
On a personal level, it's critical that I provide key executives and other team
leads with visibility of what's coming, so that they get their teams' attention
and start a network effe...
Group Product Marketing Manager, Intercom • March 16
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 trainings, slack channels, etc.
For mid-sized and smaller updates, we'll leverage the internal channels that
make the most sense for the internal audience. If its sales, we'll update via
our bi-weekly newsletter, slack channels, internal knoweldgebase docs on what to
know, as one example. Each internal audience has their own channels and
communication styles they prefer - and usually we work ...
Senior Director Product Marketing, Fivetran • April 12
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 where PM + PMMs present their upcoming
roadmap and a retro on their activities from the past quarter. All of Product
and PMM go - and we invite our key stakeholders across the business, including
the leaders from other areas of Marketing.
Head Of Product & Partner Marketing, Samsara • June 28
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 audience. This may
be a good weekly summary email to your manager (Also, why would your manager
need it?, the manager should already know it and it should be in your 1:1 doc),
anyway, my point is communicating just WHAT you or your team is working on is
waste of time for you and the reader.
I would rather communicate the impact and how other teams could leverage the
work your team has done. This ...
The key here is consistency. Find a channel that works and stick to it. Else it
becomes to fractured and fragmented. You can use a slack channel, you can have a
dedicated section in your sales enablement platform, you can issue regular
emails with links to content. Just make sure you stick to an appraoch so your
GTM teams get conditioned to the process.
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • July 28
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 executive leadership to keep them in
the loop via regular meetings, Slack, and internal newsletters. No matter what
the size of your company is, make sure you are spending enough time educating
others on your value, contributions, and successes. Don't try to hide your
failures, though. Nobody is perfect. Be honest about your lessons learned and
help others learn from them as well.
6 answers
Head of Product Marketing, Benchling | Formerly ExactTarget (Salesforce Marketing Cloud), Zendesk, Slack, Salesforce • July 30
Such an interesting question because I actually think it doesn't change that
much. My last role was a company that was ~150 employees, Zendesk is now ~3,000
I think. In both companies, my biggest stakeholders were:
* CEO
* Head of Product
* CMO
* Head of Sales
Often it feels like the job of product marketing at the stakeholder level is to
help translate between these people and their teams to keep everyone aligned. If
the product marketing leadership in your team has a seat at the table with these
executives it's much easier to be effective and strategic vs tactical and
execution focu...
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Square • October 15
This is an awesome question and one that I've thought a ton about as we've
scaled. I touched on this a bit in another answer (“When thinking about adding
new talent to your team - how do you structure focus areas?”) but will reiterate
and expand here.
As our company has scaled, I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that our key
stakeholders as a Product Marketing team have changed, per se—rather, I think of
it more along the lines that our key partners in supporting those stakeholders
have evolved. Meaning: on a macro level our key stakeholders still remain:
* Product management: sup...
VP, Product and Growth Marketing, 1Password | Formerly Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn • February 11
I can only speak to the change from ~1000 → 3000+. As a company grows, the
number of stakeholders grows along with it. That shouldn’t be a surprise. What
I’ve also learned is that as the number of stakeholders increase, so does the
importance of collaboration skills, role clarity, and decision-making processes:
* Collaboration skills: With more people to align with, product marketers need
to be especially flexible, picking the right battles to fight and letting
things go that may not be worth the effort.
* Role clarity: As mentioned in some of my other answers, its important for
...
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
I’m not certain the stakeholders and leverage have changed much in my experience
with different company sizes, although resources clearly do. As you grow from
startup to tween/teen and mature, the stakeholders diversify with the added
resources that come from business growth. Sophia and I have generally watched
pmm move from an individual contributor -- plugged in to a growth team, leading
basic sales enablement, and driving core positioning through product -- to an
enabler, helping other teams do their work better, and ensuring a single voice
across touchpoints. In startup and sometimes tw...
Head of Marketing, Google Maps Platform, Google • December 21
The short answer is that there are more, and the desires each stakeholder has
become more specific!
Essentially, as companies grow they have the opportunity to bring in more
specialized talent. This could be teams in finance that are focused on products,
specialized support organizations, strategy teams, program teams, or any number
of others. The benefit is that you often have more hands on deck to ensure the
success of a product. The downside is often coordination cost, and when it comes
to product marketing that cost can be high.
You can stay on top of things by being proactive in und...
VP Product Marketing, AppFolio • April 4
Regardless of the size of the organization, there will always be a marketing and
a product leader. They are your critical partners. Even in very large
organizations with a matrix structure, you will still typically have these
leadership roles for each business segment. As the organization grows the
founder or CEO will be further removed from day-to-day operations and you're
less likely to work with them. At AppFolio we are ca. 1600 people at the moment
and key stakeholders I connect frequently with are:
* Product VP
* Marketing VP
* Sales VP
* The various business segment leaders
* VP...
9 answers
Director of Pricing and Packaging, Twilio Flex, Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • May 28
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 no reason.
However, these relationships can improve. Some of the people who I've personally
(and my team) had tense relationships with are now friends whom I rely on for
references, counsel and collaboration.
Many professionals understand that their frustration is of a professional nature
and one or multiple candid conversations can go a long way to begin the repair
process. They kno...
Vice President & GM, Global SMB, Braze • June 16
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, which I believe is the least
understood topic in all of enterprise software). In these cases, lean into the
tension, and remind each other all the time that you are doing something really
hard but also really important to the company. It is absolutely worth it to have
tough conversations in these cases - because when you make it to the other side,
you will have built a significantly better co...
Director, PMM - Support & Platform, 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 relationships apply here, but I'll also add 2
things:
1. Always look for opportunities for PMM to add value, and make sure you
understand other functions' goals and priorities. If other functions can see the
value PMM bring - and that you want to help, not hinder them - it's much easier
to get a seat at the table - they'll want you to be there, because they've seen
the benefit of having you involved...
Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each
organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is
to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If
there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to
first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based
on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role
expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with
your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...
Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each
organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is
to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If
there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to
first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based
on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role
expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with
your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...
Product Marketing is one of those roles that can be very different from each
organization. I find the most successful way to develop a strong relationship is
to show value from the start and align on your mutual goals / objectives. If
there are certain functions where you have a tense relationship, i'd suggest to
first understand why there is this less collaborative relationship. Is it based
on some historical context (prior launch)? Is it due to a difference in role
expectations? Once you've identified the possible root cause, setup time with
your key stakeholder and have that open discuss...
Head (VP) of Global Enablement, 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 are in moving forward. And making time for
building carmaderie. I remember we once had tensions between our PMM and
Marketing organization - so we spend time in workshops doing joint planning,
finding operational projects where we could join up people to build bridges, and
finally team bonding - including team building activities and dinners, happy
hours, etc. And doing this on a repeatable basis....
VP Product Marketing, Box • July 21
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 with every new person who comes on
board, you have the opportunity to start building new, more positive norms...but
of course this can take a long time.
In addition, a few other tactics I rely on:
* Build support at every level. The individual contributors on a team can be
just as powerful as the executives when it comes to setting cultural norms.
If you’re coming in as a new leader, it...
VP of Product Marketing, Oyster® • September 27
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 conflict flowing downstream? Is it due to your predecessor being a
jerk? Is it due to one team not following through on their commitments which in
turn hurts the other team?
I'd recommend then asking "what's my scope for influencing the relationship?" If
you're a relatively junior IC PMM, you have a high scope for influencing your
own relationship with a sales leader or PM counterpart, but ...
It’s always difficult to navigate tense relationships. It’s important not to
take this all upon yourself. If you are looking to help, I think the first step
is to assess the situation and try to understand the underlying cause that’s
driving the tension. Is it due to misalignment of expectations and goals? Is it
a result of constant miscommunication, which can stem from having different
working styles? Is it a broken process that’s fueling confusion between teams?
While it can be uncomfortable, it’s helpful to have honest conversations with
individuals that are impacted and gather different...
Global Head of Product Marketing, Eventbrite | Formerly Amazon, Ex-Amex • February 9
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 future advocate for PMM instead of a
detractor. So take a similar tact as you would do for customer-facing work.
1) Start by listening. Have 1:1s and understand what they see as having gone
wrong in the past. Ask what areas they would like to have support for.
2) Look for data or anecdotes on launches or products that have underperformed
expectations in the past. These mini-retrospectives can...
6 answers
This is an interesting one. In my last company, I joined as the first PMM. In my
first meeting with the product team, I spent a fair bit of time explaining the
role of PMMs and what we do — how we connect the market to the goals of the
organization, and the product back to the market.
That helped PMs understand when and how to engage with PMM. In that instance,
the company was also undertaking a shift from selling to developers -- an
audience PMs knew well -- to business buyers. It was definitely a journey over a
period of time to bring back market insight, customer questions and
require...
Director of Product Marketing, jane.app • March 5
Start with discovery and a series of questions that you can consistently ask
your stakeholders.
1. Understand them as humans: what motivates people, how they communicate, what
they're passionate about, what parts of their job they feel best at.
2. Understand how they work: how they form strategy, how they build products,
what data they trust, what data and strategy they lack and would love.
3. Understand how they position your product, what the value prop is, who your
best-fit customers are.
Select 3 quick wins you can do that, depending on your organization, build trust
through r...
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
First, this is so hard! I have been through a few turns of this and candidly I’d
say not every company is ready. There are companies that are just not ready to
have a strategic pmm org. Maybe their product org is still maturing, or not on
secure footing for some reason. It is especially hard to have a strong product
marketing team without well led and secure, collaborative product orgs.
Second thing I’d suggest is to build trust, get closer to the customer. Product
orgs always need more time with their customer. At Glassdoor, product marketing
owns the market research and insight function,...
Product Marketing, Reality Labs, Meta | Formerly Sprinklr, YuMe • March 24
Building trust is the key component here and I think you get there by taking the
time to listen and learn. With the product team specifically, it’s educating
them on your role and how you’re ultimately aligned to the same thing -->
amplifying the value of the product they’re building and to grow revenue and
adoption.
That said, there are many cross-functional teams product marketing works with
and the best way to build trust is to know your products, your market, and your
customers. If you can come to the table with that knowledge and expertise the
value of what you have to offer will clea...
Group Product Marketing Manager- Enterprise, Miro • June 11
This happens a lot, and a lot of times it’s because PMM wasn’t established when
the company started shipping products and became successful without the help of
a PMM function.
The key is to really help the PM’s understand the true value of PMM and that we
are able to take a lot of the work they actually don’t enjoy doing (writing
documentation, building sales enablement and project managing a launch). PMs
have enough on their hands working with their engineers and trying to meet tight
deadlines and responding to customer calls. Start to identify work on their
plate that should actually ...
Global Head of Product Marketing, Grammarly | Formerly at: GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, SFDC + startups • February 9
Show up! In my last role, I was on a team where it wasn’t usual for PMM to play
a significant role in the PM planning or organization. I showed up, spent time
with the leaders, shared what PMM could do (by doing it!), and was consistent
and available. I ended up being BFF with the PM lead. Together, we had a massive
impact on the product and customer adoption. It was also a lot of fun.
5 answers
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
If I was an exec at your company, I’d want to understand what is awful about
this pitch (share research, client feedback?), what evidence you can provide
that it is hurting my business (do an a/b pilot?), and what you think good looks
like (comparative/competitive examples?). If you brought that to me, I’d hope I
would listen. Then, if I was you I’d try to listen really carefully to what this
executive is worried about. Bad timing, overwhelmed sales team, something else?
Maybe you can then address those concerns more directly.
Dig into the pitch and do the research to back it up. Gather fe...
Sr. Director and Head of Product Marketing, Gem • May 6
In these types of situations, I’ve found that data can be a useful persuasion
tool, because it’s objective. Have you considered surfacing win rate numbers? Or
an even more granular metric in the sales funnel, like a lack of deal
progression from early to mid/late stages?
If execs are expected to take you at your word that the pitch isn’t working,
based on anecdotal evidence, that can be a tough sell. Their thought process is
likely, “how bad could it be? We’re doing well enough to merit an IPO.”
But if the data is on your side (which I’m sure it is!), it may be obvious that
there’s nothin...
VP Product Marketing, Box • July 21
Bad content is so frustrating! I generally use one or all of these tactics when
I’m facing headwinds like this:
1. Try to understand the cause. It sounds like what's behind the c-suite
pushback is fear of change, and in my experience, CxOs (like the rest of
us!) sometimes just need to be reassured that everything will be fine. You
can help everyone feel better about trying something new with a little
social proof (e.g. at most software companies, the corporate pitch gets a
refresh every 3-6 months) and with a solid Plan B (if the new pitch bombs,
you can always go ...
There are already a few good answers here, but no one has mentioned jumping on
the impending IPO - what's the pitch for that? There should be a story followed
by great metrics. The story for an IPO shouldn't be divorced from the customer
pain and adoption the company solves.
Also, on the pilots - find some reps who are respected, but not in the top 5%.
You want people who want your help, but not the ones selling on years of
knowledge and relationships. You also don't want reps in the bottom 50% - they
want your help, but the likelihood they get cut is high. The thing to do with
the top ...
Head of Marketing, Google Maps Platform, Google • December 17
First off, great job on finding a problem and bringing people together to fix
it!
I'd suggest having a little bit more curiosity and empathy around why the CSuite
members are hesitant. I'm guessing there might be more going around the IPO and
that there isn't actually a desire to be "consistently bad." In situations where
I feel like things are non-sensical I try to pause and listen harder to see what
isn't being said.
In terms of selling the new pitch decks, I'd suggest positioning it as a "pilot"
or "experimentation." It immediately drops the pressure around wholesale
adoption of a new ...