Product Marketing Team

Whenever you are new to a PMM role, what are the top 3 things you look for in the work that has been done before you arrived? (e.g. personas, messaging templates)

4 answers

Director of Product Marketing at jane.app • March 4

- Retros on strategic projects, especially those with cross-functional teams so you can identify previous learnings and opps for improvement, and quickly get up to speed on legacy experiences - Centr

10 Saves

Natalie Louie

Product Marketing, Senior Director at Replicant | Formerly MobileCoin, Zuora, Hired, Oracle, Responsys • January 11

Positioning Messaging Personas / Competitors Always focus on the top 2 first, as this will impact how everyone talks and writes about your company – which ultimately brings in users and wallet share

15 Saves

Jameelah Calhoun

Global Head of Product Marketing at Eventbrite | Formerly Amazon, Ex-Amex • February 10

As I mentioned in the question regarding your first 90 days, the first 30 days are all about establishing a baseline and assessing the current product marketing status. The first 3 things that I look

12 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

Outside of the core PMM assets like messaging, or buyer personas, here are a few other things I'd look for: Existing sales pitches or sales assets to understand how the product is positioned Gong cal

10 Saves

Product Marketing

How long do you think you should wait, as the very first Head of PMM, before you hire your first team member?

3 answers

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 5

It's hard to give a specific answer here because every company is unique, but here are some things to think about: How experienced are you as a PMM?If you've built and managed multiple PMM teams in t

6 Saves

Nicole Gallow

Group Product Marketing Manager at Cisco | Formerly Splunk, Quest Software • December 21

Get that headcount ASAP! I kid, I kid.... kind of. My selfish, well, self, wants to say ask for approval as soon as you start -- first 30 days. Hiring someone doesn't happen overnight so you want as m

3 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

There is no generic rule of thumb for this, but i'd focus on company growth as an indicator. If your company is growing fast and you realize that there are too many initiatives to support and that y

5 Saves

Product Marketing

When establishing the PMM function in an org, how can you manage expectations and change perception if leadership (CEO, Founder, CMO) have a different interpretation of the role?

4 answers

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 5

Assuming you were hired for this role, I think that this type of conversation should ideally happen before you accept the job. Asking a question like "what vision does the CMO, Founder, CEO, executive

10 Saves

Nicole Gallow

Group Product Marketing Manager at Cisco | Formerly Splunk, Quest Software • December 21

This question is great and so very relevant. I've been companies where leadership has had 3 very different thoughts on the PMM org. PMM IS AMAZING What the heck is PMM and why am I paying their sal

7 Saves

Julie Brown

Product Marketing & Event Leader, Strategist, & Consultant at 56th Street Productions, LLC | Project Product | Formerly STANLEY Security (Securitas), Conga (Apttus), SAP, Aprimo (Teradata), Salesforce (ExactTarget) • January 31

Such a great question! And sadly, a common challenge for product marketing. I've found even when a company hires its first product marketer, not everyone is aware or on the same page. I have struggled

2 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

It's important to understand what your C-suite wants and needs from PMM. Product Marketing is a versatile role and often looks different at every company, and you need to be somewhat flexible in what

9 Saves

Product Marketing

What are the challenges one should be aware of when setting up a new PMM function inside the org? How can one overcome them -- any tips?

3 answers

Meredith Davis Shields

VP, Product Marketing at LendingClub • July 26

If PMM is a new discipline within your org chances are other teams were "covering" PMM unofficially. This could mean product managers trying to wear marketing hats or lifecycle / brand marketers pitch

6 Saves

Tracy Montour

Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • August 2

Standing up a new Product Marketing function is both a great opportunity and a great challenge. Over the last year, I have been standing up the PMM function at my current company. I can share that is

3 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

One of the biggest challenges I always see is internal education. Most companies where PMM is new will not understand what PMM can and should do and how to work with them. One of the most important

10 Saves

Product Marketing

What are the top 3 potholes to AVOID when establishing or building out the Product Marketing function at a company?

2 answers

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 5

I can't think of three good ones right now, so I'll give you two of my favourite: Saying yes to everythingWhen you come in as the first PMM, people are going to be throwing projects at you left and r

13 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

Do not hire more people until you have a clear charter for the team Make sure you align with other cross-functional teams as you build your org design so that your team has clear partners across diff

16 Saves

Product Marketing

How do you manage the transition from being the sole person responsible for product marketing activities to now having someone else who can share the burden?

One of the biggest changes when managing people and a team is handing off the responsibility to others. This is tough to do when you're so used to handling everything yourself. Any tips or suggestions on how to best make that transition?

2 answers

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 5

This is a really great question, and something I think a lot of poeple struggle with. I've found this article from First Round Review really helpful. It's based on Molly Graham's concept of "Giving A

10 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • February 22

The most important thing during this process is to clearly outline roles and responsibilities for both yourself and the new person on your team, I am a huge fan of RACI models for driving that clarity

6 Saves

Product Marketing

How do you adjust product marketing frameworks to your company's organization and business activity?

1 answer

Product Marketing

If you were the first PMM hire in a B2B company, what would be your approach to growing your PMM team? How would that be different between product-led-growth and enterprise B2B companies?

1 answer

Product Marketing

What's the earliest stage a startup should consider hiring a Product Marketing Manager?

I'm curious if you've observed the impact of adding a PMM to smaller organizations or if you think they're most impactful in larger organizations?

10 answers

Ajit Ghuman

Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • February 27

A PMM can contribute to an organization that has already found an element of product-market fit, but it'd be important not to confuse them to be the first product marketer. Often, the first 'product

24 Saves

Daniel Palay

Head Of Product Marketing at 3Gtms • March 3

For an early-stage company, it is of the utmost importance to differentiate between hiring a product marketing title and hiring product marketing skills. Regarding someone with that title, the answer

13 Saves

Jason Perocho

Vice President, Product Marketing at Braze • March 10

Seed funding is when I've generally seen PMMs hired. They're generally hired at the same time or just after a PM. Legendary HBS professor Clayton Christensen's research shows that 95% of products fail

92 Saves

Jasmine Jaume

Director, Product Marketing at Intercom • October 25

I'm biased of course, but I believe PMMs should be one of your first marketing hires. The insight PMMs can bring in terms of product-market fit, positioning and messaging are just as valuable, if not

11 Saves

Jason Oakley

Senior Director of Product Marketing at Klue • January 5

I was one of the first marketing hires at Chili Piper. I personally think there's an arguement to hire product marketing first or second. Positioning, messaging, segmentation, sales enablement, these

10 Saves

Adam Kerin

SVP of Marketing at Truework • January 18

The two startups I joined as the first PMM were ~100 employees and both were for technical software products. In this space, my perspective is the founding and technical teams should be maniacally foc

6 Saves

Daniel J. Murphy

Marketing Strategy Consultant at • June 8

Earliest stage: soon as you have a product in customers hands, you could use product marketing. That's not always realistic... sales, engineering, product resources take priority. And there's always t

5 Saves

Lisa Dziuba

Head of Product Marketing at LottieFiles | Formerly WeLoveNoCode (made $3.6M ARR), Abstract, Flawless App (sold) • August 3

Startups need to hire product marketing managersbutwhen hiring for PMM roles in a high-growth environment, it's critical to pay attention to the PMM's soft skills. My favorite must-have soft skills fo

7 Saves

Tracy Montour

Head of Product Marketing at HiredScore • August 4

Because Product Marketing is a strategic function, it can add value at any stage - even as early as defining the product strategy and vision alongside the product leader. The earlier the company hires

3 Saves

Alex Gammelgard

Product Marketing at Trusted Health • February 22

At most startups, the business founder is the first product marketer. This makes sense bc the founder knows the problem deeply, as well as the market, the product vision, and the opportunity ahead, a

2 Saves

Product Marketing

What metric, goal or KPI can you put on providing competitive intelligence to the company or product teams?

I work in a company that measures the impact of all projects, but admittedly this is a difficult area to track. Would love to any suggestions/thoughts.

13 answers

Marie Francis

Senior Product Marketing Manager at Workday • October 24

The end game is for customers to choose your solutions and brand over the competition, so the most meaningful KPI is your win rate against against different competitors when you encounter them in deal

53 Saves

Jack Wei

Head of Product Marketing at Sendbird | Formerly SmartRecruiters, Mixpanel, Deloitte • January 26

Ultimately, the change in win rate against that particular competitor before vs. after your CI project. There are sub goals and metrics to unpack here: QoQ change in the competitor features &

42 Saves

Sarah Din

VP of Product Marketing at Quickbase • August 12

This really depends on the actual goal of a CI program, but here are a few ideas: For the sales team: Competitive win rates (pre and post intel) Sales confidence on competitive pitching (This is some

22 Saves

Ambika Aggarwal

Director of Product Marketing at Culture Amp • September 23

1. Sales confidence - While not a metric measured in SFDC, you can work with enablement to craft a pre and post sales confidence metric to assess how confident reps feel in navigating competitive conv

12 Saves

Amey Kanade

Product Marketing at Fire TV (Smart TVs) at Amazon • February 17

Another great question, thanks! I have been in a few roles where my job was to provide market data, competitive intelligence etc to other teams (CEO, Product, Sales etc) within the org. These teams wo

15 Saves

Grant Shirk

Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • April 13

It's great to see companies putting more emphasis on measuring this. It's definitely a challenge, but if competitive investments aren't measured, it's less likely they'll be appreciated or incorporate

16 Saves

Jeffrey Vocell

VP of Product Marketing at | Formerly Narvar, Iterable, HubSpot, IBM • August 4

Love this question! I'd think about it in terms of outcomes, and effectiveness. So I'd look at metrics like: Competitive Win Rates Usage - To be clear, I like to look at this through the lens of w

10 Saves

Alex McDonnell

Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable • September 20

For the Sales side, you can look at: - competitive win/loss rates - win rates of deals that used competitive support or resources vs. did not - ultimately, market share over time But for the Product

7 Saves

Andrew McCotter-Bicknell

Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 18

Competitive win rate is a great north star goal. But it can be challenging to accurately impact that in a positive way in a short amount of time. A couple other KPIs I've used in the past and that I

11 Saves

Adrienne Joselow

Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 6

Competitive win rate! This requires reps to record (and for your CRM to have a field for) competitor (existing -rip and replace - or exploring - head to head). This is the most direct way to see if yo

14 Saves

Dave Steer

Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • January 30

Terrific question! A few metrics that are key to competitive intel: Competitive Intel 101 Metrics 1. Sales engagement -- Is your sales team using the competitive content that your team is developing?

12 Saves

Sean Lauer

Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 16

Teams should be tracking win/loss rates vs specific competitors. This information is most easily gathered and tracked via the sales team (or possibly solutions eng) and stored in a system of record li

9 Saves