Alex Wagner Lavian

When building a tiered product it's important to define the goals of the entire package and each tier. Once you set goals, you'll want to segment your target audience by tier to map benefits to each level. Each tier should have clear benefits and ideally one “hero benefit” to serve as the hook to get customers to sign up for the offering. While the tiers should feel distinct they should also feel connected so that customers feel motivated to earn/pay more to move to higher tiers. A clear example ...Read More

As a first PMM hire it's important to prioritize needs and deliverables based on the overall goals and objectives of the company. Do “discovery” similar to how you would approach a product launch – get up to speed on the business, the competitive landscape, the customer, and the product. This will help you understand the biggest opportunity areas and align your efforts with the company’s goals to maximize impact. In addition to listening & learning from your stakeholders its also important t ...Read More

PMMs are storytellers so just as you would approach a marketing narrative, tell your personal story in a crisp and compelling way. Prior to the interview, reflect on a few projects you want to highlight that showcase the breadth of PMM competencies and be prepared to weave those stories into your answers. Some examples include: a complex go-to-market strategy you drove, a time you influenced the product roadmap, a challenging customer problem you solved. In addition to preparing your story it's ...Read More

Across PMM there is a shared core set of skills and competencies. The fundamentals are very much the same — it's about knowing the customer, finding the defining insight, and transforming that into product strategies and go-to-market plans. While the fundamentals are very transferable, execution can look quite different. For example, you’ll work more closely with product and research teams vs sales, the channels and strategies to reach your customers will be more digital and span the entire funn ...Read More

I can relate to this one, I actually started off my career in PMM at a B2B company. This experience was invaluable and where I learned the core competencies of PMM – the importance of product positioning, messaging, influencing the product roadmap, and being an advocate for the customer. Just being on a PMM team taught me so much about the function and how to deliver impact to both the business and the customer. A few tips that helped me transition over to B2C: 1) Build expertise in skills that ...Read More

It's important to define metrics and KPIs pre-launch typically as part of the marketing brief or GTM plan. Based on the goals you’ve set you’ll want to work with XFN teams like product/marketing analytics to set up a measurement plan or dashboard to track progress against these goals. It can be beneficial to track progress early on, a few days post launch and/or 1-2 weeks post launch so that you can adjust your marketing tactics if needed to accelerate or decelerate adoption. Exact metrics will ...Read More

Great question. Defining the product roadmap, setting launch criteria, and landing a launch date should be a collaborative process between PMM and Product. Together its key to consider a number of key factors: 1) What is the broader product roadmap for that quarter/half? How does this product fit into the broader plan/portfolio? 2) What is the value prop for this specific product? Have you validated product-market fit? 3) Do you and the team feel confident that the product is ready for primetime ...Read More

As I mentioned above there are so many applicable skills across B2B and B2C — just learning the PMM craft is key regardless of the company/audience. There are several applicable qualities that a B2B marketer can bring to consumer PMM including the following: messaging & positioning, relationship building & XFN influence, data-driven decision making, and market/competitive research.  While B2B PMMs often have direct access to customers via sales PMMs in consumer roles are required to play ...Read More

A good product launch starts with a deep understanding of the customer – who you are building for, their needs/pain points, how to reach them. Building a phased research plan is key — it's important to gather insights to shape both the product value prop and the marketing plan. I find that a lot of teams run research early in product development, but I highly recommend building a testing plan to validate your positioning and creative concept. Concept testing and will help future proof your GTM p ...Read More