Jessica Webb Kennedy

PMM wears so many hats it's important to recognize what is needed at any stage of a company. When first coming into an organization as the first PMM I think the most important thing to do is establish what does and doesn't exist - and where the biggest holes that can be plugged are. This can be accomplished by interviewing the top stakeholders at your company: Sales, Product, Support to understand what is working and where the pain points are. From that, you can build a list and prioritize it ac ...Read More

A great way to think about framing your messaging is by starting out with a short paragraph outlining who you are talking to and why they should care or need your solution/product. At Atlassian, we often start with these questions: Is this how you want your product or service to be represented? Are you appealing to the right audience? This is a good framework for laying out this information and keeping it top of mind as you formulate your messaging. I'll make another pitch for creating an overal ...Read More

I'd start with the data! This may mean tapping your data analysts, marketing analysts, basically anybody who is knee-deep in the metrics. What I would do first is attempt to map out the funnel for the product in question (if this doesn't already exist) - figuring out how people get to your website, what they do once they arrive, and where any significant drop-offs may be occurring.  In this case, if you are more focused on retention then I'd look at what users are doing once they are in the prod ...Read More

This happens a lot, PMMs are brought in quite frantically once a team already has a very specific way of working and it's on the PMM to figure out how to slot themselves in. I think the first thing that needs to happen is to clearly delineate and articulate team members' roles and responsibilities - Atlassian actually has a great guided playbook you can run with your team to do just this! Doing the above ^ creates a space for the team to better articulate and understand their own roles and those ...Read More

Great question and I've thought about this a lot, I LOVE watching Product Managers work and think that the problems they tackle are super fascinating, that being said, I'm a marketer at heart. I think PMMs are lucky to be in a position where we get to work super closely with PMs but our jobs are very different. I like Product Marketing because it's so versatile, what I do from day-to-day can really vary but I also get to really own things and take them from start to finish, collaborating with to ...Read More

I definitely think the process when it comes to PMM life is very important. Especially for things like GTMs. One of my team's go-to resources is the Confluence Messaging House Template - I like this one because it really is essential for getting everyone on the same page about a product or feature. This is the kind of thing that takes some leg work upfront but pays massive dividends down the line. It helps keep everyone who works on the product or feature – writers, designers, events and sales t ...Read More

This is always tough, for Trello this was trello.com/templates, it's something we had thought about doing for a long time but we didn't want to be overly prescriptive about how people should use our product. That being said, we got a lot of inquiries about templates - and a LOT of other tools provided templates - so it became something that felt like we should consider adding. Like I've said in a few other answers, I think the best way to convince internal stakeholders that something should be a ...Read More

I think there is a ton of value in having these teams work closely but separated into specific pods. As you noted, there are different skillsets here and they can be even more effective when given the space to own their domain expertise. That being said I think when PMM and Brand get too far from each other the end results suffer. I often think of PMM & Brand like a zipper in that they are stronger together and work in tandem. It's essential that brand messaging aligns with the product exper ...Read More

As stated above, PMM wears so many hats it's important to recognize what is needed at any stage of a company. When first coming into an organization as the first PMM I think the most important thing to do is establish what does and doesn't exist. I think this is the right order of things that should happen first but if you come into an organization and feel that some of these things are already in a good place you can skip to the next step. That being said, when you are new to a company you have ...Read More

I see the PMMs job as connecting the product teams to end-users and to the market. PMMs have a pulse on what is going on competitively, what is trending, and brand perception the market. PMMs also talk to a lot of customers for customer stories, blog posts etc. so they have a good perspective on what successful users look like.  I see the PMs job as interpreting user feedback and rallying the team to strategically build features that enhance the user experience and also align with the goals of t ...Read More