John Withers

Your messaging should show up everywhere, including within any of the following marketing tactics you may choose to employ: Internal Internal announcements (eg, Slack, other field comms) Enablement sessions and related materials External Customer email(s) Blog(s) Web Press release Social posts Videos Field marketing Webinar Events etc But one of the biggest challenges of messaging is driving consistency, especially as you navigate multiple rounds of feedback. That’s why it’s crucial to be discip ...Read More

I’m going to split my answer into two parts, using the following (loose) definitions: Positioning: An internal-only description of what the product is, who it’s for, the problems it solves (with key benefits), and how it’s differentiated from the competition. Messaging: The language you use in the market to convey the value of the product. Messaging First, I can’t overstate how important it is to always be open to feedback about your messaging, and to be willing to update it (even after it’s bee ...Read More

It depends. But first, let’s align on the purpose behind all of this work: We want to drive conversion, simple as that. And by conversion, I mean: We want users (or buyers) to take some action, such as reading a blog post, signing up for a webinar, talking to an AE, demoing the product, and ultimately using the product (PLG) or signing a contract (SLG). We get people to take these actions by piquing their interest about a better way for them to do their jobs. This is actually a really interestin ...Read More

I’m going to expand my answer to include the entire GTM strategy as well as the product strategy itself.  For a mature company, I can think of at least a couple of scenarios that would require taking different approaches. For this answer, I’m going to focus on the scenario where you expand into adjacent markets that serve similar teams where there are efficiency gains to be made from tools consolidation. There are many examples of this (including Salesforce, where I used to work), but I’ll focus ...Read More

Market research is a must-have for a product launch. As Marketers, one of the requirements for doing our job (well) is to have a thorough understanding of the market. That means 1) identifying the personas our product(s) are intended to serve, 2) understanding each persona’s pain points and needs, 3) analyzing competitors and their abilities to serve the needs of the market, including understanding how our solution is (hopefully) differentiated, 4) having a sense of customers’ willingness to pay ...Read More

How far out your company or team should plan your roadmap, and the frequency with which you revise it, will depend on the maturity of your market and of your product. The more mature your market and/or product is, you ought to be able to make plans with a higher degree of certainty. In contrast, if you’re in an emerging space (as I am currently), you'll have more uncertainty as to the correct product strategy, especially the further you project into the future. This is because you’ll need to be ...Read More

Anything has the potential to influence the roadmap, but I’ll answer a slightly different question: What typically doesn’t work when it comes to influencing the roadmap. Any PM or Product leader who’s worth their salt will use a mix of quantitative and qualitative inputs to understand what they should build next, and so should you. Developing a roadmap, and keeping it updated, is both an art and a science. So here's what typically doesn’t work: Expressing opinions that aren’t informed by the dat ...Read More

In a perfect world, your goals will complement the goals of other teams across your organization, including your Product counterparts. Think about it this way: As a PMM, you are (hopefully) acting as your product’s CMO. As such, you should be focused on: Driving high quality pipeline (TOF assets; paid and organic search, events, etc) Helping move leads through the funnel (MOF assets) Enabling the field to qualify and win (discovery questions, pitch decks, demos, etc) that leads to revenue Drivin ...Read More

As outlined in another question, there are multiple ways to analyze i) your product-market fit, and ii) your position in the market relative to your competitors. All of these inputs need to be analyzed systematically to determine your product strategy, and thus, your roadmap that will fulfill that strategy. To be explicit, PMMs need to gather more than just customer input to build out their point of view. Ideally, both PMMs and PMs will analyze many/most of the same inputs. While this may seem r ...Read More

PMMs should be the conduit to collect insights and feedback from AEs, SEs, SDRs, and all the other channels discussed in this question's prompt. In many cases, PMs may also directly interact with customers and the field. But even in these cases, you (as a PMM) are hopefully gathering additional feedback from separate customer calls or account team meetings. You can’t both be everywhere, so in many cases, it's prudent to divide and conquer. Beyond individual customer meetings and internal account ...Read More