Josephine Ruiz-Healy

Quantitatively test your messaging through experimentation: * A/B test different types of messages on your website * A/B test different types of messages through paid social & organic social * A/B test different types of messages through SEM — I find this to be the easiest channel to experiment with given all you have to do is change copy. * A/B test different types of messages through email * A/B test different types of messages through in-product experiments — for example, our product is offered through a self-serve platform where we can set up in-product onboarding modals, notifications, and tooltips. Measure things like CTR, open rate, CVR, average budget size, and revenue. While engagement metrics like open rate and CTR are instructive, I wouldn't put too much stock in them, given people can be clicky but ultimately not convert or not convert at higher spends. Definitely take the time to confirm that the messaging that is driving the most initial engagement is also driving the most adoption and revenue. 

Before I explain the difference between messaging and copy, let me quickly recap positioning. Since positioning informs messaging and messaging informs copy, it’s important to start there. * Positioning is the foundation of all product marketing activities. I love the way that April Dunford defines it — ‍"Positioning defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well-defined set of customers cares a lot about." Once you know your positioning (this template helps), create a sales narrative that your internal teams agree on. It follows a general pattern — define the problem, explain how users are currently solving it, show where those solutions fall short, and introduce your product as a solution to the problem (you can read more in Founding Sales). * With positioning in place, you can move onto messaging. Messaging consists of value-oriented pillars supporting your product positioning — with key messages / statements for each pillar and proof points to support those key messages (e.g. product features, data points). Once you have your positioning and your messaging in place, synthesize it in a document that can serve as a source of truth for your partners teams across content, brand, growth, etc. * Copy is the way that your positioning and messaging come to life on external communication channels. Copy should reflect the essence of your messaging but in a way that will capture the undivided attention of your target audience. It’s okay to be punchier and less nuanced than your initial positioning and messaging. For example, your website’s tagline is often not the original sentence crafted by a PMM — it’s usually simpler, more enticing, and should make potential customers think, “That’s a no brainer!” For example, take a look at Slack’s positioning via their website. If a Seller is explaining Slack to a potential customer, e.g. something to the effect of “Slack is a productivity platform; it’s a better way to communicate with your team than email”, that’s the positioning. And messaging helps land that positioning. Key messages center on a few key benefits, e.g. speed, collaboration, security — with value-oriented statements for each of those, alongside supporting product features and marketing claims. But it all comes to life in their channels (e.g. website, email, paid social campaigns etc) via copy.

From the start of a project, outline a clear RACI on the key deliverables needed to get to market, including 1) Positioning, 2) Pricing, 3) Messaging. Share it with the working team early, so you can make sure everyone is on the same page. For example, positioning and pricing might require approval from a GM or whoever is accountable for the business goals, whereas messaging might require approval from a Senior Marketing Leader. Further defining the RACI helps you determine who has to approve the messaging versus who is informed or consulted. For the approver, share early thoughts as soon as you can and before you’re too far along in your thinking or in briefing in other teams. If that person is hard to find time with, I would try to find someone who they regularly touch base with and who can get you directional feedback. Assuming they don’t raise any red flags, share a document or deck with the decision-maker for formal approval, making it clear what the next steps are once you have their approval. For senior leaders, it’s often worth emphasizing the “why now?” for alignment and whether or not their approval is required to unblock other work.

While messaging informs content, content brings messaging to life for the right users, at the right time, and in the right channel. Practically, this means that a content expert will choose the messages which will most resonate with the audience and determines how to best deliver those messages, taking into into account factors such as: * The context in which the content lives — e.g. a post on socials versus a blog post on a website or a video on YouTube * The unique audience of the content — e.g. you could have a large following on your social handle, but a small and passionate readership of your blog * How that audience likes to receive information — e.g. your Instagram audience might want small, bite-sized pieces of digestible content, whereas readership of your blog might want a detailed explanation of how your product works.

I recommend creating a messaging document which can serve as a source of truth for internal teams. That document can include things like your positioning, key messages / value props, a glossary of key terms, and even a “do” and “don’t” section (e.g. do talk about X in this way, don’t talk about it in this way). If you work on a self-serve product, it’s critical that you share this document with your Product and Design team, so that a given user is seeing the same verbiage / language across the entire user journey — whether that’s an email, an ad, a conversation with a Seller, or your product. 

I wanted to develop mastery across PMM core competencies — inbound and outbound. At some companies, they split up product marketing into inbound or outbound teams, but I find that the most successful PMMs are those that can do both. * Inbound, i.e. the research that dictates what features and products to build for your target audience. This includes a strong understanding of your customer, competitors, and their market. Earlier in my career, I focused on taking on increasingly more challenging inbound projects, like leading a customer segmentation or a customer immersion that I could use to inform the product roadmap. * Outbound, i.e. the strategy and tactics to successfully bring a product to market. This includes quarterbacking all the work that eventually is customer-facing — positioning and pricing, messaging, sales enablement, gtm channels, launch objectives, run-of-shows, etc. While PMM may not be personally executing on every detail, they’re quarterbacking the GTM effort and are the main POC on project updates. Throughout my career, I’ve worked on different types of products to become a better outbound marketer. Some examples: B2B vs B2C, 0-1 vs scaling, free vs paid, U.S. only vs global, etc. And then beyond the hard skills, there are soft skills like team leadership and XFN influence. Before I started directly hiring and managing a team, I looked for many ways to demonstrate leadership on my broader marketing team. For example, I volunteered to manage an intern, I proposed a new launch prioritization framework to improve our team’s ways of working, and I started mentoring more junior members of the team. 

Depends on the role. If I’m hiring an Associate PMM, I don’t expect to see prior PMM experience. It’s more about seeing a demonstrable record of achieving results, hearing a growth mindset during the live interview, and evaluating their communication skills with a take-home interview. If I’m hiring a PMM or Senior PMM, I look at their prior PMM experience to determine if they have related experience for the open role. PMM can vary depending on the customer you’re serving (B2C vs B2B), the sales motion (sales-led vs product-led), the industry (ads vs healthcare), etc. For example, if I’m hiring a PMM focused on b2b ad solutions, I hope to see prior experience with b2b PMM or with ad products. But, related experience isn’t everything; passion and hustle can take you far. Stand out in the interview by researching the company and team via company blog posts or podcasts with the CEO, demonstrating your passion for the audience or market you’re serving with nuanced insights, and testing the product such that you’re able to articulate differentiation, benefits, and opportunities to the interview panel.

Yes, as long as you are connecting the dots with your own work and applying what you’ve learned to your team. For example, I’m a big fan of Lenny’s Podcast and the MKT1 Newsletter — they’re great ways to learn how other companies approach product, marketing, and strategy and improve your own team’s growth or launch initiatives. I directly used one of the MKT1 Newsletters to inform annual planning for my team. You can find inspiration everywhere — keep your eyes peeled for good marketing in the wild. That can come in the form of email copy, direct mail, subway ads, etc. I was in the Meatpacking district last year and ran across the Pinterest Predicts popup — it was a great example of how to tangibly bring their competitive differentiation to life. 

While an important part of product marketing is aligning with product goals and plans, most product marketers don’t spend enough time developing marketing-led strategies. I see a lot of PMMs that rely on product for direction, but the best marketing teams develop narratives that are out in front of the product, implement marketing levers that bring that messaging to life, and ultimately guide product direction. For example, our marketing team noticed that customers were increasingly viewing and using our increasingly multi-product portfolio as a platform, instead of distinct product lines which were how they appeared in-product. As a result, our team developed a new portfolio brand that could help bring together our products under one unified umbrella — this helped reduce customer acquisition costs, streamline marketing programs, grow adoption through cross-sell, and lay the breadcrumbs for a future platform product. Had we waited for product to build that platform first, we would have incurred compounding marketing debt and missed the opportunity to give product valuable insights about packaging and use cases. 

Start by clarifying where you want to go and what experiences will get you there. Where do you want to be in two, five, ten years? When you research or chat to people in those roles, what experiences have they had that you’re missing? Some of the best advice I ever received is to think about your career less like a straight shot up a corporate ladder and more like a portfolio of different experiences. With that lens, growth can take many forms beyond just promotion — leading a challenging new project, learning from a new set of cross-functional partners and leaders, shadowing a partner team to learn a new skill, marketing a new set of products with a different GTM motion, mentoring a new team member or college intern, etc. If you need inspiration, develop a network of marketer or PMM friends who can help you bounce ideas. After you’ve identified the skills you want to learn, talk to your manager. They’re invested in your success, so they should help you brainstorm new projects or give you feedback on opportunities that you’ve proactively identified. Chat with your skip-manager and close XFN partners to get their feedback. For example, if your experience is primarily in B2B PMM, see if you can get staffed on a B2C PMM project. Or, if you're a PMM who wants a broader marketing skillset, see if you can lead a growth marketing project where there’s a business need. Or, if you’ve only worked with Product Area X but heard great things about the leaders on Product Area Y, see if you can take on a step-up project to develop relationships with that team.