Katie Levinson

As someone who started in consumer brand, then went to B2B2C product marketing, then back to B2C product marketing, these are the areas of overlap I’ve seen between the two: Competitive landscape and audience insights: Deep understanding of both the competitive landscape and your target audience (in B2B that tends to be buyers/decision makers in certain verticals/industries, whereas in B2C it’s a broader psychographic/behavioral target) Cross-functional collaboration: Working cross-functionally, ...Read More

First, stakeholders should be involved in your market research before it is even started. Get their buy-in on what the goal is, key learning objectives, and the questions you’ll be asking / data you’ll be uncovering. If you are doing any qualitative interviews, ask stakeholders to be notetakers or just listen in; I’ve found creating a google sign up sheet and then inviting people to the calendar invite has been pretty helpful. Once your research is done, share it out and set up time to discuss i ...Read More

One of the things I love most about product marketing is the opportunity to help shape the consumer experience, both in product and through various marketing channels. It’s a true end-to-end lifecycle role, starting with research, developing positioning and messaging, and setting GTM strategy that all influence the success of your product and business. I also love that in order to be an excellent product marketer, you have to really understand and empathize with your target audience. A key part ...Read More

Great question, and one we’ve been discussing at Handshake. It’s important to establish a strong collaborative partnership with UXR, ideally with shared goals. Every company is different, but at a startup with limited resources and a lot of work to do, we would outline our needs for the quarter, and figure out who was best to tackle the research needs. We would then share each other’s research briefs and ask for input on learning objectives as well as questions. While both PMM and UXR work on fo ...Read More

The shift from individual contributor to director is less about product marketing skills and more about leadership, strategy and influence. In my opinion, the most important skills are: Strategic thinking at the portfolio level: As a senior PMM, you're generally deep on one product or product area. As a director, you need to see how multiple products work together, understand resource allocation across initiatives, and think about long-term positioning strategy. You can start practicing these sk ...Read More

One: talk to as many different product marketers as you can across a wide variety of company sizes and industries. What you’ll hear from each of them is that product marketing means different things at different companies, and they aren’t kidding. It’s good to get a sense of what the role entails/will entail and see what resonates with you. This will also help you to identify any skills/experience gaps you might have. Two: Take on projects that allow you to develop and highlight these skills: Re ...Read More

Any VoC insights/data should be shared internally, along with the “so what.” It’s not enough to just share results from a survey or what you’ve heard from your consumers - you have to package it up in a way for stakeholders to understand why it’s important, and what should be done with the information. More practically, we use data like this to help inform strategic roadmap/planning decisions, in board decks to help bring company goals and results to life, and to develop positioning, messaging a ...Read More

You should define the success of your launch BEFORE you actually launch, and even before you finalize your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. This should be done in partnership with your fellow marketing cross-functional teammates, who will be responsible for helping move KPIs, and with the product team, whose strategy and goals will play a major role in your GTM strategy and plan. With that out of the way, a successful product launch really depends on your goals. Are you trying to attract a ton of ne ...Read More

Partnerships can have a great multiplier effect on your product marketing efforts, depending on how strategic the partnership is and also what you’re hoping to get out of it. But, your GTM strategy, your value propositions, messaging and overall marketing and product strategy have to be solid first - if those components aren’t strong, then a partnership isn’t going to help. There are lots of positives, with the caveat that the partnership makes sense strategically from a brand and product standp ...Read More

Yes! There are many reasons why you may want to hold off on launching a feature or product after it’s already been released. This often happens when you want to either bundle a bunch of features for a coherent narrative, or there’s a time in the market when it would be better to capitalize (for instance, if there’s a large tech event where you can unveil your new product or feature to maximize press). To get a bit more specific, here are some scenarios: Align with Market Timing: A competing prod ...Read More