Raman Sharma

I have seen this done differently in different organizations. There is no right or wrong way. However, I firmly believe that the Product Marketer should own the narrative for their product.  If it is a customer story - what value prop are we trying to highlight?  If it is an ad campaign, what audience are we going after and what is the right messaging and CTA? If it is an email campaign to existing customers, what outcome are we trying to drive, and what messaging are we using? PMM, as the perso ...Read More

[Warning] Extremely Opinionated Zone starts now :) Value Proposition answers the question of whether buying your product is a good value exchange for the customer/prospect. The pain you are reducing or the delight you are introducing - is it worth the commercial exchange and a good deal for the prospect? Messaging is the act of clearly articulating the value proposition through words that resonate with the target audience. Pitch is a succinct and impactful delivery of the messaging, frequently c ...Read More

I am a big fan of writing examples.  Writing crisp customer-facing content (blog posts, data sheets, whitepapers, product pages, etc.) is essential for any Product Marketer. I must also add that the cross-functional nature of a PMM's job makes internal writing also very important. Clear, concise writing (GTM plans, memos, messages, 1-pagers, etc.) to get the point across succinctly to multiple stakeholders, drives alignment, and reduces duplicated efforts. Besides, I firmly believe that writing ...Read More

In my opinion, a big part of Product Marketing is storytelling - connecting the customers' and prospects' desires and pain points to the capabilities of your products and solutions.  Brand Marketing is not dissimilar. Just that brand is not limited to a single product; in this case, the entire company is the "product." Understanding your company's " story, "your reason for existence (or point of view), and your unique differentiation in the market are essential elements of the brand. These are i ...Read More

My philosophy on this is that PMMs should almost be embedded into their counterpart Product/Engineering teams. Schedule or scope changes shouldn't come to them as a surprise. We have utilized multiple tools like shared calendars, regular update meetings, dependency tracking tools, etc. Those are all useful but they are just tools. The intent is for PMMs to constantly stay in touch with the Product team to understand the what, why, and when of the customer value being delivered. Having this minds ...Read More

I might have a slightly controversial take on this one.  I think if you are in the business of marketing products to developers, you have to learn the trade a little bit. You must understand developers, developer tools, preferences, contemporary development trends, etc. If you are beginning to build a PMM team in a business like this, I recommend bringing someone who is a part marketer and developer.  Such people exist They are building micro-SaaS apps, they are writing books or building content ...Read More

A brand is not a logo. It is not a catchy tagline. It is not a color or font scheme. It is not the visual imagery. It is not the writing style guideline. It is the sum total of all the experiences an organization provides to its customers and prospects. I have worked in organizations where the company's most prominent "brand surface area" is its educational content (even though it is not in the education business). I have also worked on product teams where the product is the users' most signific ...Read More

It depends on the go to market motion of the company. In self-serve businesses, PMMs can play a more direct role in engaging with customers, gathering and synthesizing feedback. In sales-led motions, usually the customer facing teams (sales and success) have way more familiarity with customer scenarios and are closer to a customer's pain points as well as language. So, in such cases, capturing feedback from such internal partners, is not a bad place to start. I still advice PMMs to get in front ...Read More

In my opinion, budget has very little to do with influencing the product roadmap. Customer insights, understanding of the space, and competitive dynamics are the more important factors. Budget can definitely help with creating more avenues like Customer Advisory Boards, other in-person customer meetings, or some other form of feedback collection. However, in my experience, enterprising PMMs rarely find themselves constrained by these things. There is usually more customer feedback available than ...Read More