Surachita Bose

There are a gazillion tools (free ones if you’re budget-constrained) out there. The choice of tool is a function of what you’re looking to accomplish. But nothing beats sitting with the customer and listening to them. Some of the tools and platforms I keep going back to: * User Testing, Loop 11, Userlytics: UserTesting has been a very easy and useful tool for my teams for audience recruitment, message testing, usability testing, and even generating live video-based customer narratives. As they say, show don’t tell! I’ve also used Loop11 and Userlytics for A/B testing wireframe prototypes to assess the usability of product workflows. For example, at Intuit my team ran extensive customer testing sessions on UserTesting (100+) to test out multiple variations of a new platform narrative for the Quickbooks suite and pricing/bundling executions on Intuit.com - these insights informed the selection of design options that were then further A/B tested. Classic example of “go broad, then go narrow”. * Survey Monkey/Google surveys: Customer surveys are hugely beneficial in both B2B (fewer target customers) and B2C contexts (large customer base) to glean the right signals from customers and build informed hypotheses. At Twilio, we used Survey Monkey for messaging and claims testing with existing enterprise customers. * Hubspot’s “Make my persona”: Make my persona has been quite useful for generating alpha versions of Persona Outlines - auto-generates all essential components of your ICP (ideal customer profile) that you can then use to flesh out contextual details of your target customer. * G2 Reviews to keep a pulse on what users are saying about you and more importantly, your competitors. 

Love this question and I’m often surprised by how underutilized customer research is within companies. The issue is that research takes time which explains why a lot of companies shy away from it. But the right intel can accelerate your business multiple orders of magnitude by informing - priority product bets, competitive differentiation, geo expansion, pricing strategies, strategic narratives, validating personas (and so much more)! First, tie the research hypotheses to defined P0 business priorities to demonstrate value quickly and tangibly. Second, the question you’re ultimately helping your organization figure out is this - how to design digital products that people/customers actually want? Align your business priorities and customer needs to demonstrate ROI (measurable outcomes aka KPIs) of a VOC program internally. Rule of thumb - always show value before asking for resources. Sharing some tangible ideas to build and scale a VOC program. MVP of a VOC program and Getting buy-in: * Carve time: Allocate a small % of the team’s time to understanding customers. Formalize it. * Run lean research: Join customer conversations through sales/customer success calls, run qual focus groups & quant surveys (free tools like User testing, Survey Monkey, Google surveys, landing page intercepts), engage with online user communities, review product analytics data (e.g. onboarding, engagement, churn) meet industry analysts, volunteer at your company’s events booth, run win/loss interviews ... you get the gist. Every chance you get, sit with the customer and actually listen to them. * Synthesize! Not everything you learn will be of value. Determining which insights could be potential needle movers is the secret sauce that skilled PMMs bring to the fore. * Socialize: Schedule time (e.g. quarterly cadence) for “Lunch and learn” sessions that anyone across the org can join to hear directly from customers/prospects (ideally) or for a shareout by PMMs. This could serve as a beta version of a future ‘Customer Advisory Board’. * Create a knowledge hub: Create a “Customer Insights” newsletter, build a wiki page, and socialize case studies with stakeholders to showcase insights and how the learnings were applied to strategic business initiatives to diffuse customer insights throughout the org. * Find X-functional champions to serve as ambassadors of the VOC program across teams. Involve them in sourcing customers, survey design, and interview sessions to keep them involved in the build phase of the VOC program. * Break org silos: A VOC program could be that trojan horse for breaking cross-organizational silos and push deeper thinking on target markets, ICP and messaging. Once the MVP version takes hold, then scale by investing budget and resources towards a more robust version of the program (ie. external agencies, paid reports, paid tools, dedicated Research team).

Ah the cross-functional socialization challenge! I've answered this in another section but adding my two cents here again just given how critical this is for value casting. * Socialize: Schedule time (e.g. quarterly cadence) for “Lunch and learn” sessions that anyone across the org can join to hear directly from customers/prospects (ideally) or for a shareout by PMMs. This could serve as a beta version of a future ‘Customer Advisory Board’. * Synthesize! Not everything you learn will be of value. Determining which insights could be potential needle movers is the secret sauce that skilled PMMs bring to the fore. * Create a knowledge hub: Create a “Customer Insights” newsletter, build a wiki page, and socialize case studies with stakeholders to showcase insights and how the learnings were applied to strategic business initiatives to diffuse customer insights throughout the org. * Find X-functional champions to serve as ambassadors of the VOC program across teams. Involve them in sourcing customers, survey design, and interview sessions to keep them involved in the build phase of the VOC program.

Hey PMM tribe - We all know launching a new product without buyer personas is like throwing a party without knowing who’s on the guest list! You can always hire a research agency to do this for you (if you have deep pockets!) but here is a scrappy guide to building personas yourself to get the job done in this new “era of efficiency”! Step 1: Research, Research, Research: Start with comprehensive research to understand your market. Dive into demographic data, customer surveys, and industry reports to gather insights. Step 2: Customer Interviews and Surveys: Talk to real people! Conduct interviews and surveys with your current and potential customers to gather qualitative data on their preferences, pain points, and behaviors. Step 3: Segment Your Audience: Based on your research, segment your audience into distinct groups with shared characteristics. This helps in creating targeted and relevant personas. Step 4: Create Detailed Persona Profiles: Develop detailed profiles for each persona, including demographics, goals, challenges, motivations, and preferred communication channels. Give them names, backstories, pains & frustrations - make them real to make them more relatable. Step 5: Validate and Refine: Validate your personas with additional research and feedback from your sales and customer success teams. Refine them based on new insights to ensure accuracy. Step 6: Align Your Team: Share your personas with your cross-functional stakeholders & team to ensure everyone is aligned and understands who they’re targeting. This ensures consistency in messaging and strategy across all departments. Step 7: Integrate into Your Marketing Strategy: Use your personas to guide your storytelling, marketing strategies, content creation, product development, and sales tactics. Tailor your messaging to address the specific needs and preferences of each persona. As they say, "Right message, right channel, right time". In summary, creating buyer personas is both an art and a science. It involves understanding your audience so thoroughly that you can craft products and messages that resonate perfectly. Master your personas, and your brand's story will unfold like a blockbuster hit 🎬✨

My bias is towards conducting in-house research first to establish the foundations and get crisp on the business subjective, research questions, target personas … what we need to learn, who are we targeting, and why. I’ve found that you can get a reasonable distance with a structured approach to customer research and the process can be a good gauge for formulating the research agenda before you bring in an agency and/or purchase industry reports. Your output is only as good as the clear framing of the objectives - you don’t want to send your agency on a wild goose chase!

Boosting the Product Marketing (PMM) function to be a strategic powerhouse, not just a product launch pad, is JOB #1 for any leader worth their salt. Ever feel like your Product Marketing team is the high-energy friend who’s always planning the parties but never invited to strategy meetings? Let’s change that narrative and elevate Product Marketing to the strategic rockstars they’re meant to be! 🎸 Here are some ideas from my toolkit (7-step power play) to elevate PMM to the next level: 1. Align with Business Goals: Tie P0 PMM activities directly to the company's vision and strategy - when PMM syncs with the broader business mission, it becomes a vital strategic partner. This involves understanding the company's vision, mission, and strategic priorities and ensuring that PMM activities directly support these elements. For example, PMM can present quarterly insights and strategic recommendations to the executive team, demonstrating their role in driving business growth and market success. 2. Master Market Insights: Equip the PMM team to lead with deep market, customer, and competitive insights - achieved through market research, customer interviews, competitive analysis, and trend monitoring. By unleashing this knowledge across the org, PMMs can provide the insights that influence product direction, positioning and overall GTM strategy. For example, during my time at Uber, our research with riders & drivers during COVID reflected a growing focus on sustainability & responsibility of business to drive a green mandate. This led to the launch of “Uber Green” rides on the platform and Uber’s sustainability mandate positioning Uber as a market leader in sustainable transportation - a significant business & reputational unlock for the rides business. 3. Early Involvement in Product Development to champion Value proposition: Don’t just call PMM when it’s time to hit the launch button - Product Marketing must earn a seat at the product development table from day one. This ensures that we understand the product’s vision, target market, and strategic goals right from the start. Shift focus from feature launches to powerful value propositions. Clearly articulate how your product uniquely solves customer problems and adds value. 4. Forge Cross-Functional Alliances: Imagine Product Marketing as the glue in your company's band—keeping Sales, Product, and R&D harmonizing in perfect pitch - promote tight-knit collaboration between PMM, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Exec Leadership. Strategic partnerships amplify, influence and drive holistic growth. 5. Leverage Data for Decisions + Tie outcomes to metrics: KPIs aren’t just alphabet soup—they’re our secret recipe for showing just how much impact we’re making beyond the launch party. Use data and analytics to inform PMM strategies. Data-driven insights ensure that PMM recommendations are grounded in reality and impact. Establish clear metrics to measure the strategic impact of PMM activities. These could include market penetration rates, customer acquisition and retention metrics, win/loss analysis, and brand perception scores. Regularly review these metrics to assess and communicate the strategic value of PMM. 6. Thought Leadership: Position the PMM team as thought leaders both internally and externally. This can be done by publishing white papers, speaking at industry events, and sharing insights through blogs and webinars. Thought leadership helps establish credibility and influence within the organization and the market. 7. Executive Sponsorship: Ensure executive sponsorship and support for the PMM function. This includes having a seat at the leadership table and regular interactions with C-suite executives to align on strategic priorities and showcase PMM contributions. By implementing a combination of these strategies deftly in your org's context, the Product Marketing function can evolve from being seen as merely the "launch arm" to a critical strategic player that drives business growth and market success. Let's keep the conversation going - what have you seen in your organizations that has helped unlock your and your team's strategic PMM muscle?

Hmm, if you've done work on the brand side including gathering customer research and insights, you already know more about PMM than you think. Start by stepping back to understand PMM as a function more deeply. Explore its various facets—different PMM specializations, core skills, and how the shape of PMM differs between consumer vs B2B, startups vs larger orgs, PLG vs SLG, SMB vs mid-market vs Enterprise. There is a plethora of resources online on product marketing as a function - network with PMM professionals to understand their day-to-day and try to find the translation layer to represent your work from a PMM lens. Identify any gaps, focus on what you’re already strong at, and build from there. PMM is a relatively newer function and plenty of marketing and product professionals have pivoted to PMM by demonstrating their specialization and fluency in relevant PMM skills from adjacent functions and industries. If I were you, I would build a portfolio of projects to highlight (for PMM roles) your expertise with - 1. [Inbound] Understanding of Customer Needs & Pain Points 2. [Inbound] Research & Experimentation 3. [Inbound] Data-forward and data-informed strategy development skills 4. [Outbound] Storytelling (!!) - your brand-side experience gives you an edge here You may need to stretch to develop expertise in areas like GTM orchestration, sales enablement, or contributing to product roadmaps, but those can be long-term growth goals. Startups are usually more willing to make a bet on smart & adaptable folks who will learn on the job. Alternatively, consider entry-level PMM roles at larger organizations where you might have more structured learning and opportunities to get guided mentorship. Both paths have value and the choice depends on your style of learning and having a firm understanding of what kind of environment you'll thrive in.

I’ll be honest: cracking the code for being a high performer while maintaining work-life balance in PMM—especially in B2B tech—feels like hunting for a unicorn. When you find it, do me a favor and send me the coordinates :-) PMM roles often feel like you’re juggling flaming rings while everyone around you is throwing more into the mix— sales wants a deck yesterday, product needs messaging for a Tier 1 feature launch, feature adoption is lagging and PMM is tasked with cracking the code, and marketing has another integrated campaign pitch to review. Sound familiar? I can offer advice based on what I try to do to balance long tail, critical business priorities, impromptu executive asks, hiring priorities, team mentoring/feedback and cross-functional relationships. Generally speaking, WLB is a complex and elusive juxtaposition that depends on the stage of your career, the function you're in, the stage of the company you work for, and other macro factors beyond our control. The way to realize work-life integration (note I did not say balance) is a game of mastering 1. building capacity to take more on 2. maximizing flexibility and 3. being intentional & establishing boundaries - some days and weeks you get it right and some days you don’t. This is a never-ending tradeoff, and I don’t have perfect answers. But here’s my evolving set of principles that help me find my balance across my "life roles" as a PMM leader, mom/partner, friend, and mentor .. I'm a work in progress! 1. Work for the Right Company (and the Right Leader): Not all companies create the same environment. Some expect “heroics” as a baseline. If the fundamentals are off, no amount of heroism is going to save the day. Look for organizations that value sustainable productivity and have leaders who model healthy boundaries. I know, easier said than done—especially in today’s job market. When interviewing, watch for red or yellow flags like high turnover or overly chaotic structures. Ask hard questions about team culture and micromanagement. Glassdoor and Blind reviews can also be enlightening, though take them with a grain of salt. And if you find yourself in an environment where the fit is not quite there, overcome status quo bias and consider moving on to the next thing. Knowing when to persist vs when to pull the plug and having the wisdom & courage to make these assessments is key. 2. Ruthlessly Prioritize: PMM is a role where everything feels urgent, but not everything actually is. I use the 80/20 rule—spend 80% of your time on the 20% of work that drives the most significant outcomes (think launches, GTM strategy, and executive deliverables). Learn to Say No – or at least “not now.” Be transparent about trade-offs and get better at negotiating. If you're asked to do something that doesn't align with your team's priorities, explain what you'll deprioritize to take it on. I've found that while these conversations may seem hard, stakeholders respect honesty and clarity. 3. Automate and Templatize everything: Reinventing the wheel is the enemy of efficiency. I have a toolkit of “PMM ALL THE THINGS” (my Uber colleagues might chuckle reading this) of best-in-class messaging frameworks, launch plans, pitch decks and sales enablement materials - build, launch, repeat, iterate. These can save you hours of work and make cross-functional asks less daunting. In addition, use platforms like Notion, Asana, or Airtable to track deliverables, manage priorities, and automate workflows. A solid process cuts down on the chaos. 4. Lean Into Cross-Functional Partnerships: You don’t have to do everything alone. Delegate to teammates or lean on your cross-functional counterparts. Collaborate with sales enablement for decks, demand gen for campaign narratives, and product managers for technical insights. Build trust through collaboration and a strong reputation for delivering high-quality work on time and this will mean that stakeholders will trust you and be more patient when you need breathing room. Clarify expectations early, and get aligned on what’s needed and by when, vagueness leads to scope creep, and scope creep eats time. 5. Say No to perfectionism: You can’t be a high performer if you’re running on fumes. PMM is often about iteration. Launch MVPs in your work and refine them as you go. Done is better than perfect when deadlines loom. Step away during the day to recharge. Even a 15-minute walk can reset your focus. And when you’re off the clock, be off the clock (ha!). High performance isn’t about being busy—it’s about delivering value. If you’re producing high-impact work, you don’t need to put in 70 hours a week. Focus on being a strategic thinker who solves problems, rather than just an executor ticking off tasks. 6. Observe markers of burnout: I've gotten better at noticing the signs of burnout in myself over time, especially when I fall into a rut. I've observed this with folks on my team as well, it typically begins with feeling irritable or disengaged, which gradually snowballs into full-blown exhaustion and a nagging urge to move on—even if the job may be a good fit. What I realized is for me, it isn't about the hours I’m clocking but more about the balance between what I’m putting in and what I’m getting back. When I’m busy but feel a strong sense of progress, growth, or momentum, burnout rarely happens. The problem arises when I feel stuck—investing time and energy but not seeing meaningful returns in terms of momentum or fulfillment. What’s been helpful is taking quick, small actions to shift gears before I spiral further and shifting my perspective on things. These changes, no matter how minor, create an upward cycle that help restore energy and motivation instead of letting things slide downhill. High performance isn’t about being busy—it’s about delivering value. If you can prioritize, set boundaries, and stay attuned to your energy levels, you can thrive (in PMM or any demanding function) without burning out. And when all else fails, remember this: the flaming rings can wait. Quoting Dory from Finding Nemo, sometimes you gotta just keep swimming. (Oh, and when you figure out how to achieve true balance? Seriously, call me!)

New product features seamlessly integrated and intuitively weaved within a product UI can be key levers for user adoption and satisfaction - starts with strong customer discovery, intuitive design and robust feature build. There is no band-aid fix for poor design. Once you've built the right product experience, you can start to think about shaping user habits. Think personalization, omnichannel engagement and reduction of cognitive burden when you think of approaches to drive user stickiness. Here are some ideas for driving awareness and product engagement - * In-app/surface messaging: Tooltips, guided product walkthroughs, announcement banners, contextual pop-ups, full screen takeovers for the in-the moment messaging have been THE MOST impactful in driving desired customer behavior especially in consumer apps. Examples: Uber rider app, Doordash app, Amazon are good examples of products that leverage in-app messaging effectively. * In-app Onboarding and Tutorials: Primary onboarding involves introducing the user to the app and guiding them to their "aha" moment, ensuring they become engaged and active users. Secondary onboarding focuses on maintaining user engagement, encouraging the discovery of new features, and increasing usage to drive revenue growth. Demos, guides and tutorials help guide users on product value and feature functionality. * Personalized & Omnichannel experiences: The best app onboarding experiences take the full user journey into account and involve cohesive messaging across multiple channels such as email, customer success outreach, self-service support, video walkthroughs, and more. Some excellent examples that come to mind include Asana, Headspace that understand the importance of personalization in the onboarding experience. * User Education & Support: Update your help center with articles, FAQs, and troubleshooting tips related to the new feature. At Iterable, we have a robust offering called "Iterable Academy" that provides a series of self-guided learning modules to help marketers build fluency with the platform as they design & orchestrate complex, multichannel campaigns. * Engagement and Incentives: Gamification techniques like badges or points encourage users to try out new features. Also, incentives such as discounts, free trials, or exclusive access can encourage users to explore & adopt new features. Remember "Farmville"? I maybe dating myself here. The genius in how Farmville succeeded back in the day in getting so many people addicted was in how it handled commitments on a player's time: every time you played Farmville and planted a crop, you made a commitment to come back during a 12 hour window or so to harvest your crop, or else you forfeited your investment. While Farmville is no more, there is something to be learned about driving sticky user behavior through gamification. * Iterate, iterate, Iterate: Launch, test, learn and .... you guessed it .. iterate! Some of my favorite product UIs that I think are effective at driving user behavior are Blinkist, Duolingo, Asana and Notion - love these apps for their intuitiveness, versatility and catering to a wide range of user preferences.

Let’s talk about the path of the industry-specific PMM. I’ve had the privilege of leading both, industry-focused and full-stack PMM teams—at Twilio (deeply verticalized hybrid GTM that paired core PLG offering with SLG for enterprise), Iterable (industry-agnostic platform focus, selling to mid-market & enterprise), and previously at Uber and Intuit. Along the way, I’ve learned a few truths about what makes this path rewarding, challenging, and—let’s be honest—occasionally frustrating. Let's talk about the perks of specializing. First, addressing the obvious: if you’re working in a vertical like financial services, healthcare, or public sector, your industry knowledge is pure gold. Why? Because these industries are tough nuts to crack and have significant untapped TAM/SAM. Customers in regulated markets don’t just want to know that your product is good; they want to know that you “get it”—their pain points (ie mobile purchasing behavior of consumers in Retail, State & Federal budget allocations for digital innovation, health care data privacy considerations, blockchain implications for fintech), industry-specific use cases, compliance hurdles (HIPAA, FedRamp), why their day is so much harder than anyone else’s and ultimately the answer to "Why Solution X". That’s where you come in. As an industry-specific PMM, you’re not just writing messaging—you’re translating complexity into clarity. Your expertise makes you indispensable to GTM and Sales teams that are trying to land the pitch. You’re the one who can say, “No, you don’t talk to an insurance exec about ‘seamless digital workflows.’ You talk about mitigating claims fraud and cutting costs — and X, Y, Z”. But it’s not just about the messaging. Specializing gives you a front-row seat to high-stakes strategic opportunities. You’ll work closely with Sales & GTM leadership, partners, and enterprise customers, making “you” the person folks trust in the room. This visibility? Career rocket fuel. And for early- to mid-career PMMs, it’s a golden chance to sharpen your storytelling and executive engagement skills. You will be surprised how immensely valuable “solutions or platform storytelling” skills are in a world full of “product-first and feature-first” pitches as a response to the competitive cycle of "feature wars". But wait, there's a catch. For a company to move to verticals, you need verticals that are large enough to support a dedicated GTM strategy and distinct enough to justify dedicated resources. Be tuned to whether the company is serious about a verticalized business strategy. Do they have an industry SME to guide and accelerate the roadmap/GTM motion? Are they prioritizing building verticalized features/offerings? Do they have a partner ecosystem to enable penetration into verticals? A targeted & nuanced industry narrative can only get you so far - without compelling strategic investments to back up these claims, the storytelling loses firepower pretty quickly. Second, specializing too much as a PMM can feel like falling into the narrow-focus trap. Vertical roles are valuable, but they can be limiting if you don't build transferable skills. Can you adapt your vertical narrative to a different industry? Show you're not just a "public sector" PMM but a "Solutions-focused marketer" who can tackle any complex "verticals" challenge. Take a step back and craft your "one-to-many playbook" as you delve into industries & observe the patterns. Your expertise with “Solutions” can also make you a strong candidate for roles in strategy consulting or advisory capacities. Also, many industry-specific PMMs play a key role in adapting PLG strategies for enterprise customers where horizontal PLG motions may falter ensuring you’re at the forefront of evolving marketing practices. And finally, let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: budgets. When things get tough (and they do— as we've seen in 2022), companies often prioritize horizontal initiatives over niche teams. If you’re in a vertical-specific role during a downturn or acquisition, you might find yourself on the chopping block faster than you can say “cross-functional alignment.” Industry-specific expertise can sometimes oversaturate niches, leading to competition for roles within those verticals. In smaller or leaner organizations (especially startups), verticalized or solutions PMM teams might face challenges like insufficient resources, unclear role definitions, or worse, orphan teams without a product/business mandate (yes, this happens). Emerging trends in PMM/GTM motions: 1. PLG Meets Enterprise: PLG isn’t just for scrappy startups anymore. Enterprises are jumping on board, and PMMs who can marry PLG’s self-serve principles with tailored enterprise strategies are in high demand. You’ve got to balance technical product depth with customer empathy & industry nuance. It’s like juggling flaming torches—but with data. 2. Rise of Hybrid Models: PLG, SLG, ABM—welcome to the alphabet soup of modern GTM strategies. Hybrid is the name of the game, and vertical-focused PMMs are often at the heart of these efforts. Why? Because you understand how to sell both the sizzle (industry pitch) and the steak (platform & product capabilities). 3. The Push for Verticalization: Companies like Salesforce and Microsoft are doubling down on industry-specific solutions. If you can define and market vertical offerings, you’re playing in a space that’s going to grow. Bonus points if you can help customers navigate digital transformation— it’s like teaching them to surf the oceans when they’ve been accustomed to swimming in a pool. 4. Cross-Functional Leadership: As an industry PMM, you’ll spend a lot of time working with Sales, product, and Customer success teams. Your ability to bring everyone together around a shared vision is what makes you not just a PMM but a leader. Hybrid models are becoming the norm. Successful industry-focused PMMs have a mastery of both SLG (building enterprise trust through tailored value propositions) and PLG (scaling with high-touch, data-driven experimentation). Advice for Navigating this path: If I were mentoring someone exploring this path, I’d advise them to study companies leading in verticalized GTM strategies (Box, Salesforce, ServiceNow) and learn how their PMM teams contribute. 1. Find your Balance// Take a portfolio approach Specialize, but don’t pigeonhole yourself. Build a playbook that’s adaptable to different industries. You want to be the Swiss Army knife of PMMs, not just the bottle opener. 2. Show Your Impact Always connect your work to business results. Did you help close enterprise deals? Influence product strategy? Lead thought leadership initiatives? Make sure your résumé screams, “I don’t just execute; I deliver results.” 3. Invest in Transferable Skills Data-driven storytelling, stakeholder management, market research, competitive analysis —these are your evergreen skills. They’ll serve you no matter where your career takes you. 4. Build Your Network// Connect with PMM mentors Engage with PMM peers on platforms like Sharebird, PMA, other platforms and try to do this IRL. I find that I learn a lot more from actual PMM meet-ups through the real talk that happens in person vs TOFU style PMM advice on Linkedin. Learn from folks who’ve been down this road and can share real examples of what works and not. Having taken a portfolio approach throughout my PMM career (including solutions PMM roles), I believe that building a solutions PMM muscle in a specific vertical or two can be a game-changer. The key is to stay curious, adaptable, and nimble. At the end of the day, whether you’re marketing to fintech execs or healthcare providers, you’re telling a story that solves real problems. Do that well, and you’ll always have a seat at the table. Oh, and remember: every challenge is just another plot twist in your career. And who doesn’t love a good story?