Teresa Haun

This question is very similar to this other answer so I'm sharing my answer from there here too: At Zendesk, we use a launch template that includes key workstreams and teams to engage for different tiers of launches. We use two criteria to determine the tier of a launch: business impact and market impact. For business impact, we assess how much the launch benefits existing and new customers, including whether it makes a material difference in whether they select Zendesk or a competitor. For mark ...Read More

The classic product marketing career path for those who want to stay in product marketing that I usually see in terms of roles and titles is PMM → Senior PMM → Group or Principal PMM → Director → Senior Director → VP → SVP → CMO. From my experience, I’ve seen managing a report or a team typically starts at the Group or Principal level and then expands each time you progress from there, sometimes it also happens at the Senior level. I haven’t seen a path in PMM to remain an individual contributor ...Read More

At Zendesk, we do use a launch template that includes key workstreams and teams to engage for different tiers of launches. We use two criteria to determine the tier of a launch: business impact and market impact. For business impact, we assess how much the launch benefits existing and new customers, including whether it makes a material difference in whether they select Zendesk or a competitor. For market impact, we evaluate how the launch changes our position in the market. We consider if the l ...Read More

I often like to ask, “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” as well as, “In your last performance review, what were your opportunities to improve and how have you worked to address them?” I like the question “What accomplishment are you most proud of?” because it often helps me understand what really motivates a candidate and what type of worker they are. The best answer I’ve heard to that question was a candidate who talked about overcoming some very challenging obstacles for a new produc ...Read More

When I think about the most successful launches my team and I have done, they all included 1) a clear go-to-market strategy with leadership and stakeholders bought in, 2) strong communication and partnership across cross-functional teams, 3) effective sales enablement, and 4) success metrics and estimates for what we expected to deliver set in advance.Having a clear go-to-market strategy that includes all the key considerations and all stakeholders aligned sets the stage for a successful launch. ...Read More

I’m going to split my answer here because the additional question details suggest you may be feeling frustrated that PMM has become more strategic, but for me, the strategic work in product marketing is a large part of why I love the function so much :). I’m hoping I can still be helpful to you in my response if I just separate those pieces. In my experience, I’ve actually always seen the role of PMM to be quite strategic and I think that’s really driven by the function sitting at such a critica ...Read More

I’ve heard two terms used before to describe product marketing’s role in a launch that really resonate with me and I think accurately sum up what we do. The first is “launch captain” and the second is “momentum maker” (credit to @Marcus Andrews for that one). Product marketing is the “captain” that brings all of the other cross-functional teams together to bring a launch to life. We sit in the middle of Product, Marketing and Sales and are the bridge between them to determine how we can best mar ...Read More

You are definitely not alone! I think a lot of new and experienced PMMs struggle with messaging and I absolutely did and still think I have plenty of room to improve. Since I’m unfortunately running out of time in this AMA, I wanted to at least suggest this similar question and thread that has a ton of great responses from highly-respected PMMs sharing the resources that help them create strong messaging: https://sharebird.com/what-are-good-messaging-framework-resources-that-you-use. There are a ...Read More

I would try to highlight anything that shows you have the key skills to be an effective product marketer. That definitely includes strong writing samples and case studies like you suggested, but also: Presentations that show you can create a compelling narrative and convince an audience of your point Detailed GTM launch plans with how you will or did measure success Clear, convincing and well-supported messaging and positioning, like through a messaging source document (something we use at Zende ...Read More

I personally think Product Marketing should report into Marketing with the head of the whole product marketing function reporting directly to the CMO. This is exactly how we’re organized at Zendesk and I’ve found this reporting structure seems to work well for our team. I believe it’s because even though our work sits in the middle of Marketing, Product and Sales, our greatest number of direct stakeholders and partner teams are in Marketing. At least in my experience, I find there are so many ot ...Read More