Marketers over-index on crafting the perfect positioning framework. The real work is in collaborating with sales and demand gen to ensure the messaging is understood, tested, and consistently used across the company.
Product marketing leaders must adapt their approach to the specific needs of the company, team, and GTM motion, rather than forcing a textbook definition of the role. Success requires flexibility and situational analysis.
The hustle, storytelling, and budget constraints of PR agencies forge skills like resourcefulness and messaging that are crucial for product marketing, especially in early-stage startups where marketers must do more with less.
Launches are powerful internal tools. The 'artificial importance' of a launch date creates a deadline that forces product and engineering to ship while getting sales and marketing educated and excited, preventing endless iteration cycles.
Forcing PMMs into a 'full-stack' generalist role where they cover everything from data analysis to sales storytelling leads to failure. Specializing roles based on individual strengths and passions creates a more effective and happier team.
While revenue attribution is hard, a key KPI for product marketers supporting sales can be a simple survey of the sales team's satisfaction. This ensures alignment and service orientation, which every CMO ultimately cares about.
To ensure a good fit, ask product marketing candidates to rank core PMM tasks (research, sales enablement, positioning, etc.) by what they enjoy most. This quickly reveals if their passion aligns with the specific needs of the role, beyond just their skills.
When interviewing, ask candidates: 'In six months, what would be a nightmare situation for you here?' Their answer reveals their work-style preferences and anxieties, highlighting potential mismatches with your company's reality and helping you hire for retention.
In a hybrid model, one PMM group should serve the data-driven needs of PLG (activation, experimentation), while another serves the sales-enablement needs of the enterprise motion (collateral, training). This structure prevents individual PMMs from being spread too thin.