The PMM Classification System

In the world of SaaS, hiring great PMMs can feel like an impossible task. The competition is fierce and unless you know exactly what your team needs, you’ll be doing phone screens and interviews until the (purple) cows come home.

But how do you figure out what kind of PMM you need? Simple — it all begins with customer pain, in this case, yours.

Common Pains Felt by SaaS Organizations

1. Our company messaging is wishy washy and unclear. The pains are not well defined. There’s no central message or position explaining why anybody should care about our existence (yikes!).
2. We need to enable sales people with decks, one pagers, FAQs, cheatsheets, product demos, and other items to help open and close deals.
3. We need content to engage prospects and build thought leadership for our company (website messaging, white papers, eBooks, blog posts, webinars, etc).
4. We have an upcoming product launch and we need a PMM with “go-to-market” experience.
5. We need a PMM with industry knowledge to join sales meetings, tell our story, and paint our vision of the future.
6. We have upcoming events and we need a PMM to design and deliver the keynote, breakout session strategy, and show floor messaging.
7. We need to tell amazing customer stories and produce customer-focused content (quotes, case studies, success videos).

PMMs by definition are generalists (similar to product managers), but you will not find a PMM that can solve all of these pains. She does not exist.

That being said, we need a way to classify PMMs in order to understand exactly which pains certain types of PMMs are good at solving. Introducing….

The PMM Classification System

The four critical ability areas of every SaaS PMM.

We’ve chosen four primary “ability areas” to rate and score every PMM.

Messaging & Positioning

This is the ability to collect data, synthesize it, and produce a compelling position and message. It’s a PMM’s job to interview subject matter experts and product managers, analyze market trends and opportunities, and understand competitive differentiation. Having a problem-solving mindset and good writing skills are core components of messaging and positioning. A great PMM makes positioning bets and fights hard to dominate the frame.

Communication

This is the ability to take an existing message and push it into the mind of the prospect. PMMs do this by pitching. Every PMM should be good at pitching. What do you need to pitch an idea/story/narrative? As much as we hate to admit it, PowerPoint decks come in really handy. How well can this PMM build a visually-appealing deck that tells a story? Public speaking is also important. Can this PMM stand in front of a room or audience and deliver an engaging pitch?

Industry Depth

One of the toughest ability areas to develop is deep industry knowledge and experience. This is not an ability that can be gained through training alone. Industry depth comes only with time and immersion. Can this PMM explain the history of the industry? Does this PMM have insights into where the industry and market is going? Can this PMM explain why competitors made certain decisions?

Technical Experience

Depending on how technical your product or solution is, you may need a PMM with a technical background to assist with the telling of your story through product demonstrations. Technical experience enables a PMM to create technical content, record demo videos, and formulate more accurate messaging and positioning for practitioners.

Common Types of PMMs

The Beginner is just starting out. She is good at producing lightweight content for sales enablement, writing basic messaging, and driving projects to completion. Generally speaking only large PMM teams will hire beginners.

The “MBA” is is your consummate communicator. She can drive her own relationships with sales, build consensus with product management, define campaign strategy (“go-to-market”), and drive core messaging and positioning. She should be quite comfortable pitching the vision of the company and getting on stage if needed.

The Veteran has been in this space for many years. She knows all the players and can accurately explain competitive positioning. She knows how industry analysts think and can tell you where the industry is going as a whole. She can join sales meetings and hold her ground against skeptical prospects. She is comfortable talking to journalists and providing insightful quotes.

The Technical Marketer or TMM is the close cousin of a PMM. She has a strong technical background and can deliver a product demo for any persona. She’s good at targeting specific pains and providing detailed use cases. She can provide competitive intelligence at the feature level. She can produce data sheets and write technical blog content.

The Unicorn does not exist. Good luck. If you catch one, let us know.

All these examples of PMMs are broad generalizations. The truth is, every PMM is a snowflake, just like all people are snowflakes. You will need a diverse team of PMMs to meet all the demands of sales and marketing. A well-balanced team is the best route to success.

Did you gain any value from this story? If so, please give us a clappy on the left. Do you have your own thoughts about product marketing? If so, let us know by writing a response below.

Editor's note: The Art of Product Marketing is a publication dedicated to the field of SaaS Product Marketing. Our mission is to eradicate mundane product messaging from the universe.