8 Ways to Set Up Your New PMM Team for Success

Take this scenario. You started a new job. You are leading the product marketing (PMM) function. Luckily, you have one or two people on your team plus a budget to hire more in the coming months. You are in a GREAT spot to create a team that provides value to your company.

But where do you begin?

How can you ensure you and the team are set up for success?

Let’s face it. We see product marketing teams being wiped out over and over again. Then 18 months later, there is another attempt to build out the function.

Over the years I have seen many different scenarios for product marketing functions, including:

• The first product marketer (EVER) has been hired at the company.
• An established PMM team is growing.
• The product marketing team was eliminated over a year ago and the company wants to rebuild the function.
• The PMM team has completely turned over in the last 6 months.
• Continuous company reorgs where product marketing moved from the marketing department to the product team and then back to marketing.

From all these experiences, I have learned various maneuvers that can help product marketing teams survive and thrive.

As many have said before, product marketing is a highly misunderstood and undervalued profession. Below are the top eight initiatives and strategies I've seen make a positive impact on product marketing teams and functions.

1. Meet with and interview all the key stakeholders. When you first enter an organization, be sure to ask those in sales, marketing, product, customer success, enablement, sales ops, etc. what has been working, what challenges they face, and ultimately what they hope to see product marketing do for the company. Meet with leaders and individual contributors. Also, have a few slides on hand that help clearly explain what product marketing is so everyone you speak with has a better understanding of where you’re coming from and why you’ve joined the company.
2. Create a PMM charter. If you’re building a new product marketing team or redefining an existing team, creating a team charter can be very beneficial. A charter helps others understand the role and value product marketing brings.
3. Define roles and responsibilities. Product marketing is the connective tissue within an organization, so it is bound to overlap with other teams such as product management, marketing, and sales enablement. Holding a series of work sessions with various teams to define roles and responsibilities can pay dividends. Creating a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) will clearly outline who should lead or be consulted on initiatives such as competitive research, win-loss, enablement, and messaging.
4. Develop scalable processes and templates. Time is money and if you can take a lot of the upfront work out of the equation with a template… DO IT! Product launches and other initiatives go through the same motions. So why not have a template that guides you through the process to help ensure no steps are skipped?
5. Create and nurture relationships with other teams. Since product marketing needs to work with so many different teams in order to be successful, it is critical to build relationships with those teams. The keys to any relationship are trust and communication.
6. Be willing to say no. Requests are going to come at you left and right. And as much as you want to please and say yes, you can’t. Many times, if you say yes to everything, you and your team are burnt out, work quality suffers, and deadlines are missed. It is best to prioritize and be honest and upfront. Sometimes the best thing to say is, “I wish I could help you, but unless we can take something else off the to-do list, the team and I have no extra time to dedicate.”
7. Showcase the team’s wins. To help prove the team’s worth and to keep morale up, you need to showcase all your wins. Maybe there is a weekly, monthly, or quarterly town hall where you can present the team’s accomplishments. Does your company send out a company email? If so, get a section in there where you can highlight the new content the PMM created or the competitive program you just launched. No one will understand your value if you don’t share the wins.
8. Create feedback loops. There is always room for improvement and people love to feel heard. Create a system for feedback loops. PMM has a lot of internal customers and you need to check in with them. For example, you can launch a quarterly survey to gather feedback on your competitive program. You can hold a meeting after a product launch to gather what went well and where things can be improved. The possibilities are endless!

I hope you found these eight initiatives helpful. If your colleagues know the purpose of product marketing, understand roles and responsibilities, have the opportunity to provide feedback, and can see what you and the team can accomplish, then your team will be valued and respected. The key is communication.

Interested in learning more? Visit https://projectproduct.com/.