“From that day on, Jenny and me was like peas and carrots.” - Forrest Gump It’s been an intense, rewarding week of positioning discussions with clients. Some are refreshing positioning for the new year. Others are figuring out positioning for new products. At the same time, it’s a cold day here in the Bay Area, … Continue reading PMMs, Positioning, and Chicken Soup
PMMs and the Roadmap, Part 2
Yesterday we talked about principles for understanding product roadmaps and how they can help PMMs in their careers. Today we’ll tackle your first step in getting there: understanding the roadmap to the product team’s satisfaction. Roadmaps are complex, dynamic living documents. A healthy company is always revising what it’s building, and revising its thinking about … Continue reading PMMs and the Roadmap, Part 2
PMMs & the Roadmap: Part 1
Your customers are motivated and curious about aligning their plans and yours. The product roadmap is the *best* way to drive this discussion, and a huge opportunity for product marketers. I do a lot of work on product roadmaps, and thought I’d start this discussion on roadmaps with tips on understanding the roadmap’s place in … Continue reading PMMs & the Roadmap: Part 1
PMMs as Customer Support
It’s Not What You Think I’m not suggesting PMMs should switch careers. You’d probably struggle at customer support. I remember the hour I spent with Tammy at a big hotel chain’s call center – and couldn’t believe my eyes as she took calls across 115 properties, restaurants, shopping arcades, golf courses and gracefully handled over … Continue reading PMMs as Customer Support
The Art of the Demo: Tips on Storytelling
Decks and demos are the two core outputs of a product marketer. But a lot of PMMs have less impact than they could because they start off their demo design process thinking about features, rather than a story. A demo isn't a sequence of features, and you'll do more grokkable, relatable, and memorable demos if … Continue reading The Art of the Demo: Tips on Storytelling
The 7 Product Marketing Muscles
Plus ça change: I've seen the same thing over and over across two decades of product marketing in companies big and small, in unicorns and in turnarounds: there are 7 product marketing (PMM) muscles that make the biggest impact. On my 4 product lines at Salesforce and Oracle, I saw some great examples of all … Continue reading The 7 Product Marketing Muscles
PMM Careers: Humility and the Wall of Sales
Product marketers have an awesome job: position the company and the category it sits in, tell the story of how the world has changed, and articulate what’s different and valuable about your product. Your work shows up in every story your company tells the market, on the website, to industry analysts, and in every marketing … Continue reading PMM Careers: Humility and the Wall of Sales
Showtime: Creating Event Keynotes & Breakout Sessions
I’m in the middle of helping 23 keynote & session teams at 3 very different companies design, build, and deliver sessions at their upcoming customer conferences this Fall. The high-frequency participation in lots of different examples of the same creative process is bubbling up some patterns in my noggin. I thought I’d share for all … Continue reading Showtime: Creating Event Keynotes & Breakout Sessions
Slide Master Nuance: Bullet 1 vs. Bullet 3
Communicating with humans is hard. Life distracts them. The spoken word is really hard to follow and absorb. To succeed in spite of this, business people, and especially product marketers, often use the visual support of slides to help tell the story. But once we start down the path of a slide as a visual … Continue reading Slide Master Nuance: Bullet 1 vs. Bullet 3
Product Marketing Best Practices 