As a product marketer, how have you been able to advocate for a product feature related to your GTM strategy?

There are three elements that I typically use in such conversations:

• customer proof;

• competitor analysis;

• analyst insights;

• revenue potential.

If you bring evidence of what customers want, how competitive the feature is, and additional market insights (e.g. analysts) as unbiased sources, there's a good chance you can make your case for why certain features should be prioritized.

Last, but not least important, is revenue potential. If you are able to identify a number of sales opportunities that have not been able to close because of a feature and the revenue impact it had, that's also a good argument. The caveat to this last item is that it can be very difficult to get the data and also difficult to validate.

If there’s alignment on the ICP you’ve helped codify — alignment both where you win today and where you want to win tomorrow — it’s significantly easier to influence product roadmap. But there’s two ways to think about this:

1) advocate for the problem to be solved

2) advocate for the solution to a known problem

If you have an established product management function #1 tends to be the fastest route to action. PMs always need help collecting data about the market and users, and PMM should be doing this at least quarterly from customer calls/interviews and market surveys. But they also tend to have the most expertise on the functional requirements for solving that problem in a way that fits engineering capacity, user experience, and budget.

If you feel strongly about a particular feature, you can also advocate for that (#2), but you’ll need to prove that exactly what you’re describing is what customers have asked for. This often comes up in follow-on questions in an NPS (“Why did you choose that score?” Or, “what would have to change for you to give us a 10?”), and so can be a direct source of evidence when speaking with product, design, and engineering.

Product marketing is both an inward and outward facing role. It's important to talk to customers, understand their needs, and deliver the product to them. Equally important is bringing customer insights back to the product team. In my various role as a product marketer, I have tried to incorporate a feedback loop to get insights/concerns from customers and bring this back to our product teams and then back to customers:

1. Chat with Customers: Collect insights through online research, surveys, interviews, and feedback sessions.

2. Share Insights with the Team: Communicate customer needs to the product team, using relatable, data-driven stories.

3. Collaborate on Development: Work closely with the product team to incorporate customer feedback into new features.

4. Support Customer Success: Keep an eye on customer reactions after launch and share any concerns with the product team.

5. Close the Loop: Let customers know about the improvements made based on their feedback to build trust and keep them happy. Reward customers who gave you the feedback (a simple customink T-shirt will convert this customer into your biggest advocate in most cases :) )

This process ensures customer insights shape our product development and align with our GTM strategy.