As a product marketer, what tactics do you use to impact product roadmap?

I just say, "I really think this feature idea is really cool!" 

Just kidding.

One of my go-to tactics is compiling customer feedback about a problem or feature idea from several customers. Create a Notion document, outline the problem, and list several quotes from customers about said problem. Even better, get Gong/Chorus recordings of the customers talking about the problem to bring the issue to life. 

It’s all about making sure the PMM and PM team have shared goals. And in the event an interesting opportunity arises, you can build a business case that supports accelerating achieving your shared goals.

In my case, PM and PMM are aligned on revenue and adoption goals. For example, when I first started at Sentry, we had an opportunity to build a partnership with another large service that was in our space but not a competitor. A partnership would lead to perpetual distribution to their audience via their products along with features on their blogs and newsletters. However, in order for us to participate in this partnership, we had to make some changes to our product.

After some analysis and working closely with the Ecosystem team, we came to the conclusion that the level of effort vs potential impact was significant enough for us to deprioritize a few other initiatives to accommodate the asks of the partner. In the end, the partnership led to a spike in sign-ups, features on multiple channels, press coverage, and a stronger relationship with a well-known company.

As a product marketer, there are several tactics you can use to impact the product roadmap:

1. Market research: Get to know your customers, their needs, wants and pain points and you’ll have a strong understanding of what features really matter.

2. Competitive analysis: Dig into what your competitors are up to. See what they're doing well and where they're lacking and compare it to your current feature set.

3. Feedback loops: Chat with customers, sales teams and customer support to hear what they think about your product. Use this feedback to make improvements and prioritize features.

4. Dig into the data: Track the performance of existing features. Use this data to make a case for specific roadmap initiatives that are likely to drive growth and success.

5. Tell a compelling story: Craft a narrative around customer needs and market trends. This will help you understand the impact of certain decisions and build support for initiatives that align with your marketing strategy.

TLDR: Find what information is missing from the roadmap process and deliver it.

I don't think tricks and tactics are a sustainable way to maintain engagement in roadmap planning and prioritization. Your goal as a product marketer should be to add value so that your input is wanted. Create pull from the product team instead of continuing to push.

Throughout every product marketing team I've been a part of, the people who successfully accomplish this do so by filling some knowledge gap in the roadmap process. The most common domains in my experience have been competitor intelligence and emerging market opportunities. I've also seen Win/Loss insights and support volume analysis serve this purpose, but that was only because the existing product function didn't have the bandwidth to commit to those efforts.