What are common struggles of product marketing managers?

One of the biggest struggles I've seen for PMMs is explaining the role and the value we create to team members who have never worked with PMM before. If you encounter this challenge, here's a simple framework I've found helpful:

Elevator pitch: Product Marketing’s superpower is being the “Voice of Customers to Product and the Voice of the Product to Customers”:

• Voice of Customers to the Product (Inbound)

  • Audience Strategy (Segmentation, Targeting)

  • Consumer Insights (Unmet Needs)

  • Positioning (How does the product solve unmet needs)

  • Pricing/Packaging

• Voice of Product to the Customers (Outbound)

  • Messaging

  • GTM Strategy (including channel plans, launch)

  • Product Launch

Here are just 3 of many struggles you might face as a product manager: 

Difficulty with Cross-functional Alignment: Ensuring collaboration and alignment across departments since different teams often have their own priorities.

Managing Multiple Priorities: Getting lost with the many simultaneous responsibilities and lack of certainty can affect decision making.

Limited Resources: There is no such thing as infinite budget, and most of the time you’ll feel like you don’t have enough budget to make your product succeed, and you are probably right.