Peter Mertens

In addition to the ones that Jeffrey included, I'd add that I pretty much live in Salesforce. This gives me the most insight into who are our customers and prospects are, what industry they come from and what is important to them. It also helps me understand what kind of conversations our sales teams are having and how product marketing can make those more productive. Obviously, this means that there has to be some level of team discipline to ensure that there are proper notes and accurate data in your CRM, but there's a lot to be gained if that's the case.

I'd echo what Stephen said at the end there. Often times, I'll find that we have created a fantastic piece of content, only to realize that nobody on sales has used it becuase they don't know where to find it or at what stage in the sales cycle it is appropriate to use. Therefore, I spend a lot time thinking about how each piece of content should be used, when and whether it is easily discoverable or not. To get better visibility into what content the team uses most frequently and what content closes deals, I spend a lot of time talking to sales reps about specific deal cycles. I ask them what they shared and when and whether they felt they had what they needed to win the deal. This tells me what they find effective and where our content strategy may have gaps. Additionally, I look in our CRM to see what pieces of content have been shared with the prospect. Pairing these two together gives me a good idea of what content the sales team likes and what appears to have the biggest impact in a sales cycle.