Stuart Pitts

When we elevate the learning agenda for a product, customer segment, or portfolio, we create space for all cross-functional disciplines to get involved and rally around a plan forward. One of the most powerful things we can do as product marketers is to foster a culture of learning across all disciplines we work with - product, engineering, design, marketing, sales, and communications alike. Most of the time I see product marketers focus most on granular elements that need customer or market signal - like whether one feature is the right feature to build, or whether we're capturing or missing a major customer or market insight. But what's often missing (from any cross-functional discipline) is: a comprehensive learning plan that states how we need to move a program or product from A to B over time, what learning dimensions we need to get more signal on over a time period (often 12/24/36/48 months), and what tactics each discipline will contribute to achieve a set of desired learning outcomes. If you haven't tried this, I'd suggest starting with this altitude and encouraging all your cross-functional partners to jump in with you. i.e. what is it they want to learn, and how can we partner to achieve this learning together for the organization?

Moving to a shared view of priorities starts and ends with creating space for open dialogue. And, increasingly I've found myself learning how the job of a product marketer is often to create and nurture the right dialogues across an organization. There are a few things product marketers need to learn to do this successfully: 1. First, lead from in front by "stepping out" to bring together the right group of organizational leaders. 2. Next, be willing to take a point-of-view around where people across disciplines 'agree' and where they 'do not agree' - approaching this with objectivity and openness to foster dialogue around what is 'optimal,' not what is 'right.' 3. Lastly and ongoing, position yourself as an orchestrator of dialogue who can move the group to objectively weigh the merits, pros, and cons of each investment or opportunity. When done well, the group embraces the upside and downside of all opportunities as one - instead of one discipline versus another. I've observed in my own teams that when product marketers embrace dialogue around prioritization with this method and mindset, we earn trust and help groups see for themselves how/where/why shifting resources between launch x growth x future learning can benefits customers and the portfolio at large.

One of the things we can do as product marketers to elevate the role we contribute to the organization is to orchestrate goaling across all dimensions of a product or program launch. For example - instead of thinking only about the unique KPIs that you may be driving as a PMM, what is the total set of outcomes and KPIs that must be monitored to determine the success of a launch (for example)? Are these outcomes and KPIs connected? Are the right directly responsible individuals defined and coordinated for each outcome and KPI? Are there outcomes or KPIs that are missing resources - to deliver, monitor, or both? Tactically, these KPIs can range from: * Public perception (often comms, brand, marcom tactics) * Product trial (often marketing and product tactics) * Product adoption/engagement (often PMM and product tactics) * Product retention (often PMM and product tactics) * Product revenue generation (often Sales, PMM, marketing, and product tactics) * Product love and fandom (often PMM, marketing, product tactics)