Women in Product Marketing

Questions covered in this episode:

1:26  Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and learned?)

5:16  What is your role like and what Nextdooris all about?

11:20 What is tactically that source of truth as you get data from various sources and how do you connect it all with the inputs that you're getting?

13:35 What is the way that you bring voice of customer to life at the organizations that you work for?

16:21: What kind of impact does having a strong woman leader as CEO have on the company as a whole, in your opinion?

20:51: What are good OKRs for product marketing?

24:50 How do you make the jump from a senior manager level to the director level?

29:40 What are some innovative launch activities you've done that were successful?

34:09 Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Brianne? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Brianne here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

2:01  Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and learned?)

5:58 What is your role like as a VP of Product Marketing at New Relic?

7:44 Can you tell us a little bit about what's core to differentiated positioning for you and what your process is like?

12:18 Can you share a little bit more about how you build high performing teams?

16:46: How do you hire great PMM talent?

20:51: What tools should product marketing use to relay customer feedback to product?

24:53  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Pallavi? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Pallavi here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

1:52  Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and learned?)

6:02 What is your role like as a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Wiz?

13:05 Can you share your experience as a online poker player?

16:43 Do you have anything to share about what you've learned about your first year as a working mom?

21:07: Do you have a messaging template that you like to use?

24:03 How do you, and at what stages do you test your messaging?

26:50 How do you showcase or describe interviewers your work in messaging?

28:16  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Jiong? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Jiong here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

2:02  Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and learned?)

5:02 What is your role like as a VP, Global Head of Product and Customer Marketing at Eventbrite?

10:42 Could you maybe share a little bit about how you go from conception to launch of a product?

17:51 How would you say that for a new product for which you are trying to establish product market fit dippers then adding new features to a new product?

20:30 Do you see that customer insights is the same within the new product or the feature enhancement?

25:38 What does your product marketing team org structure look like? 

29:07 How do you make a 30, 60, 90 day plan to be the most effective with product marketing?

34:52 How do you distinguish different launch tiers?

40:32  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Jameelah? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Jameelah here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

1:38 - Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and what did you learn?)

5:32 - What is your role like as a Director of Product Marketing at Attentive?

10:07 - What has helped you be the most successful when you are that first product marketing hire?

12:37 - What about red flags when you decide not to be the first product marketer for a company that is eager to hire you?

14:16 - What are you doing in the first 90 days to try to make an impact?

17:28 - Who do you hire first?

18:57 - How do you communicate product marketing achievements upwards and build visibility?

22:07 - How do you combat burnout for your team?

25:01 - When coming up with positioning and messaging as part of a go-to-market plan, which key stakeholders should weigh in?

27:04 - Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Candice? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Candice here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

1:32 Opening question: can you share a time when you failed at something and what did you learn from that experience?

4:19 What is your role like as Director of Product Marketing at OkCupid?

8:27  Can you give a few examples of how you've used data to influence future product development? 

12:04 Messaging and positioning - how has customization become such an integral part of your career?

14:25 Do you have automatic settings for a lot of these things or is it something that people customize with you along the way and in their dating journey? 

18:43 What should you do when you don't think that the feedback from your boss is correct?

20:41 How important are brand marketing skills for product marketers compared to analytical skills?

23:52 What do you consider must-haves for a new competitive intelligence function at a current company? 

26:38  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Jane? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Jane here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

1:54 Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and you have learned?)

5:18 What is your role like as a VP of Product and Industry Marketing at Jasper?

9:15 Is GenAI a huge product marketing fit already?

13:01 How do you think GenAI will change what product marketing does?

18:13 Tell us how you went from more product marketing management level to VP of product marketing at HubSpot?

21:32 How did you make the jump from Director of PMM to VP of Marketing? Did you feel like you were “missing” any skills? How did you approach that?

23:54 How did the transition go from being the VP of product marketing to another company to be the CMO?

26:06 CMO role vs. VP of Product Marketing? How do they differ?

28:57 What got you excited about creating the Reforge course?

33:02  What's your favorite part of the course?

35:32  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Meghan? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Meghan here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

1:36 - Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something and what did you learn?)

5:14 - What is your role like as a Director of Product Marketing at Indeed?

6:44 - How can Indeed help a candidate stand out while looking for jobs?

9:52 - Understanding of the cover letter.

11:27 - How do you approach building and scaling the PMM team?

15:38 - How do you manage parenthood and a full-time job?

22:24 - How do you get buy-in when creating a VOC program? What does an MVP of a VOC program look like?

24:53 - How do you go about creating personas? Do you have personas for the business at large vs. just for launches? And how often do you refresh?

29:04 - How do you build effective buyer journeys?

32:00 - Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Sherrie? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Sherrie here on LinkedIn.

1:37 Opening Question (Can you share a time when you failed at something either personally or professionally?)

4:44 What is your role like as a VP of Product and Industry Marketing at Demand Base?

5:58 How you made the transition from PM to PMM?

11:52 PLG Process using The Price Estimator.

12:39 What are some of the top methods that you have for conducting effective competitive research

16:27 What are some of the best practices when you're implementing a price increase rollout?

20:32 How can product marketing initiate these pricing and packaging conversations cross-functionally?

23:14  How do you make an internal business case for product marketing to own pricing?

26:38  Rapid Fire

Want more insights from Jackie? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Jackie here on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this episode:

00:34 Opening Question (What inspires you?)

1:20 What is your role like?

3:12 How did you become a PMM?

6:21 What are your thoughts on quiet quitting?

12:11 What is the hardest thing in moving from IC to manager? 

16:44 When you were in IC, what did you learn that actually helped you become a manager?

19:46 What do you look for in recruiting?

24:55 Do you have anything tactical that you do to help you hire someone?

28:01 What about team development either as a whole or on an individual level?

33:18 Rapid Fire 

Looking to connect?

Check out Rebecca’s Sharebird Profile or connect on LinkedIn. 

Kerensa’s Sharebird Profile or connect on LinkedIn. 

Questions covered in this episode:

1:28 Opening Question
4:51 What is PMM and your role like as a Sr. Director at Twilio?
7:08 How did you make the jump from IDC to Twilio? What has your transition from being an analyst to product marketer looked like?
9:27 Myth busters of PMM
12:39  What are some of the top methods that you have for conducting effective competitive research
14:41 How do you present market and buyer insights to product before the product development stage?
19:03 How do you delineate the responsibilities of market research between product marketing and user research?
22:43 Are there any tools that you'd recommend for sales enablement?
26:17 How do you actually measure the success of whether sales enablement's working or not?
27:58 Rapid Fire 

Want more insights from Vanessa? Check out her Sharebird Profile.

Looking to connect? You can find Vanessa here on LinkedIn.

“I am a big believer that receiving any kind of feedback which I always ask of my team as well as my managers and working on it is the best for you to be the person that you are today.” - Desiree Motamedi

In this week’s episode, Mary sits down with Desiree Motamedi, Shopify’s VP Global Head of PMM. Desiree is a “get things done” type leader who values building strong, long lasting relationships and trust amongst her team. In this interview Desiree shares her thoughts on domain expertise -  and how even if you’re not an expert, being an investigator and having a private eye for your product, paired with talking to your customers is a recipe for success and growing your career. Desiree also shares her insights on the factors she considers before promoting a launch such as really thinking about how it will move the needle for revenue and create external visibility. 

Check out Desiree's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Desiree on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. How do you balance work with the product team that should be prioritized, without hurting the relationship?
2. How should PMMs work in collaboration with product managers and the customer success team on product launches?
3. What are the factors that you consider before choosing how to promote the launch?
4. Do you have a framework for how you approach new opportunities / creating strategies?

“I have always been attracted to opportunities where there is a challenge and an opportunity to learn something.” - Vidya Drego

In this week’s episode Mary sits down with Vidya Drego, who leads Product & Solutions Marketing at Hubspot to discuss her career path and how she landed in the product marketing space. Tune in to hear some amazing tips on how to prepare for a PMM interview and break into the industry. You’ll also hear Vidya advocate for the benefit of becoming confident in owning your area and strengths, and how that confidence plays into being a full stack product marketer. Being willing to learn, staying curious, and solving hard problems are all key components in driving your career.

Check out Vidya's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Vidya on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What are some good resources to practice for PMM interview questions and case studies?
2. Do you recommend product marketers focus on being great at one specific niche (skill, industry, etc.) or try to be more of a generalist.
3. What type of skill sets and experiences do I need to build in order to strengthen my career and move from being a Sr. PMM to Director level and above? What type of leadership career tracks do you see people continue their careers?

“The details of how you got to where you got or where you're going is less important than having conviction in yourself and understanding your strengths and weaknesses.” - Julia Szatar

In this week’s episode Mary sits down with Julia Szatar, who leads Product Marketing at Loom to discuss Messaging & Product Launches. Tune in to hear Julia’s perspective on how to test your messaging, balance the art and the science at play, and utilize a tiering system to help distinguish between different types of product launches. They also discuss the importance of having a product strategy and how that paves the way for a successful launch. 

Check out Julia's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Julia on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What has been the most useful mechanism you have used to test messaging and determine the best message?
2. What are some strategies that you've used to share messaging guides internally and ensure commercial team alignment?
3. What is your advice on creating messaging for multiple audiences for an enterprise B2B product with end-users that are different from the buyer committee? How would you decide what marketing materials to go with each message in a product launch?
4. Considering not all launches are created equal, how do you distinguish between the different types of product launches?
5. How do you identify and prioritize the channels for a launch campaign?
6. How do you roll out pricing and packaging for a new product launch?

In this week’s episode, Mary sits down with Jasmine Jaume, Intercom’s Director of PMM. Jasmine shares her insights on stakeholder management and how to build trust and nurture relationships with the product team and other product stakeholders. They also discuss the recent re-brand that Jasmine was a vital part of, and the difference between messaging, positioning, and copywriting. This is one of Jasmine’s specialties, as she’s had experience both establishing and re-establishing these assets at companies that are just starting out, or larger companies who are re-iterating the messaging hierarchy. 

Other talking points:

• Jasmine is a big advocate for curiosity and mentorship 
• Messaging is her jam 
• Using data takes the emotion out of the decisions - it’s not “I think”, it’s “the numbers show…”, “customers are saying..”
• Tools used to drop in on sales calls, be privy to the conversations and what’s resonating and what’s not 

Check out Jasmine's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Jasmine on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. How do you build great working relationship/s with your PM/s and other product stakeholders?
2. Congrats on the recent rebrand! What role did product roadmap and marketing strategy have on guiding that process?
3. Have you found a good framework to communicate your product roadmap to customers? We're trying to strike a balance of communicating high priority initiatives without getting caught up in exactly timelines?
4. What is your overall process when developing a messaging platform from scratch?
5. What are the biggest obstacles you typically encounter in implementing new messages for a product or service?
6. We often talk about product messaging in the context of a new product launch. Can you share your perspective and best practices for repositioning a mature, market-leading product?

“We're the voice of the product to the customer, but our product voice should be manifested through our brand voice” - Jasmine Anderson Taylor 

In this week’s episode Mary sits down with Jasmine Anderson Taylor, who leads PMM at Instacart, to discuss all things related to B2C. They focus the conversation around the ideal quantities for B2C marketers to have, the role that brand plays in product marketing and what that partnership looks like, as well as what your 30/60/90 entails at a new org. Another thing that Jasmine also emphasizes is the importance of a unique and diverse skill set across your team and why this is crucial to consider when hiring.

Check out Jasmine's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Jasmine on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What qualities in a B2B marketer do you think are applicable to Consumer Product marketing? What are skill gaps that a B2B marketer could improve on to become more consumer-focused?
2. What do you look for in the backgrounds of aspiring consumer product marketers (who have never held the role before) as a signal that they will be a good hire?
3. What role does brand play in product marketing?

“The messaging framework always starts with understanding:

• Who is it that we’re targeting? 
• What is it that they care about?
• What are the key messages that are going to resonate with that audience?” - Priya Gill 

In this week’s episode Mary and Priya are doing a deep dive on messaging. Join the conversation as they discuss Priya’s transition into product marketing, how she’s learned to be more strategic vs. tactical, and the core areas to focus on when creating impactful messaging. Priya also shares about the P.I.E model - no, not the tasty dessert, but performance, image, and execution. Tune in to hear more of her expertise and how to uplevel your messaging framework.

Check out Priya's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Priya on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What is your overall process when developing a messaging platform from scratch?
2. What are the biggest obstacles you typically encounter in implementing new messages for a product or service?
3. We often talk about product messaging in the context of a new product launch. Can you share your perspective and best practices for repositioning a mature, market-leading product? (i.e. SurveyMonkey to Momentive rebrand)
4. How do you measure the impact of product marketing in your company?

“Cultivating strong relationships and not being afraid to ask for help has been important in terms of growing my career.” - Victoria Chin

In this week’s episode Mary sits down with Victoria Chin, who leads Product Marketing at Asana, to discuss product launches. They discuss common mistakes to avoid, making decisions around channels and metrics, and how product strategy paves the way for great launches.

Check out Victoria's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What is the common mistake you see companies make with product launches?
2. How do you make decisions around channels to use for new product launches?
3. What product launch metrics should B2B SaaS product marketers be accountable for?
4. I know another area you’re passionate about is product strategy and customer focus. Can you talk about how that’s done at Asana, and how it feeds into the launches?

“Do not be shy about being curious - if something is not obvious, ask the question.” - Leah Brite

In this week’s episode Mary sits down with Leah Brite, who leads PMM at Gusto. Tune in to hear Leah’s perspective on being a woman in the tech industry, how she organizes her team based on the audiences they serve, and the importance of bringing your whole self to work and embracing the broad experience and unique perspectives that each team member and customer brings to the table. In addition to a reminder that kindness matters, this episode is loaded with goodies on how to filter your work to reflect what impacts topline KPI’s, sneaky competitive tips and tricks, and how to manage stakeholders using data to your advantage.

Check out Leah's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Leah on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What is an important KPI that you see PMM teams completely missing?
2. How do you break down responsibilities and KPI's for product launches between demand gen and product marketing?
3. How do you perform extensive competitive product research? I've been tasked with it but I'm missing the mark. This research is for the CEO and Product/Engineering teams who want to know how our tech stacks up in the market. Do you have any tips?
4. What marketing tools (e.g. personas, buyer journeys, sales playbooks, etc) have you found most effective in getting stakeholders aligned on marketing strategy?
5. Do you have any advice for navigating multiple stakeholders with conflicting feedback when creating sales enablement?
6. How does your product marketing team usually work with your product team?

“It’s not only about what you can get out of the experience but how can you help mentor or coach along the way” - Alina Fu

Alina Fu, a boomerang product marketing leader at Microsoft, shares advice on kicking off your career and what you should be thinking about, as well as discusses her recent AMA on Stakeholder Management. Her and Mary’s conversation is centered around tools to drive alignment cross-functionally on a global team  in a remote working environment and the necessary check-points for gathering feedback as you’re preparing for a launch. They also define customer and product evangelism.

Check out Alina's AMAs on Sharebird.
Connect with Alina on LinkedIn.

Questions covered in this interview:

1. What are some tried and true strategies to drive alignment cross-functionally for a remote team?
2. What is the best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback in preparation for a launch?
3. How do you build better relationships with product management? I feel like this is the most complicated relationship out of all cross-functional partners. How do you constantly stay aligned?
4. Questions on customer and product evangelism:
   • How do you define both, how are they different?
   • What are the best ways to build a plan around these?
   • Has there been anything you tried that didn’t work?