4 Ways PMMs and PMs Can Better Collaborate

Product Marketing Managers (PMM) and Product Managers (PM) often have the same goals. Both groups should have a deep understanding of the product offerings, enable sales and services, launch new features, and report on product performance. There is a natural divide between teams, though, based on a PMM's portfolio of products, causing them to divide focus or a PM's focus on engineering needs.

Click here for a 2-minute video where I break down this list from a Product Marketing perspective!

Here are four ways these teams can better collaborate to reach common goals.

1. Understand the 'Why'

2. Align on Competition

3. Report and analyze target metrics

4. Explore the FAQs

1. Understand the 'Why'

Getting context and learning the rationale of a product can help inform messaging and value propositions. As a Product Marketer, I like to harvest answers to questions like:

• Why does this product exist?

• How has this product evolved over the years?

• What are these new features trying to accomplish?

• What are some of the customer challenges this product solves?

• Why is this product better than others in the marketplace?

2. Align on Competition

Beyond the headlines and value propositions, PMs have deep knowledge of the nuts and bolts of their products. They should be able to speak to a product's capabilities and pitfalls.

By getting a PM's perspective on competitors and key features, you as a PMM can better highlight differentiators in marketing materials and analyst questionnaires.

I find it most helpful to align direct competitors with my PM, and save indirect competition to customer feedback, surveys, and market research.

3. Report and Analyze Target Metrics

PMs tend to focus on product performance and high-level sales metrics more than marketing success. By sharing reports and key metrics with your PM, you can get ideas for cross-sell, upsell opportunities, customer involvement, or pipeline goals.

A helpful report to share may include:

• Closed Won/Lost metrics

• Composition rates

• SQLs

• Total revenue

• Revenue by solution area

• Number of customers

• Content downloads

• Campaign metrics

1. Explore the Frequently Asked Questions

A successful SaaS organization should have plenty of avenues where customers and prospects can ask questions. Those may include ideas and feedback portals, sessions with a customer success manager, or webinars with product experts.

During these sessions, PMMs can learn a lot about granular and broad concerns, feedback, and use cases for the product. This knowledge can not only help in creating content but also allow other team members to respond to customers and prospects without the help of senior product experts.

For product updates, new releases, or enhancements, consider making a FAQ document for team members to reference, and create content like blogs or whitepapers for customers to easily find answers to their questions.

Together, PMMs and PMs can improve relationships with customers, usability of a product, and sales overall. For more product marketing content, visit Maryann Werner's blog.

This blog was written by Maryann Werner, Sr. Product Marketer and B2B Marketing Consultant who empowers businesses with forward-thinking strategies to strengthen their brand, enable their customers, and advance in the modern marketplace.