3 facets of a brilliant PMM team

Lately, I have been thinking about the kind of PMM organization I would like to build. More specifically, what kinds of activities should they be spending their time on?  

[Clearly, along with PMM teams, I am also thinking of diamonds. 😉]

PMMs are one of the most strategic (also highly compensated) leaders of any marketing organization. Yet, often, their strengths are not leveraged the way they should be. Instead, PMMs can end up spending the bulk of their time in GTM execution or doing someone else’s jobs, such as supporting campaigns, writing copy, and coordinating events. Essentially, covering for another team’s lack of resources.  

Facets of brilliance

I categorize PMM activities into three broad areas: Strategy, Innovation, and Evangelism. 

Strategy - Two of the most important questions for any business are: Where do you play (aka, target market)? And how do you play (aka, product and GTM strategy)? PMMs are critical in determining this, along with their product, sales and business leaders. This is not a one time priority. Businesses should ideally revisit and keep enhancing their strategy regularly.   

Innovation - PMMs are at a unique vantage point where they can become the internal VoC (Voice of the Customer) and experts on the competitive landscape and market trends. And from these customer (and market/competitive) insights, they can innovate across the entire customer journey - crafting a compelling narrative and story, creating valuable and differentiated product capabilities, defining the ideal partner/solution ecosystem, ensuring customer support delights customers, and enabling sales to effectively demonstrate the product value. And in a PLG world - increasing usage or attach, building loops/flywheels, and creating product packages/pricing that drive monetization.   

Evangelism - PMMs are typically playing the role of the evangelist, where they define the market narrative, oversee all key content to ensure the narrative is maintained, as well as spread the narrative in the market. Scope includes - crafting the positioning and messaging, defining a clear POV about the business/offerings, reviewing and writing content, speaking at events, and engaging with the community. 

Clarity of the uncut diamonds

So what does it take to be a brilliant PMM?

A strategic PMM has the mindset of an analyst or consultant and thinks through the business or marketing strategy. Exploring questions like - Which market segments do we target first? Is PLG the right GTM route for the company, and how do we ensure smooth scaling from PLG to SLG?

An innovative PMM genuinely cares about the customer’s success and has a scientific mindset. Look for lean thinking, a beginner's mind (Shoshen), and a desire for continuous improvement (Kaizen).   

An evangelist PMM has the mindset of a thought leader, loves interacting with people, and can handle a high volume of initiatives. 

The ideal shape

Now the question is, how much time should be spent on each facet? In my opinion, the ideal mix is 1/3rd on each. 

How you enable this, of course, depends on the team’s size and skills. If you have fewer PMMs, then each PMM may have to take on multiple or all three roles. If you have a larger team, then you could spread the roles based on each team member’s experience and strengths (see mindset above) in these areas. 

The end goal being that, overall, over the span of the year, you ensure a healthy balance of all three.  

[I have taken the gem analogy far enough; I should quit while I am ahead.]

Please do share your thoughts - what did you think about this categorization? am I missing any major facets?

Image Credit: Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay