To Team or not to Team: Product Marketing Team Structure at its roots
Curious what product marketing leaders around the world are saying about best practices for PMM team structure?
PMA mini podcast series — To Team or not to Team
When I ventured into leading teams, I never imagined I would sign up to host a PMA mini podcast series on Product Marketing team structure. Here we are: with 6 amazing product marketing leaders who inspired me to bring the best in our teams everyday.
I am super excited to have had the opportunity to connect with product marketing leaders from the United States to Australia and always open to bringing diverse perspectives across in our podcast: “To Team or not to Team”.
Thank you to the speakers for your time and commitment to make this a reality. And I have a huge appreciation for all podcast creators out there. Scheduling and finding time with speakers is my biggest lesson learnt :)
So, let’s dive in. We are covering the following Product Marketing team structures and will share a few examples and snapshots from our experts.
Intrigued by how product marketing differs in each company, we set out to find out what makes the best teams grow and scale with business needs.
PMM Team Structures
1. Product Marketing Team by Product Line/Platform
PMM team structure with PMM : PM mapping
2. Product Marketing Team by Segment
B2B — Commercial / Midmarket / SMB / Enterprise
B2C — Consumer | Enterprise
3. Product Marketing Team by Function
messaging and positioning
buyer persona/ buyer journey
product and solution launch
market and competitive intelligence
4. Product Marketing Team by Solution/Horizontal
5. Product Marketing Team by Industry/Vertical
6. Product Marketing Team by Buyer Journey
Discover > Learn > Try > Buy > Advocate
And below are some of the questions that we uncover in our podcast series:
What makes a good team structure in Product Marketing? (focus on the topic selected above)
How do you compliment the skill sets and talent across your team?
Do you think values and beliefs are key for building a high purpose product marketing team?
Share a story of how team structure was done right or an example of team structure that went wrong/sideways.
Any tips/guidance from your experience to help new product marketing leaders who are building their first team.
PMM Leadership: Perspectives around the world
I learned a lot and enjoyed the diverse perspectives and insights in each episode. Here are some snapshots:
Ep 1: April Rassa shares her career success and how she looks at team growth with a simple and proven advice to lead by example and show what great looks like with examples, and templates. “Don’t leave things up for interpretation. It takes work to be a good, effective leader. Build the foundation and processes, they don’t just happen.”
Ep 2: Karim Zuhri has 3 key things he looks for in a product marketer: Strategy, Data analytics and Storyteller. When establishing a good team structure, Karim has been laser focused on the following areas — Inbound, Outbound, Business planning & strategy.
Ep 3: With a recent acquisition, Sophie Cheng shares what team restructuring looks like with a unique approach where PMMs are focused on individual solutions and woven into broader groups such as Personas, Intelligence etc.
Ep 4: Charlotte Norman is a true Product marketer at heart and her leadership advocacy is evident through her mindset. She is keen to build customer centric product & marketing experiences.
Ep 5: Sara Rosso has been a remote leader throughout her career and shares best practices on team collaboration across locations and time zones here. My favorite is #2: Enable Rich Asynchronous Discussion
Ep 6: Lori Stout shares how as leaders we need to create an equitable distribution of work across the team. “Don’t burnout superstars or enable poor behaviors from team members that are capable of much more.”
We would love to hear your experiences via LinkedIn and help our fellow PMM leaders in their journey to build the product marketing teams of tomorrow.
Check out the “To Team or not to Team” podcast!