We Stopped Using Our Marketing Automation Platform (Here's What We Use Instead)
We paid $48K/year for HubSpot. Used maybe 15% of the features. The complexity was killing our marketing velocity. Here's what happened when we ripped it out and started over.
Who Is Segment8 For? (And Who It's Not For)
Most SaaS products claim they're for everyone, then wonder why nobody buys. Here's who Segment8 is actually built for—and who should keep using spreadsheets.
Mythbusters: 5 Things 'Experts' Say PMMs Should Stop Doing (And Why They're Wrong)
The LinkedIn experts say personas are dead, launch kits are obsolete, and PMM work is being automated away. They're half right—which makes them entirely wrong.
Managing PMM Vendors: Working with Agencies, Researchers, and Contractors
PMM teams need external partners for research, design, and specialized work. Here's how to find, manage, and get ROI from vendors.
PMM Budget Management: Allocating Research, Events, and Content Spend
Product marketing budgets are always too small for everything stakeholders want. Here's how to allocate spend strategically and prove ROI.
Building PMM Templates: Standardizing Common Deliverables for Efficiency
Stop recreating battle cards, one-pagers, and pitch decks from scratch. Here's how to build templates that make PMM teams 3x faster without sacrificing quality.
Cross-Team Communication Frameworks: Keeping Everyone Informed Without Meeting Overload
PMM needs to keep product, sales, and marketing aligned without drowning in meetings. Here's how to build communication frameworks that work.
PMM Tech Stack Evaluation: The RFP That Changed Everything
I bought a $40K/year competitive intelligence platform because the demo was impressive. Six months later, nobody used it. The RFP process I built after that disaster saved us from three more expensive mistakes and helped us invest in tools that actually got adopted.
PMM Quarterly Planning: Aligning Team Priorities with Business Goals
Product marketing can't just react to requests. Here's how to run quarterly planning that aligns PMM work with business priorities and gets executive buy-in.
Building Your PMM Dashboard: The Metrics That Actually Matter
I built a dashboard with 47 metrics tracking everything from email opens to competitive win rates. After three months, I realized nobody was looking at it—not even me. Here's what I learned about the difference between measurement theater and metrics that drive decisions.
Building a PMM Content Library: Organizing Assets for Easy Discovery
Sales battle cards, pitch decks, one-pagers, and customer stories scattered everywhere. Here's how to build a content library that people actually use.
Resource Allocation for PMM: Prioritizing Projects When Everything is Urgent
Product marketing teams face infinite demand and finite resources. Here's a framework for deciding what to do, what to defer, and what to decline.
Quarterly planning for PMM: Balancing reactive and strategic work
Every quarter, urgent work consumed 80% of our time. Strategic priorities got pushed. Here's the planning process that restored balance.
PMM Onboarding Programs: Ramping New Team Members Effectively
Most PMMs take 6+ months to become productive. Here's how to build onboarding programs that get new team members contributing in 30 days.
Our PMM hiring rubric (and why culture fit failed us)
We hired for culture fit and skills. Three bad hires later, we rebuilt our rubric around demonstrated capabilities. Here's what actually predicts PMM success.
Creating a PMM Knowledge Base: Centralizing Competitive Intel and Messaging
Product marketing knowledge lives in scattered docs, Slack threads, and people's heads. Here's how to build a centralized knowledge base that actually gets used.
Stakeholder Management for PMMs: Getting Buy-In Without Authority
Product marketing has responsibility without authority. Here's how to influence product, sales, and marketing leaders to get your priorities done.
Measuring PMM impact: Beyond MQLs and pipeline
We were judged solely on MQLs and pipeline—metrics PMM influences but doesn't control. Here's the measurement framework that actually showed our impact.
PMM Project Management: Keeping Multiple Initiatives on Track
Product marketing teams juggle launches, research, enablement, and competitive intelligence simultaneously. Here's how to manage it all without dropping balls.
How our PMM team structure evolved with company growth
The PMM structure that worked at 100 employees broke at 300. Then broke again at 500. Here's how team structure evolves with company growth stages.
Launch Process Documentation: Creating Repeatable Launch Playbooks
Stop reinventing launch processes for every release. Here's how to build launch playbooks that make execution consistent and efficient.
Building a PMM knowledge base (lessons from failed attempts)
Our first three attempts at a PMM knowledge base failed completely. Nobody used them. The fourth attempt finally worked. Here's what we learned.
Measuring PMM Effectiveness: The KPIs That Actually Matter
Most PMM teams measure activity instead of impact. Here are the metrics that prove product marketing is driving business results.
Process Automation for PMM: What to Automate and What to Keep Manual
Not everything in product marketing should be automated. Here's how to identify which PMM processes benefit from automation and which require human judgment.
Weekly rituals that keep PMM aligned with Product and Sales
We were constantly misaligned with Product and Sales. Launches surprised people. Sales didn't know about competitive changes. Weekly rituals fixed it.
The Product Marketing Tech Stack: Essential Tools for Modern PMM Teams
The right tools make PMM teams 10x more effective. Here's the essential tech stack for competitive intelligence, customer research, and sales enablement.
Cross-Functional Collaboration Frameworks: Working Effectively with Product, Sales, and Marketing
Product marketing sits at the intersection of multiple teams. Here's how to build collaboration frameworks that actually work across product, sales, and marketing.
Tool consolidation saved us $58K (and unlocked strategic time)
We were paying for 14 different PMM tools. Most were barely used. Consolidating to 5 core platforms saved budget and gave us 40 hours per month back.
PMM Team Structure: Generalists vs. Specialists and When to Choose Each
Should PMMs own products end-to-end or specialize by function? The answer depends on your product, market, and team size.
Building governance for competitive intel and messaging
Without governance, our messaging became inconsistent and competitive intel sat unused. Here's the framework that brought order without bureaucracy.
RevOps and PMM Collaboration: How to Actually Work Together Without Turf Wars
RevOps and PMM should be natural allies. Instead, they fight over data ownership and attribution. Here's how to build a partnership that drives revenue.
Building a Product Marketing Team: Hiring Your First PMM Through VP
Growing from solo PMM to functional team requires different skills at each stage. Here's how to hire the right people in the right sequence.
Scaling PMM from 3 to 10: Specialization vs. generalists
Moving from a team of 3 to 10 PMMs forced us to rethink everything. Should everyone be generalists or specialists? Here's what actually worked.
Our 30/60/90 day PMM onboarding program
New PMM hires used to take 4+ months to become productive. We built a structured onboarding program that cut ramp time in half. Here's the playbook.
Managing PMM vendors: Renewals, consolidation, and negotiations
Our PMM tool vendors auto-renewed at higher prices every year. We were hemorrhaging budget on tools we barely used. Here's how we took control.
Planning my first PMM budget: Tools, research, and headcount
The CFO asked for my 2025 PMM budget. I had no idea how to plan it. Here's what I learned about budgeting for product marketing—and what I'd do differently.
Should PMM report to Product or Marketing? (Our decision)
After two reorgs and experience in both structures, here's what actually matters about PMM's reporting line—and it's not what most people think.
Scaling from solo PMM to team of 3: What changed
Going from solo PMM to a team of three felt like it would solve everything. Instead, it created new challenges I wasn't prepared for. Here's what actually changed.
Setting OKRs for a product marketing team (trial and error)
Our first attempt at PMM OKRs was a disaster. Too many metrics, wrong focus, impossible to influence. Here's what actually works.
Cross-functional workflows: PMM ↔ Product ↔ Sales alignment
PMM sits between Product, Sales, and Marketing. Without clear workflows for collaboration, everything becomes negotiation. Here's how we fixed it.
Building process docs that PMMs actually use
Most PMM process documentation gets written once and never referenced again. Here's how to create docs that actually change team behavior.
We consolidated our PMM tech stack from 12 tools to 4
Tool sprawl was killing our productivity. Here's how we went from 12 disconnected tools to 4 integrated systems and saved $43K annually.
Hiring my first PMM team member: What I got wrong
I thought I knew what I needed in my first PMM hire. I was wrong about almost everything. Here's what I'd do differently.