What are the benefits of using product marketing metrics and KPIs?

In the dynamic landscape of product marketing, metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) play a pivotal role in steering success. Here's why incorporating them into your strategy is a game-changer: Performance Measurement: Metrics offer a clear snapshot of your product marketing performance, from sales to overall campaign effectiveness. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Empower your decision-making with actionable insights, making informed adjustments for optimal outcomes. Goal Alignment: Align product marketing with overarching business goals, ensuring everyone is moving in the same direction. Customer Insights: Gain valuable insights into customer behavior, tailoring marketing efforts to better meet their needs.

Product marketing gets flak for being very qualitative and not metric friendly, but that's not true. Product marketing is extremely powerful at impacting revenue if measured right. In a sales-led acquisition model, product marketing owns the effective movement of prospects through the sales pipeline, at an aggregate level. So MQL:SQL, SQL: Customer ratios are all Product Marketing KPIs. The north star is pipeline velocity - how fast you're moving _revenue_, as a function of number of prospects and avg. deal size through sales. Even in a direct response acquisitio model, Product Marketing can own quantitative metrics on CTR and conversion rates - both directly impacted by quality of understanding the customer and quality of communication

Most of the comments on KPIs I see have to do with lead generation and new customers. BUT product marketing is also responsible for retention, footprint growth, feature adoption and engagement. All indicators of Product-Market Fit. So in this area, I'd suggest great KPIs include: - Net Revenue Retention % - Daily/weekly/monthly active use trends - Feature adoption

Product Marketing metrics and KPIs measure investment ROI, marketing campaign progress, and customer perception of your products and brand. The metrics tracks demand generation, awareness level, brand score, customer perception, customer satisfaction and competitor analysis. It's like a Q&A for your marketing investment decisions: why did your campaign work, how is your position against competitors, how do your customers feel about your product and brand, and what do your customers want and actually need from your product/service? Basically, these metrics and KPIs provide you with all the information you need to make informed decisions about your future business investments.

What I consider: > Historical Data + Business OKRs: Historical data can provide valuable context. Aligning with OKRs ensures that efforts are in sync with the broader org goals. >Revenue-Driven Metrics: Awareness and supporting product adoption is key, but the #1 goal is revenue. Metrics ex: closed-won rev, avg deal size, and planned quarterly churn. >Directional Data: Perfect data may not exist. In that case, focus on data that provides insights and trends. >Leading Indicators: Waiting for pipeline and revenue to show up in dashboards can be counterproductive. Metrics ex: demos requested, product adoption, meetings booked/held, Gong mentions, or NPS. B2B companies define metrics + product marketing differently - find what works for you.

To choose the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your business, focus on the most important aspects: 1 - Set Clear Goals 2 - Identify Key Business Areas 3 - Prioritize Measurability 4- Focus on Relevance and Specificity 5 - Balance Leading and Lagging Indicators 6 - Consider Short-Term and Long-Term KPIs: 7 - Use the SMART Criteria 8 - Regularly Review and Adjust 9 - Focus on Simplicity: Don't overwhelm your business with too many KPIs. 10 - Consider Team Input 11 - Test and Learn

I find it’s important to start with the overall business objectives, the current reality of your sales/marketing/product organizations, and then prioritizes goals based off what you have control over. Are you launching a new product (track active users), are you looking to radiate within existing customers (look at org engagement), are you trying to solve an issue with sales qualification (sales enablement usage)? For example, if opportunities are stalling in pipeline you may want to track the time it takes to progress through each sales stage you can influence. You can further look for trends in sales consumption of your content and enablement materials and how they correlate to the progression of opportunities.

To make product marketing metrics and KPIs stick (yes, many times people stop tracking), you have to keep a cross-functional mindset and communication cadence. Product marketing is the cog between marketing, sales, product, and customer success, so the entire customer lifecycle needs to be the central focus. Product marketers should not only know their metrics but also understand broader team metrics. This understanding enables:? 1) taking ownership of metrics that impact net new bookings, expansion, and churn. 2) meaningful discussions, the ability to identify and address issues, and collaboration when targets are not being met. 3) a shared data-driven decision-making culture. 4) alignment that can be improved on over time.