What do you do if your product marketing team needs a comprehensive evaluation?

- Set evaluation goals (effectiveness, skills, alignment?) - Pick areas to focus on (messaging, launch strategy etc.) - Analyze metrics & KPIs for chosen areas. - Gather feedback from customers & sales. - Have team anonymously self-assess. - Compare performance against your set goals. - Identify strengths, weaknesses & improvement areas. - Benchmark against industry best practices. - Develop an action plan to address identified gaps. - Invest in training & development for the team. - Track progress & adjust your approach as needed. - Consider 360-degree feedback from all stakeholders. - Conduct exit interviews with departing team members. - Maintain clear communication throughout the process.

You're essentially setting a benchmark for the entire evaluation process. It allows for a comprehensive understanding of whether objectives were met, missed, or exceeded, providing insights into the team's alignment with broader organizational strategies and its ability to deliver results effectively.

If your product marketing team needs a comprehensive evaluation, start by assessing current strategies, processes, and performance metrics. Gather feedback from team members, stakeholders, and customers to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Utilize data analytics to analyze marketing effectiveness and ROI. Consider bringing in external consultants or conducting a thorough internal review to provide objective insights. Develop an action plan based on findings to optimize team performance and drive results.

When you inquire with marketers about the metrics used for evaluation, you're likely to receive those that cast their efforts in a positive light. To ensure objectivity and transparency, assess the marketing team based on metrics they directly impact, yet are visible and clear to the entire organization, leaving no room for ambiguous interpretation. For instance, in user acquisition efforts, focus on tangible indicators such as the cost per lead, cost per sale, website conversion rate, and customer lifetime value (LTV). These metrics offer a straightforward, unbiased view of performance, aligning the team's accountability with the company's overarching goals.

We once gamified data analysis with 'Data Olympics’ where teams competed to uncover the most valuable insights. The blend of competition and collective problem-solving was electric - and illuminating! ???? Weekly 'Insight Incubators' - a dedicated brainstorming sesh where we leveraged tools like Tableau to visualize data, sparking discussions that wouldn’t emerge from spreadsheets alone. These sessions didn’t just interpret data; they inspired data-driven storytelling that resonated across departments. ????

In hiring for PMMs, the skills I looked most for were actually soft skills. What's your level of curiosity? Can you synthesise questions and interpret answers? How's your stakeholder management? Quality of communication both internally and externally? Research skills and copywriting/written communication are probably the only "hard" skills that were a must, and that was for the level that I was hiring at. For a junior role I'd be willing to train those skills.

Execution is where the magic happens for any plan. Look at your goals and ask your team where they think it would be best to start, and their approach. This not only gets their buy in, but has them be part of the solution. Implement, measure, repeat.

See what they see through customer shadowing! Instead of just looking at the data, consider shadowing your team as they interact with customers. This hands-on approach can provide valuable insights into how well they understand customer needs and how effectively they communicate your product's value.