You're a product marketing manager. How can you develop strategic thinking skills?

Here's how you can enhance strategic thinking for product marketing managers: - Market Understanding: Dive into market research to grasp industry and consumer trends. - Learn from Leaders: Study strategies of successful leaders through books and podcasts. - Cross-functional Collaboration: Engage with other departments for diverse insights. - Scenario Planning: Develop strategies for various market scenarios to improve adaptability. - Feedback Loops: Seek constructive feedback on strategies from peers and mentors. - Continuous Learning: Stay updated on marketing trends and technologies. - Reflect and Adapt: Analyze past strategies to identify successes and areas for improvement.

I believe that that strategic mindset starts with a clear understanding the WHY of your product line. If you are able to understand the reason the product exists, the reasons your target customers value your product, the reasons your target segment is changing. The foundation visualizing the future of your product is understanding WHY of the product.

Acho que estratégia é um mix de experiência com pensamento crítico e curiosidade. N?o vejo formas de ensinar estratégia a alguém, é um skill pessoal e intransferível na minha opini?o

With the help of your internal executive stakeholders, internal and external research, and voice of the customer research, determine if your product has product-market fit and is competitive in the marketplace. If there is product-market fit, understand the pain points it solves for each persona or ICP (ideal customer profile), and work with the head of product to understand the roadmap for product enhancements or new products to the organization. Work with Marketing and Sales to execute on a singular product vision and how that is communicated to external audiences.

First of all, you have to be Customer Obsessed and know your customer inside and out: pain points, problems they are trying to solve, their strategic initiatives, how they create value for their customers, how they use your product, etc. And using this same Customer Obsession mentality, you need to very clearly understand all that affects your customer: regulations, innovation, disruptions, competitors, etc.

Ignore the reports from offshore companies that churn out research about dishwashers one week and biometric software the next week. Especially if their reports prominently feature companies that exited your industry or no longer exist. If you're going to purchase a market analysis, purchase it from a market researcher who is dedicated to your industry.

As Product Marketers, we have to have a solid grasp of customer and market research. Being able to be a customer advocate and put yourself in their shoes will allow you to create campaigns, messaging, and content that will resonate at a much deeper level. Market research is a key component to understanding what sets your product apart from the rest of the market which will allow you to better communicate the key value propositions to prospective buyers.

For each strategic initiative, often called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), set forth several smaller SMART goals and relative KPIs that ladder up to each OKR. These may be a smaller time frame or chunk out a larger initiative more linearly and methodically. Ensure other internal stakeholders are in agreeance with your OKRs, goals, and relative KPIs so you can help define success of the initiatives and measure the contributions of your efforts to the organizational strategy.

If you understand the WHY of your product, and are customer obsessed, then setting the measurement of success should be "obvious". In my experience, the "from/to/by" format is superior to the SMART format because it's simpler and as effective. The other important thing to consider is that your KPIs should be set with both leading and lagging indicators. If you have this balance, you will be able to better predict if you are at risk of not meeting your targets. If you only focus on lagging indicators, you will only see the problem when it's to lake to make corrections.

Eu n?o gosto do framework SMART, acho que faz pouco sentido... quem inventou provavelmente criou a "SART" e só pra fechar a palavra smart buscou algo que come?asse com 'M'... existem maneiras muito melhores de definir um bom plano e métricas

You can't get SMART goals and KPIs until after you understand your product vision, your market, and what the heck you're actually trying to do. Whether or not you believe in a traditional sales funnel, you need to decide whether your goals relate to conversion, or to whatever happens before conversion (awareness, consideration, or whatever you call it). Define that BEFORE you define your SMART goals and KPIs.

Visionary Voyage: Define product purpose, target audience, and value proposition, ensuring alignment with business strategy. Market & Customer Deep Dive: Analyze market trends, opportunities, and challenges, while researching customer needs and pain points. SMART Goal Gauntlet: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals for product marketing efforts, and choose key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress. Creative & Collaborative Crucible: Brainstorm diverse marketing tactics, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and leverage external insights to refine strategies and achieve growth.

Ao meu ver 'pensar de forma criativa' é basicamente regulada pelo seu 'est?mago' para risco. N?o existe nenhum pensador criativo que n?o tolere riscos... Se atreva, busque quebrar paradigmas e n?o se importe tanto com o que v?o pensar de você!

I'm actively honing my strategic thinking skills, and I've discovered the tremendous value in seeking advice from seasoned PMMs who have more industry experience than I do. Their insights provide a fresh perspective, and I enjoy observing their approach to various situations. I truly believe that learning through others is very important when it comes to developing strategic thinking skills.

Thinking strategically starts with listening. What is your product team looking to solve with their product? How does it fit into the overall business strategy? What is your customer saying and have they identified new/interesting ways to utilize the product? Listening first allows you, as a business strategist, to understand the multi-faceted views of your stakeholders, find ways to identify natural areas of alignment and uncover opportunities for further collaboration.

As a Product Marketing Manager, to enhance strategic thinking is to collaborate and learn from cross-functional teams. You need to collaborate with the product team to understand the vision, problem and solution provided. You need to understand the language the engineering team developed the product with and other things that you need to know to be sure you understand the technical aspect of the product. The design team is also not not exception as you need to understand how and why the user interface is what it is and see if it will really resonates with your product target audience or probably need to be improved on. All of these is to ensure that you craft a compelling positioning statement that resonates with your target audience

Strategic thinking is done throughout the entire product marketing process, so to develop/strengthen strategic thinking processes, you must: 1) Define what the critical junctures are in your processes 2) Clearly define the goals and what will need to be measured 3) Understand what the benchmarks are that you'll measure the goals against 4) Determine when and how often you'll measure progress towards the goals 5) Determine what type of analysis you'll perform on the data you collect When doing the above, be specific and very detailed, so that you clearly capture the value out of what will need to be measured. By following these steps, you develop strategic thinking and the strategic thinking skills already in place will be reinforced.

As a product marketer, you are the voice of the customer and are the glue between sales, marketing, and product. Establish good relationships with these stakeholders early on and understand the varying goals and opinions of the organization. Work closely with the executive team to determine where your time should be spent and get a clear understanding of what success looks like. The most important thing is to create marketing and sales conversations that solve pain points and convert to revenue for the organization.

You can also implement continuous feedback loops, this way you can gather insights from stakeholders, adapt strategy based on feedback, and iterate for success.