Your 30-60-90 day plan as a new product marketing manager

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It’s a fact—product marketing is cross-functional. How do you approach a new role knowing you’re going to work with and rely on a lot of teams in your organization? We’ve created a plan for your first 30, 60, and 90 days as a new Product Marketing Manager so you can kick things off successfully.

The first month

Coming from product marketing roles at diverse B2B SaaS companies ourselves, we crowdsourced our teams’ advice for this post. As much as product marketing looks different at every company stage, all of our approaches were pretty much identical. Why? The plan for your first one to three months is going to have similar themes no matter the size of the organization.

During your first 30 days, you should:

1 - Listen with the intent to understand. We call this ‘going on a listening tour.’ Meet with as many people as you need to, including fellow product marketers and business partners—product, marketing, and sales. Moreover, meet with customer success, sales enablement, and operations. The purpose is to understand how you’ll be working together, their opinion on what they think works well, and what they think is the most urgent need that you can help with. Where could you assist in smaller projects that are quickly approaching?

Extra listening tip: Try to ask the same questions with everyone you meet so you can start to map out trends you’re hearing.

2 - Build rapport. Building rapport with product, marketing, and sales is key to establishing mutual long-term trust and collaboration. Building rapport can be as simple as explaining how product marketing supports product, marketing, and sales, and what that looks like. Understand that your role might feel like stepping on others’ toes because product might not be used to getting roadmap advice, or sales might not be used to getting told what could enhance a sales deck. These are opportunities where you can educate people on what product marketing is and be clear that your work is complementary to theirs. If you fail to explain what your role is, you might end up having friction with different colleagues and teams.

3 - Dive into the product and industry. Basic and in-depth product and industry knowledge can’t be overstated. Start reading up on the company and your product area and scope. Use the product, if you can. Listen to sales calls (not just one—and don’t bug them during month-end), read customer stories, win/loss reports, competitive intelligence, product usage, and product revenue data. Understand your company’s objectives and key results. Be able to explain its philosophy of product building, why your company exists, what it does best, and what it needs to improve on. Stay curious.

4 - Choose a couple of quickly approaching projects to help execute. Based on your relationship building and your own research as a new hire with fresh eyes, identify and help execute a couple of smaller projects that are quickly approaching. By this point, you might’ve noticed there’s a nagging pain point your boss or business partners have been asking for help on, but haven’t had the resources to address. A quick win that addresses an urgent need across teams helps you build credibility early on and drives momentum for the meatier, strategic longer-term projects you’ll be working on.

5 - Map out your understanding of the marketing funnel as it is today. Product marketing operates at its best when it’s working across the entire marketing funnel, not in just one or two parts. Map out the marketing funnel with activities including reach, attract, convince, delight. You need to know what’s going on at the top of the funnel, how your company is getting prospects, what attracts visitors to the website (SEO, events, etc.), how people are getting convinced to try the product, what the sales process is like, if demos are happening, etc. The goal is for you to slowly do something from each part of the funnel, which ends up making a widespread impact.

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The second month

Now that you have a good idea of where the company and product stand in the larger picture, it’s time to plan and start executing bigger moves.

During the next 30 days, you should:

1 - Make a plan for each area you want to focus on. What is doing great and what needs an overhaul? Is it product launches, sales enablement, or maybe the website? Since you now have a good overview of the marketing funnel and organization as they are today, you can check off each area to help you decide which bigger projects to execute.

2 - Focus on crushing the execution of one large and two to three small projects. Choose wisely. Imagine yourself as a batter at the plate—preferably Jeter, not A-Rod. You don’t swing at every pitch, rather you choose the best pitch to hit a home run. Even though it might feel easier to give in and be the ‘yes’ person, it’s only going to hurt you in the long run. Now, you should be able to pick one large project and two to three small projects since you’ve mapped out the marketing funnel and understand which areas need the most help. Make sure the small projects (AKA quick wins) can be completed within your first 60-90 days.

3 - Start to establish KPIs. Depending on what the company’s goals are, product marketing is typically responsible for website conversions, helping support revenue goals, and/or impact on onboarding and churn. Those are all number metrics you can track. If the company has a self-serve product, conversions are probably the most important metric to start tracking. If you need clarification on establishing KPIs, don’t be afraid to reach out to your manager or boss to hash it out together. They should set clear expectations for your role, and there might already be KPIs that you’re supposed to take on from someone else.

4 - Keep learning. The idea of continuous learning applies to everyone no matter what job or level of experience you have. But it’s an important reminder when people are throwing things your way and you feel like you have to tackle everything. The truth is, you don’t. Don’t try to boil the ocean with a month of knowledge in your pocket. Right now you probably have enough power to boil a cup or two of tea. Keep gathering contextual insights and clues into your company, product, and industry and apply your learnings to your areas of focus.

The third month

By the third month, you should feel assured and ready to really start crushing. Remember, it’s only the beginning and you are setting yourself up for long-term success. Take in the wins one at a time, learn from your losses, and keep your head up.

During month three of your first 90 days, you should:

1 - Keep crushing the things you said you would. Launch the projects you made plans for. Collect the results and data points, and share them with your team and business partners. Treat your time as sacred to work and follow through on your commitments. Make this work visible, so your colleagues understand what you’re working on and can see your work ethic.

2 - Refine your KPIs. At this point, you might notice some of the KPIs you’re tracking aren’t that helpful, or maybe you’re missing vital information. Once you establish a KPI, it’s not set in stone. Add, subtract, and refine as needed.

3 - Develop a strategic point of view about where your product scope and area is headed, and decide on long-term projects to pursue. You’ve done your homework, and now it’s time to listen to your inner voice. What do you think the strategies should be in your areas of focus? Develop your strategic point of view and apply it to carefully thought-out long-term projects you’re going to pursue.

4 - Be the subject matter expert in your area of focus. By sharing your findings and building credibility, you can start answering questions from sales, product, marketing, customer success, and whoever else comes to you. Use competitive product research and customer intelligence as a way to start positioning yourself as the subject matter expert on your area of focus. Pat yourself on the back for all the hard work you’ve been doing.

Pitfalls to avoid

We know you’re hungry to prove yourself and get going. In reality, there’s no need or reason to get ahead of yourself. Take a breath, and keep in mind the things you shouldn’t do as a new PMM.

1 - Don’t be a bull in a china shop. Don’t strut in and derail or scrape entire projects or strategies. Regardless of what you want, recognize that your new colleagues are busy putting time and resources into getting shit done. Examples of this would be trying to re-do positioning & messaging, or other deep strategic work. If it’s an early-stage company then sure, it might be different. But you get the point. Coming in and being superior won’t help you.

2 - Don’t share strong opinions before having a 360 view. Tread carefully when it comes to sharing your opinion as a newcomer. Read the room—at first, you could probably share small observations, but you should definitely sleep on big observations. Make sure you have a full view before doing that. You can propose your opinion by saying, “Hey, my impression is x, y, and z. Does that resonate? What am I missing?,” etc.

3 - Don’t think you can do it all. Product marketing is a multi-faceted area and PMMs are supposed to complement one another, not spread themselves too thin. You don’t have to be every single part of what PMM is. Some people are wizards at copywriting, some can carry and launch overall strategy. You are one to three ingredients of the whole recipe.

Best practices to remember

Succeeding in your role comes down to following your values and principles in the workplace. It’s not always easy. If you follow these best practices though, you’ll basically be unstoppable, like us.

1 - Show up and be reliable

This should go without saying, but sometimes it’s deceptively easy to get tunnel vision and lose track of your priorities. An important piece of showing up and being reliable—besides your work ethic—is having time management and organizational systems set up however works best for you.

2 - Know what your strengths are and lean into them

Whether you’re intimately familiar with your sun and moon sign or show off your Myers-Briggs personality type, it’s essential to focus on your strengths and use them to the best of your ability. Jokes aside, leaning into your strengths is only going to help you become your best self at work and be genuinely stoked about what you’re accomplishing. Remember, you can’t do it all. Focus on what you do best.

3 - Stay current on your competitors, industry, and community

Instill this habit during your first 30 days. Subscribe to competitor newsletters. Follow both people and companies on LinkedIn. Yes, there are a lot of try-hards on LinkedIn, but there are equally as many amazing people to connect with and learn from. Don’t be afraid to share ideas and ask questions to spark discussions about product marketing. Map out and understand the playing field you are a part of.

4 - Know who the influencers and decision-makers are.

This can be hard for people that are averse to politics or social games. We feel you. At the end of the day, there are going to be politics and company-specific ways of thinking that you need to figure out. It’s not always clear from the outside. Try to understand the why and the DNA for how decisions are made at the company. Who are the influencers, regardless of role? Who are the decision-makers?

5 - If you’re in an office, sit near sales or product

This is where you’re going to naturally listen and soak up the most relevant knowledge for your job. Sorry, marketing. Bonus tip: The best timing to talk to sales is always the beginning of the month, quarter, or year. That’s when they’re ready to listen and try new things.

Being prepared makes all the difference

Starting a new job can trigger butterflies, “oh shit” moments, and a lot of other things. Being prepared and following a plan will set you up for success. Embrace the ups, downs, and fun of your new product marketing role. And, kudos to you!