Imagine if you opened Slack or Teams tomorrow (or whichever tool you use), and your CFO randomly asked you to articulate why you exist using clear business metrics and numbers by the end of the day. How would you answer?
In the world of Cyber PMMs, this is one of our greatest challenges and opportunities. Our future in this business hinges on our ability to provide concrete metrics that objectively demonstrate our value. The fourth part of our Cyber PMM vision is a critical step in bridging this gap between our roles and the financial part of the business. This post aims to address this measurement challenge and provide a vision for us to aspire to.
Imagine if we got this right
To get past the guessing games, think about what a future with measurement would like. Imagine if we got this right:
Rather than focusing on “dive and catch” reactive heroics, promotions and accolades will be based on measurable performance.
Entry-level PMMs would understand the criteria for success and they will be able to clearly see their priorities.
We’ll have fewer fire drills since the work we do is measured, so we’ll be focused on what really matters.
Having less confusion and more clarity about how we’re doing would make for a more fulfilling career.
My personal favorite – we’ll join less irrelevant calls and meetings because it will be more clear that the topic is not related to our function. Think better time management.
This future is only possible if we begin to start measuring our function. This would be an industry-wide effort, and it won’t happen overnight. Virtually everything in the digital world is measurable, so there’s no excuse not to put effort into resolving this issue. It’s worth a shot.
Without measurement, a function is broken
As with anything else, trying to improve will face resistance because it will require change, and people generally resist change. Even if it makes sense, the status quo will say, “this is how we’ve always done it so why should we change?” Sure, I like the saying, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” as much as anyone. But who’s saying our function isn’t broken? I mean, if it’s not measurable, isn’t it broken? I’d argue that it is broken on this basis alone. Without measurement, a function is broken. Here are the measurement obstacles for most Cyber PMM teams today:
Reporting Distance & Relevance: To begin with, other marketing teams within the organization usually handle reporting. This usually means someone from another group spends very little time speaking with PMMs before they present on metrics. They use acronyms like MCP (Marketing Contributed Pipeline) or MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and many others, leaving most of the PMM audience confused. These reports usually lack relevance to our function and lack individual product-level performance, so it’s natural that PMMs tune these results out. We might virtually golf clap during the presentation, but really we don’t understand if we had anything to do with the results or not.
Number Distance: Cyber PMMs have long been disconnected from numbers, measurements, and tangible results. Conversations between Finance and PMM are, well, a bit awkward today. The reason is that, despite some recent improvements, Product Marketing measurement has remained largely subjective (at least in Cyber).
Lack of Output Definition: Our functional outputs lack standard definitions, which makes it difficult to create metrics related to our function. It’s easier for Sales because Sales produces revenue and sells our products so this is easier to measure. I once heard someone claim that “everything is Sales” and I get the point, but Product Marketing isn’t measured the same way at the end of the day. The outputs we deliver that drive actual business/financial results can and must be clearly defined.
Sales Gets It
I envy Sales for the reason that they know how they are being measured. Quarter after quarter, there’s little guesswork. (I do realize that not all deals are clearly going to close, and from that view, there is a lot of guesswork. I just mean there’s less guesswork on how you will be measured.)
During my brief time in Inside Sales over a decade ago, it was easy to tell if I was successful. I either rang the bell or I didn’t; we literally had a bell on our Sales floor. The clarity was really appreciated; did I hit my quota for the month? If I did, then I still had a job. It was brutal and felt inhumane at times, but everyone knew where we stood. Perhaps that’s more humane than the alternative. I had a number to reach and everyone knew what my number was, and how close I came to reaching it. While I didn’t quite agree with the way the system was structured, it was still effective from a measurement standpoint.
Frustratingly, the opposite is true in Product Marketing. We don’t have “a number”. We’re aimlessly reacting to events of the day instead of working toward concrete, measurable objectives. Annual and quarterly OKR exercises are a step in the right direction, but even they can be hurt by a lack of quantifiable objectives. It’s not as easy as, “we will build 25 product assets in Q4.” The problem here is that there is little relationship to financial outcomes.
Not to say we don’t add value. I really believe we do add a ton of value to the business. But if I can’t measure that value, it’s impossible to articulate it to business leaders. We need a scoreboard like in Sales. In other words, when do PMMs “ring the bell”? Is it when MCP grows? Maybe. But even when MCP soars, PMMs don’t feel connected to the result — we’re not ringing the bell.
What we need is a connection between actual product sales, product adoption, business growth, and our function. This way we can see a direct connection between our role and business results.
And we won’t get there without metrics which require a definition of functional outputs which I’ll address later. In the absence of widely adopted product marketing metrics, confusion prevails, leading to talented PMMs leaving the field or potential recruits avoiding it altogether.
Why Do Cyber PMMs Even Exist?
Clearing this confusion requires a shift toward reporting on real business metrics. This would clarify our purpose, underscore our value, and justify the investment in our roles. Without such a data-driven approach, we risk falling victim to the ever-present call for “efficiency” by CFOs.
To put it in a very plain, direct way – imagine if a CFO sent you a message first thing tomorrow, asking you “Why are PMMs needed? Why do you even exist?” Ouch, painful. But I think we need to experience this pain to build a better future.
To answer the CFO’s question, many of us would start discussing our contributions to recent projects like messaging, content, campaigns, events, and the million activities we are involved in. But a CFO would stare at you coldly asking for numbers. We have to stop listing random activities and begin defining our contributions to the business in real terms, so that we can then measure results. And that requires a foundation of defining our role’s core outputs.
As a CMO I once worked for used to say, “we need less random acts of marketing”.
Let’s just start with a few foundational Cyber PMM functions without building an exhaustive list. I will take the perspective of answering a CFO asking me, “why do you exist?”
Let’s start with a polite, “Thank you for the question. I would love the opportunity to expand upon this. Here are the reasons I exist – on any given day, you will find me adding value in the following ways:”
Driving Market Understanding: As a Cyber PMM I am continually observing, researching, and analyzing the trends and drivers within the markets our company’s products fit in. Without this, the business will suffer due to a poor product-market fit. This is like flying blind or building a problem for your solution instead of a solution to an actual customer problem. Making a single wrong decision to engineer software that has no tangible relevance from a security practitioner standpoint is a massive waste of money. Just look at the amount of startups that rise and fall in our industry. Why is that? It’s mainly because there was a lack of true market understanding at the outset. Do you want to take that risk? We are providing the business with market awareness and intelligence so the business makes better overall investments from an engineering standpoint.
Defining Buyer Personas: After defining broader market segments, knowing the buyer groups and individual personas within your ideal customer profile will pay major dividends on our overall marketing spend. Having a clearly defined target customer and profiling them will allow for targeted advertising, better selection of mediums, better trade show investments, and higher quality leads that our Sales team can convert to paying customers.
Creating Differentiated Messaging: Delivering differentiated messaging leads to clarity on why a customer should choose our product over competing solutions in the market. It doesn’t solve for a terrible product, but if a solid product exists and you don’t have good messaging, the business will suffer as a result of losing deals, not being considered, and a general lack of understanding on what you do. A clear, differentiated message will lead to better Sales conversions because the buyer will already have a good understanding of what we do before expressing interest in learning more.
Building Amazing Content for Buyer’s Journeys: Most buyers are doing the bulk of their research on our products using search engines, our website, and watching free videos. This is often referred to as the “Dark Funnel”, which is becoming increasingly important. If we don’t deliver upon our buyer’s needs along this journey by providing product demo’s, videos, and more content, then our competitors who are investing in this area will grab a larger market share over time, as well as being able to convince our existing paying customers to migrate to their competing solutions.
There are more areas to dive into, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s just assume that this same exercise can be repeated for areas like competitive intelligence, analyst relations, peer reviews, events, testimonials, and sales enablement.
And of course, the CFO would respond to my thought out answer with, “Yeah, but how do you measure all of this?” And this is the problem today. We list off our activities, but we don’t measure them. And it looks like, “activity without accomplishment” in the eyes of CFO’s. So let’s address that.
Defining Cyber PMM Metrics
Taking these functional areas where we have proven business value, the next step should be establishing methods by which we can measure our output on demand. What should these metrics look like? Let’s turn to Sales for insight, as they are probably the most metrics-oriented function in business.
Sales professionals operate under constant pressure, with clear quarterly or annual revenue targets. While this stress is a clear result of meeting or not meeting a target metric, PMMs face a different kind of uncertainty: the lack of data-driven metrics to gauge our performance. This is why I love the Peter Drucker quote, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure“. I think it is spot on.
It’s impossible to manage the Cyber PMM function without measurement. Let me correct that. It’s impossible to effectively manage the Cyber PMM function without measurement. So how do we get there? It won’t be easy. If it was easy, we’d be doing it already.
To get started, we can take inspiration from Sales and consider implementing the following metrics for Cyber PMMs:
Creating Differentiated Messaging:
Measurement Objective(s):
Measure the uniqueness of messaging.
Measure its resonance with industry analysts.
Measure its resonance with our ideal customer profile.
Measure how this messaging is contributing to business growth.
Possible Metrics:
Analyst Feedback Scores: if we asked every industry analyst we briefed to provide a differentiation score on our messaging brief, we could arrive at an average.
ICP Feedback Scores: Using message testing tools like Wynter, we could arrive at some way to ask groups of 15 to 50 users on their scores of our overall differentiation.
Overall Differentiation Score: By combining all survey / feedback inputs into an average we could arrive at an overall score.
Messaging Financial Impact: By relating the value of this messaging to improved pipeline growth, better lead generation, and conversions, we could assign a numerical value to it.
Defining Buyer Personas:
Measurement Objective(s):
Measure the impact to the business in financial terms of defining buyer personas.
Measure how accurate these personas are.
Measure how Sales uses your personas to improve win rates.
Possible Metrics:
Persona Accuracy: Survey large groups of personas and ask them if the definition you created is accurate, scoring it on a scale. Then relate accuracy to win rates.
Buyer Persona Usage: Measure how your work was actually used over the course of a quarter. Ask other groups how they found it useful and survey them asking for a ranking on usefulness and how it contributed to their performance.
Financial Impact: Relate personas to financial results by researching the opportunities that were added to the pipeline for each persona and assessing value.
Building Buyer Content:
Measurement Objective(s):
Measure the impact to the business in financial terms of creating buyer content.
Measure the use of content with buyers in terms of relevance to their decision making process while they were in the “dark funnel” and researching options.
Possible Metrics:
Content Utilization: Survey new customers to assess the use of content within their decision making process. Or use existing tools to calculate the usage of content in the buyer’s journey across each deal closed.
Content ROI: Assign a % to the value the content held in a buyer’s decision making process.
Driving Market Understanding:
Measurement Objective(s):
Measure the use of recent analyst reports and analyst message testing within your messaging.
Measure the awareness of key market players, awareness of key trends, and awareness of key market drivers.
Test whether or not the sales team accurately comprehends the market landscape.
Possible Metrics:
Market Analyst Resonance: Assign a score to your product messaging briefs based on recent market analyst inputs and reports.
Market Awareness: Assign a score to your product messaging briefs based on terms relating to recent market trends and drivers.
Sales Understanding: Test the field on their awareness of the basic, intermediate and advanced knowledge of market dynamics.
This is just a starting point. These initial metrics will evolve over time, but they provide a foundation for establishing a more data-driven approach in Cyber PMM. The question remains: can we ever reach a point where we, as Cyber PMMs, can confidently measure, in real financial terms, the value of our work? I’m optimistic and think a solution is within reach. And as we adopt these metrics, we pave the way for a future where our contributions are undeniable and our role is secure in the age of “efficiency”. And worst case scenario, we realize that we actually aren’t providing value, and then it’s time to have an honest conversation about changing our function altogether. We can’t lose by investigating this using a scientific approach.
In Closing
As the measurement of Cyber PMMs evolves, the quest for improved management of our function is becoming within reach. By aligning our roles and day-to-day activities with concrete metrics, we can finally answer the question: why do Cyber PMMs exist? The future of our role hinges on our ability to measure, adapt, and demonstrate our value in an increasingly data-driven world.
Subscribe
Subscribe to the Cyber PMM newsletter to receive the latest udpates.
