Why and how Cyber PMMs should begin prioritizing customer insights above every other activity.
In this third part of setting a Cyber PMM vision, I’m diving into how Cyber PMMs need to transform from being hermits to becoming customer-obsessed wizards. This really is the bread and butter of product marketing – knowing and amplifying the voice of the customer. And we REALLY need to start strengthening this muscle as Cyber PMMs. If we’re not in tune with our customers, we might as well be playing darts in the dark. Without customer insight we can’t execute on anything else we do, and the entire business will suffer. That’s why I’m putting this forward as our third pillar of the Cyber PMM vision.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: the current state of affairs. Product marketers in cybersecurity today have about as much customer interaction as a hermit in the woods. I’m exaggerating to get my point across here, but it’s like we emerge from our caves every quarter for a brief interaction with a customer, and then it’s back to our remote dungeons. This can’t go on if we want to be effective. I can guarantee you that any Cyber PMM that isn’t listening to customers will become irrelevant at some point (if not already).
We’ve got to step up our customer game but what does that look like practically? This is about making it normal for Cyber PMMs to talk to customers daily. Yes, I said daily. Before our internal team calls, or cross-functional marketing calls, or working on our content – engagement with customers needs to be our top priority. We need to build a culture of open communication with our customers and earn their trust to learn about their challenges and needs. That means regular meetings, feedback loops, and being more aware when it comes to customer issues. It’s like nurturing a plant; we’ve got to water it regularly, not just once in a blue moon, if we want it to grow strong.
A PMM Hero Rises From Midea
Need proof that this approach works? Look no further than Midea, the guys who decided to tackle the painful process that is installing the window-unit air conditioner. You know, the ones that pinch your fingers and throw your back out when you’re trying to install them each summer? Well, Midea cracked the code, and guess who led the charge? A product marketer! They reinvented the window AC, making it a breeze to install and more user-friendly. It’s not quite a self-installing, robotic AC, but hey, who knows what the future holds with a PMM at the helm.
Here is the quote I came across in the Wall Street Journal that inspired me to reference this example:
“We all thought: There has to be a better way of doing this,” said Rodrigo Teixeira, Midea America’s product marketing director, who led a team that spent five years reinventing the window AC.
I applaud Rodrigo and Midea for this innovation and for the role PMM played in it. But here’s the reality: this kind of stuff doesn’t happen much in the cybersecurity world. Ask any Cyber PMM, and if they say they’re influencing product design or engineering like in the Midea example, you might want to ask for proof. It’s rare to see PMMs getting their hands dirty in the customer engagement process. Sure, some think we lack the technical chops for it, but that’s only part of the story.
Actionable Ways to Get Started
Here are five concrete ways to get started with gaining more customer insight:
- Volunteer to staff events whenever possible: Staffing RSAC, Black Hat, AWS re:Inforce, your company’s user conference, or regional user events can be a great way to get direct exposure to customers through demos, on-site meetings, theater presentations, and social functions. Taking advantage of these when the opportunity arrives is a must. And make sure you are a part of the events team meeting scheduling system on site where Sales can use you as a SME for your product area. Dive in and give demo’s and support the field to gain respect and be invited for a reason.
- Connect with your Sales team: Network and connect with sellers in your company to build relationships with local reps or SE’s. Be honest about your goals up front. I like to start with VP-level leaders first and they usually help connect me to others. Ping them once in a while to express your interest in joining customer calls whenever they see an opportunity. And once you’re invited, drop everything else and join in the conversation. Don’t overdo it and keep the weird comments and banter to yourself. Just be a contributor to the conversation where possible, and if you want to ask clarifying questions, just do it in a respectful way and read the room for social queues on good timing to avoid interrupting the customer’s goals on the call. Don’t force a fit. Observe.
- Analyze customer call recordings and notes: Let’s face it – you won’t be invited to 95% of the customer meetings happening on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean people will exclude you from an innocent request to read the meeting notes or watch the Zoom recording at increased speed. If you’re excluded from even that much information, something is probably wrong culturally where you work. And if all else fails, scour Drive or OneDrive first to see what’s freely available, then make more direct requests to the field to ask them to share what they are able to. Maybe one out of 10 will ignore you entirely, 3 out of 10 will take a while to respond, but 6 out of 10 will help you. Take the risk.
- Perform customer surveys on your product: Look into the history at your company around customer surveys. Ask the folks with more tenure on your team if they’ve ever done one, and if so ask them about the tools and processes they used. These surveys are sensitive but if they drive customer insights they should be welcome. And take the time to really think through the questions to arrive at broader conclusions – put your scientist hat on. Then, communicate the results like made when they are finished to bring awareness across your peers, product and engineering, and cross-functional marketing teams.
- Join your user Slack channels or Community forums: Begin a posting cadence on your customer forums or Community sites to gain exposure to topics you’re curious about. You can set up searches and begin staying in tune with what users are asking about your product. And if you see a situation where you can lend a hand and answer something, dive in and help out. This will help you build a presence and may lead to deeper dive conversations with those users.
Overcoming the Obstacles You Will Face
Sure, you will find resistance when trying these tactics out. In some cases, Cyber PMMs are kept at arm’s length from customer’s by organizational design. It’s not that product development and engineering wake up and say, “I’m going to actively block PMM from joining customer meetings today”. The problem is that we aren’t even thought about in the first place. Our potential involvement has become so distanced from customer interactions, that we are an afterthought to being included on customer calls in the first place.
In some cases, there are already too many employees included and so adding someone from “marketing” seems like an unnecessary complication. Things need to be streamlined. I get it. I’m the last person to ever recommend scheduling a call, and I abhor wasting time. Technical calls need actual experts to resolve those issues sometimes, so there are times when we aren’t needed. But that doesn’t mean we can’t listen in, or watch a recording, or ask for notes on those meetings. Whatever the reason is for not engaging with customers, unfortunately the business will suffer in the long run. By neglecting the integration of customer insights into product marketing efforts, the result is less customer resonance for the product’s message in a fast-changing market, less differentiation, less growth and less innovation.
Our industry has become a battlefield where sales and engineering are in direct contact with customers to fix short-term issues for the biggest accounts, often leaving PMMs out of the process. One-off features are prioritized that don’t always make for a better user experience overall. But PMMs have the power to bridge that gap and put more science behind understanding our audience in broader strokes. We can champion product decisions that put customer needs front and center, aligned to high-growth market opportunities. It’s the essence of product marketing, starting with customer segmentation, targeting and positioning. Instead of catering to a hundred individual accounts, we can target broader market segment opportunities.
It’s the First Domino to Drop – So Let’s Get Started
All this customer engagement isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the foundation of everything else we do. It’s the first domino to drop. It’s what validates or invalidates our GTM plans, allowing us to course-correct campaign motions and sales plays. Sure, this new way of doing things will ruffle a few feathers. There will be functions getting annoyed at our assertiveness in meeting with customers. And some folks guard customer knowledge like it’s a treasure chest. But guess what? We’ve got to fight for it because without that knowledge, we’re just guessing in the dark. And in this game, that’s not a recipe for success.
So, here’s the bottom line: We are the “voice of the customer.” It’s not just a role; it’s our superpower. If we’re not constantly in touch with our customer challenges and needs, then everything else we do is just spinning our tires. We need to proactively seek out customer feedback, and make sure our feedback systems are as sharp as a tack. Because, in the future world of Cyber PMMs, customer-centricity will be the name of the game.
As a next step try out one of the methods I listed earlier as a starting point and share your feedback on LinkedIn or on X. Eager to hear if you have any other ways to gain customer insights as well. What do you think? Is this a reasonable vision for Cyber PMMs? I would love to hear your thoughts in the post comments on LinkedIn, X or www.cyberpmm.com.
