It’s always nice when people make a habit of delivering quality consistently, don’t you think? That’s certainly the case in our Slack community, where week in, week out, product marketers continue to contribute invaluable insights to their PMM peers.

And in the same vein, here at PMA, we’re always in a giving mood, so much so, from December 8th-10th product marketers can enjoy appearances from 50+ product marketing experts at our latest PMM spectacle, product marketing Off-Piste - at no cost whatsoever.

But before you head over to register, check out some of last week’s contributions in the Slack community.

If you're not in Slack already you're missing out on a wealth of knowledge, get in on the action (for free!) here.

Q: I have questions about how product marketing fits into your organization and your roles. Is product marketing a part of the product department? Another department? Or is marketing its department? How do you work with product managers and other teams? Also, what's the division of labor like among product marketers?

A: “At our company, product marketing is part of the larger Marketing Team. Myself and our other PMM, each support and work directly with two Product Teams, each made up of developers, designers, and QA, led by a Product Manager under the supervision of our VP, Product.

“We both also have our respective responsibilities (myself focused on the market/competition, while my colleague is focused more closely on our customers), and then we have a long list of shared responsibilities.”

Mark Assini, Product Marketing Manager at Voices.com

“In our organization, product marketing is part of the Product org reporting into the Chief Product Officer. That's as of about a year ago; before that, we were in Marketing. For us, this means PMM and PM are in the same group, which works well.”

Helene Kerper, Director of Product Marketing at Qlik

“In our case, product marketing is part of Marketing. We have good collaboration with Product Management. Each member of the product marketing team is responsible for connecting with a specific product manager(s). This way we have consistent information and approaches. A simple action to get started is to have a product marketing person attend weekly product manager team calls.”

Matt Sheridan, Senior Director of Product Marketing and Strategy at Duck Creek Technologies

Q: SaaS PMMs: Do you let people trial your products more than once without signing up? If so, how many times and at what frequency?

A: “We are not total SaaS, but we have backend tools for our paying subscribers. We have - not wild about it, but sometimes the customer just loses track and doesn't get to really trial the product and so we extend the period (if it's a 2-week trial initially, we add on another 2 weeks) and there have also been times where a customer tried it and didn't buy and then when a new decision-maker comes on we've let them trial again.”

Andrea Roberts, Product Marketer

“We’ve done this in both SaaS companies I have been working with. Both were B2B. I cannot remember too many cases when more than one trial extension was requested by one customer.

“Each case has been different - from generic reasons like ‘I did not have time to check it’ to ‘I have a management meeting coming up and need trial extended so I can demo the software’.

“So yes, we usually extend the trial period and make sure there is a follow-up process in place.”

Elizabete Andersone, Product Marketing Manager at Katana Smart Manufacturing Software

“If this is happening often, it sounds like your customer has the desire to buy but is having a hard time committing to the work needed to trial properly.

“Ask them why the first trial wasn't sufficient, see if they need more support to effectively trial the product the first time.”

Julie Grondin, Senior Global Product Marketer at CBRE

Q: Have you ever had to communicate about a feature that was live and no longer available but is back now? If so, how do you adapt your message?

A: “I have done this before. I based my message on the concept of, ‘You talked, we listened’. This was true; we listened to the voice of the customer and brought back features to them that were taken down or not brought over to a new platform. I wanted them to know that when they speak to us, we do hear them, and we will pivot to support their needs.”

Kristen Biadasz, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Voyager Sopris Learning

Q: I'm looking for some help on clarifying the B2B offering of a tech company that offers a lot of products, which has become somewhat confusing. We're looking at removing public-facing product names and instead presenting four key solutions made up of different tech pieces. I’d like some insight/intel to work out whether this may just cause more confusion than clarity.

A: “I find people are much more confused about a litany of product names than a product that has components. Your streamlining the naming won't be more confusing to anyone except your early adopters, who will get over it quickly.”

Adam New-Waterson, Fractional CMO at HYE Partners

“This depends on whether people will be buying the individual products from your sales reps or just the solutions. If the latter, it makes a lot of sense to just present the solutions as if they were the products. If not, you might want to have separate dropdowns for both.”

Justin Dunham, Product Marketing Manager at GitHub