Whether you're back to work already or still enjoying the festivities, we hope you're having a magical holiday season.

As we head towards 2021, we wanted to take a moment to recognize 2020’s trailblazers and prodigies of product marketing, which is why we launched the Top 100 Product Marketing Influencers report.

We asked you to nominate the PMMs who've inspired and amazed you this year, and you delivered! Learn more about the top 100 and download the report here.

Speaking of amazing PMMs, the Slack community never sleeps, and consistently offers expert advice, whether they’re working or not!

Let’s check out this week’s highlights.

A: “I provide the messaging and positioning document (part of our brand guidelines) to our content team. Since design is under my umbrella (designer turned product marketer), I provide all the assets they need or templates for them to create their own based on the folder of product screenshots/assets. The team is really good at asking for photos or videos if they are doing a social post or blog. Most of the time it's pulled from my stuff - case studies, blogs, etc. I found making a folder of screenshots or anything product-related with the name of the file being the feature to be super helpful. I have a ‘how-to; use in our Guru Knowledge Base.”

Allyssa Eclarin, Product Marketing Manager at Propel

A: “We have a weekly plan for all social media posts going out. We make the plan according to the updates rolled out in the product and add that, even images are reviewed before they go out.”

Drishti Shah, Customer Success Engineer at Engati

Q: For a current PMM start-up opportunity I am interviewing for, content strategy and planning are a big part of the role. I want to demonstrate that I have given thought to their situation and what I would do/recommend.

I have started auditing their current content using a spreadsheet so I can identify gaps in content along the buyer journey and for the different buyer personas, (based on what I know.) Then using a PowerPoint that summarizes those findings from the audit and walks through my proposed content strategy and plan to fill in the gaps.

Do any of you have ideas on if I were to do this at a high level based on what I know, how I can link my content recommendations to ROI? Meaning being able to answer, “Why are we investing in the content I mention?” For example, If it's because case studies improve sales, can I provide data on that from other companies/sources? If it's to drive more traffic, can I provide data on that?

I feel like I need to back up my content suggestions and show they make business sense.

A: “Not directly related but I found this article about growth hacking content strategy quite helpful. it lays the high-level strategy about positioning content in your overall marketing plan - maybe you can match the company's current content landscape and analyze the gaps?”

Scully Wan, Host Marketing Manager

“I admire and applaud your approach to this opportunity! Sometimes it's tough to quantitatively measure every marketing strategy, so I often ask, "if we don't invest in this, what might be the negative consequences?" and tie that back to as many reliable stats as I can find. You might also consider including links to articles and resources to back up your recommendations. Good luck!”

Eileen Licitra, Product Marketing Strategist at Insight Out Marketing, Inc

Q: I'm looking for another word or way to describe a "platform" like "Acme Co. is an online learning platform." Any suggestions?

A: “The word platform has lost a lot of meaning. You could either do something more descriptive like: tool, software, or something more warm and human-like community or solution.”

Marcus Andrews, Product Marketing Leader at HubSpot

“How about instead of saying “Acme is an ….“, you say “<your persona> uses Acme to <solve a problem>“. E.g. Sales managers use Acme to better enable new reps.”

Gaurav Harode, Founder or Enablix

"Online learning platform" sounds like it can be replaced with a different way to look at a category. For example, "Acme Co. is the only online learning hub/solution/community, etc. built for <persona>.”

Sunny Singh, Director of Marketing at Rawcubes, Inc

Q: What metrics do you currently use to measure PMM effectiveness? BANTs? Opps?

A: “Revenue generated by products (to quantify launch work, enablement, etc and deal velocity (win rate sliced by deal stage/competitor, sales cycle, time to value for reps).”

Farhan Manjiyani, Technical Product Marketer at Rev.com

“We used MQL/SQL, conversions, etc, but it really depends on the company and how product marketing is defined within the firm.”

Ashley Klepach, Product Marketing Manager

“Depending on the launch, I tie KPIs to the big 3: sales, marketing, and product. Sales - arpu, close rate, time to close, collateral usage. Marketing - MQL-SQL, open rate, click-through, positive reviews, and specific conversion rates. Product - usage, reducing churn, adoption. You can also influence support metrics like reducing calls to the queue.”

Nichole Dyer, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Rewind