Welcome to the frontier of product marketing consultancy, where expertise converges with innovation to redefine the industry's landscape. 

As we step into the evolving terrain of 2024, the demand for seasoned guidance and forward-thinking strategies has never been more palpable. That's why we've compiled the definitive list of the top 10 consultants pushing product marketing to new heights. 

This distinguished cohort is made up of leaders whose impact resonates deeply within the industry, providing strategic insights and groundbreaking solutions. These consultants navigate the shifting dynamics, empowering companies with the expertise necessary to not just survive but thrive in the ever-changing market. 

They've seen every challenge and know how to strategically overcome them. That’s why we’re thrilled to present this list of trusted advisors and bring you their predictions, hot takes, and tips to help guide your path to PMM excellence and beyond. 

When the pressure's on and you need an expert, these veterans have the savvy and technical know-how to deliver results. Lean on the hard-won wisdom of the best consultants out there.

Let’s get into it.

Meet your Top 10 Product Marketing Consultants...

Shari has led consulting engagements for B2B and B2C companies across a variety of industries including adtech, fintech, healthtech, martech, analytics, logistics, and even fish farming technology.

Before joining Fluvio, she led the product marketing team at Cox Automotive and was instrumental in launching their first dealer-to-dealer listing app. She has previously held marketing leadership roles at companies such as Coca-Cola, Newell Brands, Time Inc., and Rent the Runway.

Shari is an Expert in Residence, Speaker, and Ambassador with the Product Marketing Alliance, serves as a GLG Council Member, and has been a featured speaker at various product marketing conferences and events.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

My most proud achievement is being on the leadership team at Fluvio, and helping to build this incredible resource for companies who are looking for best-in-class product marketing support.

It’s so fulfilling to see client after client benefit from our team’s expertise, and no matter what their challenges are, we’ve likely seen them before. I’m really proud of the team of consultants we’ve built and hearing that we’ve made an impact for a leader, team or organization never gets old. 

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

More product marketing jobs! The growth has been slow and steady, but we are continuing to see more and more companies – and not just in tech – understand the value of having a product marketing function in their org.

I think it may take some time for that path to be paved, but every year we see this discipline grow, and I think that will continue into 2024. 

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Have a POV. Our running joke in product marketing is that we are the master of all things, but it gets us into trouble when we shift into reactive mode, versus being a more strategic thought leader. Having an opinion, and pushing back (nicely!) by setting priorities based on knowledge and data will put you in the driver’s seat, and ultimately earn respect and a seat at the table.

April Dunford is an experienced startup executive with a deep interest in how companies bring new offerings to market and get them into the hands of customers who are willing to pay for them.

April has held executive roles in a series of successful startups as CEO, COO, and VP of Marketing. She’s also held executive roles at global companies such as IBM where she launched and grew a new product division.

April has fundraised for several startups and has worked through acquisitions both on the buy and the sell side. She has acquired a SaaS business and has been an angel investor in several startups.

In addition, April is the author of two books. Her best-selling book on positioning "Obviously Awesome - How to Stand out in Noisy Crowded Markets," and the recently released "Sales Pitch - How to Build a Story to Stand Out and Win."

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

The past few years have seen a rise in interest in and understanding of Product Marketing. I see that accelerating in 2024 as companies are forced to get back to the fundamentals of strong positioning and a great story to win in the market.

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Spend more time with sales. Understand their processes and procedures. In B2B, having a great understanding of what is happening in sales is a superpower.

Devon O'Rourke

Devon O'Rourke is the Founder and Managing Partner of product marketing consulting firm, Fluvio, an occasional angel investor, and the host of the Embracing Erosion podcast.

Devon has over a decade’s worth of experience working alongside growth, marketing, product, research, design, sales, PR, and engineering teams to successfully bring new software and technology products to market.

Before founding Fluvio, Devon held a number of strategy and product marketing roles at companies such as The New York Times, Getty Images, Publicis, ESPN, Tremor Video, Etsy, and Amazon, in addition to being an Advisory Board Member, Ambassador, Mentor, & Speaker for the Product Marketing Alliance.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

Putting all of my PMM experience together to build a company, Fluvio has been super gratifying. Prior to that, I’d say building the GTM plan for Amazon Marketing Cloud – proud to see how much that has grown into an industry-leading cloud solution for marketers.

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

PMM focus areas pivot to support ACV and renewals/upsells – 2023 was a year where companies dropped the barrier to entry, at times taking on new customers at a loss. The next few years will require companies (and PMMs) to resurrect growth through net revenue retention.

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Execute! I worry too many folks are prioritizing positioning themselves publicly ahead of actually contributing significantly to the practice. There is no shortcut. Put your head down, find a mentor/champion, and execute relentlessly. Recognition will come.

Andrew Hatfield

Andrew Hatfield has over 28 years of experience helping startups and enterprise tech companies launch products and scale their business. Fanatically buyer-driven, Andrew focuses on solving problems customers really care about.

Combining data, insights, and experience, Andrew Hatfield has a track record of launching new products, scaling startups, building teams, and turning businesses around.

Having started his career in tech, he’s worked in software engineering, solution architecture, sales, and marketing, having personally sold over $196M and built more than $1.34B in qualified pipeline.

As Founder and CEO of Deepstar Strategic, Andrew Hatfield focuses on building and executing the right strategic foundation to quickly scale companies to their next stage of growth - whether that’s fixing conversion leaks, building growth loops, or driving demand engines.

When he’s not growing revenue, Andrew enjoys the subtle tones of Islay whisky, low ‘n slow BBQ, and snowboarding.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

In my product marketing career, the standout highlight has been my ability to consistently drive success across a variety of products, even in the most challenging situations.

Two examples include significantly increasing APAC revenue of a non-core product, overcoming substantial opposition from regional leadership. My efforts led to APAC becoming the second-highest revenue-generating region behind North America, surpassing even the sales of the company’s two hottest new products. Furthermore, I spearheaded the revival of a Series C startup that had failed to meet its revenue goals for five consecutive quarters.

My strategic leadership resulted in two consecutive record-breaking revenue quarters, culminating in a successful acquisition.

What’s your prediction for product marketing in 2024?

With no foreseeable changes in the current macroeconomic climate, costs continuing to rise, and the change in how buyers buy - product marketing will continue to play a strategic role in ensuring the foundations are in place by applying the fundamentals of marketing and business.

What advice would you give to someone looking to level up in product marketing?

Build something alongside whatever you’re doing now and get hands-on experience. Share what you learn graciously and know that you’ll never stop getting better.

Kirsten Jepson

Kirsten Jepson is an accomplished fractional product marketing leader. With over 20 years of experience, she solves complex marketing challenges for B2B and B2B2C organizations ranging from startups to global enterprises.

Kirsten’s expertise includes building new product marketing functions, revitalizing existing ones, and providing fractional PMM leadership to fill skill or bandwidth gaps. She has led dozens of new product launches and has been involved in 10 major acquisitions and an IPO.

With a passion for bringing sales, marketing, and product together, Kirsten offers a unique blend of industry marketing, content marketing, and product management experience. She has led cross-functional teams around the world, influencing and engaging at all levels.

As a logical problem-solver, Kirsten can quickly analyze complex situations and devise targeted strategies and action plans. She has successfully driven digital transformation and launched conversational AI bots, RPA, hyperscalers, and other technologies for contact centers. She has also been deeply involved with the Financial Services industry immersed in cards and payments.

Kirsten thrives on imagining future possibilities and making them a reality for clients. Whether optimizing go-to-market planning or testing new product ideas, she delivers pragmatic solutions tailored to each client’s growth goals.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

Building a high-performing product marketing team for a fast-growth organization, this work contributed to a successful IPO.

The reasons for product marketing success here included having a diverse, generous, hard-working team with multiple talents and a collaborative mindset. 

What’s your prediction for product marketing in 2024?

The use of technology to improve outcomes will become more and more important. Harnessing the power this brings to the Product Marketing world in the form of analytics, content generation, and research. We will be nimble, invest brainpower, leverage, and apply this technology - essentially creating a tech/human handshake like never before.

Fractional work will become the norm.  Leveraging the expertise and talents of tenured Product Marketing professionals becomes a cost-effective way for companies to get the talent needed to scale.  

What advice would you give someone looking to level up in product marketing?

Generously share learnings.  

Harvey Lee

Harvey Lee is an experienced product marketing consultant who helps individuals and organizations unlock growth by demystifying and implementing results-driven product marketing strategies.

With over 25 years in senior product marketing roles at global companies like Virgin, Microsoft, Kaspersky, Avast, and Seiko Epson, Harvey has a proven track record of helping startups to large enterprises discover and communicate the true value of their products and services.

His areas of expertise include strategy planning, messaging, positioning, product innovation, and portfolio optimization. Harvey takes a hands-on, pragmatic approach to product marketing, equipping clients with the frameworks, knowledge, and confidence to use it as a superpower that drives business results.

Harvey is passionate about making product marketing accessible. He provides actionable and inspirational tips on product marketing and career development. His debut book, Backstage Pass, shares insider advice to help readers excel in product marketing.

With his depth of experience across B2B and B2C products and services, Harvey enables companies at any stage to clarify their product vision, penetrate new markets, and accelerate growth.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

It’s hard not to say being on the original Xbox launch team, as it was such a huge pop-culture event. But the business of Xbox is the great untold PMM story, one that I tell as a keynote.

Going from a $0 business that was a massive sunk cost to what is now a $16B business line is something that can’t be ignored.

My book, Backstage Pass is a hot personal highlight right now. We all know the pathway into PMM is the biggest unintentional career, and my story identifies that in great detail (and humor). The response from the community (and the media) has blown me away.

Being a leader and Top Voice for PMM on LinkedIn and throughout the community is a source of great personal pride and satisfaction. Bringing the next generation of PMMs through is a personal goal of mine.

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

The PMM landscape is changing. The core PMM titles will remain, but the growth will be in the orbit of influence of our skills; you’ll see that play out in the jobs market with titles such as portfolio manager, and GTM (go-to-market) manager. These are essentially specialisms of PMM, forged as their own roles.

As budgets tighten, we’ll see growth in fractional product marketing, especially in the start-up/scale-up world. A product marketer is unfortunately not a "first five hire," but companies are switching on to the undeniable value of having product marketing on the ground earlier. A fractional PMM enables that to happen.

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Throw yourself at opportunities, and do not wait for the perfect time to do it. There’s no perfect time.

Start writing, speaking, or even participating in the PMM community… you can only gain. There’s no downside.

When the time comes, be open to broader opportunities, ensure you have depth and breadth to your experience, and try not to pigeonhole yourself into a category. Moving categories during your career will widen your funnel for future opportunities.

Erin Parkins

Erin Parkins is an experienced B2B SaaS product marketing consultant and co-founder of The Honeybee Collective. With over 14 years in edtech and 5 years leading PMM teams, Erin offers deep expertise in persona development, market research, competitive intelligence, product launches, and sales enablement.

Erin’s special talents include crafting GTM strategies for cross-sell, upsell, and M&A integrations. She excels at building marketing programs tailored to a company's growth stage, market maturity, and team strengths. Erin also has a proven track record of marketing technologies within “frenemy” ecosystems and generating cross-functional excitement for PMM.

As an Enneagram Type 1 with strengths in strategic thinking, ideation, maximizing others, learning, and analysis, Erin brings structured creativity to every project. She is available for project-based consulting, short-term PMM coverage, and fractional PMM roles. Erin loves helping clients clarify their messaging, penetrate new markets, and scale their businesses.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

Starting my consulting business last year was a huge highlight for me. I love seeing how different PMM teams operate and how I can help them scale. You learn so much so fast as a consultant!

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

In 2024, I think PMMs will embrace generative AI as a way to accelerate output so we can spend more time on input, like market research and insights.

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Be curious! The best product marketers all do one thing consistently: Ask good questions in every conversation.

Anthony Pierri

Anthony Pierri is the co-founder of FletchPMM, where he shares his expertise in messaging with early-stage B2B horizontal startups. At FletchPMM, Anthony helps founders position their products, crush launches, and write compelling messaging.

He brings over a decade of experience creating engaging content and building online communities. Anthony previously wrote for an email newsletter with 200,000 subscribers and started a podcast that averaged 11,000+ downloads per episode. He has also grown Twitter and YouTube audiences into the tens and hundreds of thousands.

Before launching FletchPMM, Anthony was part of the product marketing team at Headway. There, he helped founders position their products and develop effective messaging.

Leveraging his background in content creation, community building, and messaging, Anthony is dedicated to empowering founders to clearly communicate the value of their innovations. He aims to equip startups with the messaging they need to share their products with the world.

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

I think product marketing will continue to rise in importance as buyers look more to find answers to their questions before getting on a sales call (which will mean being better about product clarity in assets that live higher up the funnel).

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Learn how to be as clear as possible in your writing. Write about a feature, show someone it without any commentary, and see if they can understand what the feature does, when someone would use it, what benefits it drives, etc. without you having to clarify.

April Rassa

April loves to co-create the future, whether it means launching a new idea, reinventing an old one, or navigating a changed world to create something better. With extensive experience in business, brand, and marketing, she brings a fusion of strategic, creative, and organizational expertise to every client engagement.

April’s approach to every problem is with curiosity, objectivity, and a yen for what is authentic, distinctive, and true. She thrives on helping clients discover and articulate their purpose, vision, and values – and crafting the roadmap that brings these to life.

April’s specialties include business strategy, corporate marketing, positioning/messaging, product marketing, competitive analysis, and communication strategies, to name a few.

She helps companies outperform their industry rivals by instilling new thinking into the core of the organization, and works closely with clients to identify, develop, and act on profitable growth opportunities and game-changing business strategies.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

I've had the privilege of collaborating with exceptional teams, and what stands out for me are the diverse challenges and stages of growth across the companies I've been involved with.

From contributing to the formation of high-performing product marketing teams to guiding product marketers in transitioning from reactive to strategic approaches, and even playing a role in shaping product roadmaps through customer insights and data – each experience has been a unique highlight.

The variety in my journey has allowed me to not only witness but actively contribute to the evolution of teams and companies, fostering a dynamic and impactful professional trajectory.

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

2024 will be a pivotal year for product marketers. The widespread use of AI tools is expected to significantly improve the efficiency of tasks like win-loss analysis, persona development, and competitive insights.

This practical integration of AI will enable product marketers to generate more precise key insights across various customer segments. The impact? A tangible shift in how product marketers operate and excel in their roles.

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

Building a strong product marketing profile requires time, consistency, and a curious mindset. My advice is to focus on these areas:

Deep Industry Understanding: Know your industry inside out, including market trends and customer behaviors.

Specialize and Showcase Expertise: Choose a niche and showcase your expertise through case studies or presentations.

Network Effectively: Connect with professionals, attend events, and engage in online communities for learning and opportunities.

Build Online Presence: Establish a robust online presence on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to increase visibility.

Continuous Learning: Stay updated on industry trends and best practices for ongoing success.

Seek Mentorship: Learn from experienced professionals to shape your career.

Showcase Results: Highlight measurable impacts in increasing visibility, engagement, or conversion rates.

Adaptability: Embrace changing market dynamics with an open mind.

Portfolio Development: Create a strong portfolio with case studies and successful campaigns.

Soft Skills Matter: Develop excellent communication and collaboration skills for effective cross-functional teamwork.

Emma Stratton

As founder of the consulting and training firm, Punchy, Emma guides the biggest and brightest companies to market-winning strategies and trains product marketers to create clear, simple, human messaging that stands out.

To date, she’s consulted with 100+ companies (Loom, Miro, Outreach, and Uber, to name a few) and trained over 800 product marketers from teams at leading companies like Akamai, Atlassian, Oracle, Splunk, and more.

What’s been your personal highlight in your product marketing career so far?

I love teaching product marketers how to write clear, simple, and human messaging.

Over the last two years at Punchy, I’ve had the honor of training close to 900 marketers. This was never something I planned to do when I started out as a consultant, but it’s been the best thing I’ve done and incredibly fulfilling to help people master critical skills for their career growth.

Product marketers are always so smart, kind, and keen to learn.

What’s your top prediction for product marketing in 2024?

On the consulting front, I’m seeing markets getting noisier by the day (let alone the year) and solid positioning and clear messaging are becoming more important than ever. Companies are finding it harder to differentiate and are realizing that going back to marketing fundamentals – like getting crystal clear on how they can stand out – is a way to rise above the mellay and win.

On the training side, we’re seeing more investment in PMM teams (and the wider marketing org) again. More (and bigger) companies want a standardized approach to creating value-based messaging. There’s a growing appreciation that marketing, product, and sales need to get on the same page, and that good messaging helps drive results.

And long may it continue! 

What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to build their profile in the product marketing world?

1. For younger marketers, take your time. The months spent executing yet another product release, learning from a mentor, figuring out what you like, or honing your craft is time well spent. Push outside of your comfort zone here and there, have confidence in your voice, and be good to people. You’ll be seen, known, and opportunities will arise.
   
2. Invest in yourself. Share your experiences and knowledge on LinkedIn and in peer communities. Go to meetups and attend PMA events (product marketers are so damn friendly!). Enjoy what social media gives you, but always balance that with face-to-face conversations and real human engagement. Product marketing is a very small world… you got this! 😄

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There you have it!

The frontier of product marketing consultancy has never been more dynamic. As we stride into 2024, the demand for strategic guidance and inventive solutions has hit a fever pitch.

We hope the diverse expertise and wealth of experience of these PMMs has inspired you, and you've gleaned valuable perspectives from their predictions and advice to inform your own product marketing efforts. 

Should challenges arise, don't hesitate to tap into the hard-won wisdom of these seasoned professionals pushing the boundaries of the field. Their innovative approaches and commitment to empowering product marketers promise to shape the trajectory of the profession for years to come. 

We thank these experts for sharing their insights and wish you the greatest success on your own product marketing journey!