Product Positioning: How Should a SAAS CEO Evaluate his Product Marketing Manager?

One of the business growth strategies for creating competitive advantage through product positioning is to make sure you hire the right Product Marketing Manager. Once the manager is hired, you should also ensure you know the best way to evaluate him/her so he/she will be successful in your business.

The performance of a Product Marketing Manager at a SAAS company is often measured by the number of leads he or she generates. If a lead constitutes a response from a marketing email or direct mail campaign, how much does it say about the performance of the Product Marketing Manager? Secondly, generating a large number of leads does not denote that a large number of deals will be closed; therefore, the number of leads does not really predict how many of them will result in sales. Thirdly, even the definition of a lead seems inconsistent among sales professionals. So, if lead generation is not the best measure of a Product Marketing Manager’s performance, how else should he or she be evaluated?

According to David Daniels of Pragmatic Marketing, one way to measure performance is to look at outcomes or the revenues generated from those leads. Product Marketing Managers should not be evaluated based on individual deals, for other factors exist that can better tell their contributions to the overall success of their products in the market. Here are a few:

Evaluate on the basis of whether they can fill the role of “expert” on your buyers. Outcomes are directly linked to buyer expertise. Most Product Marketing Managers do not partake in much interaction with real buyers in the market. To encourage interaction, you should set a quota that requires managers to interact with potential buyers and write reports on what they learn. You can start with 8 to 10 per quarter and gradually increase that number. Note that these interactions are not conducted as part of sales calls. Product Marketing Managers who are able to do this well will not only acquire a better grasp on their buyers’ mindsets, they will also learn firsthand their purchase behaviors and what buyers look for in such products.

See if they can identify and correct bottlenecks. Evaluate Product Marketing Managers based on how well they can analyze deals; identify where they are struggling, and determine how well they can correct such blockages in the funnel. A good Product Marketing Manager can recognize patterns over a number of deals and draw conclusions from them, as opposed to concluding from a single deal. Mastering this quality will have a stronger and longer-term impact on sales, more than just generating a greater number of leads.

Assess their ability to take ownership of win/loss analysis. A good Product Marketing Manager is one who can classify win/loss patterns and devise recommendations that result in dramatic revenue growth. This will require Product Marketing Managers to work in collaboration with Product Managers and will lead to the exchange of insights from both sides; such collaboration is again an important step in the company’s long-term success.