The Power of Product Marketing Insights
The workstreams and tools you need to increase the impact of your PMM team
TL;DR: Product marketing should be your company’s go-to source for commercial and customer insights. This post covers the workstreams and tools to unlock smarter product decisions, sharper messaging, and stronger GTM strategy.
Outside of the product marketing bubble, one of the lesser-known aspects of the PMM role is our potential to generate insights that create value across the whole business. Insights that can meaningfully shape a company’s trajectory.
For me, this is probably the most important part of the job. It’s definitely the most rewarding.
Insights are the big unlock. Not just for the PMM - but for your business.
For PMMs, the benefits of focusing on insights are clear:
Teams start coming to you because you’re bringing something new to the party
You stop chasing your tail on day-to-day requests and start doing work that helps everyone see the bigger picture
Your role becomes more strategic, visible, and fulfilling
And for the business, it’s a much more powerful way of using your product marketing team:
Product gets sharper, commercially-minded direction
Marketing tells stories that resonate, thanks to stronger understanding of the customer
Sales gets smarter ammunition for tackling competitor challenges
Leadership gets a clearer view of what’s happening in the market - and why - so the whole business can get ahead of upcoming trends
But when I talk about product marketing insights, I don’t mean just repackaging what user research has already uncovered, or playing campaign performance data back to the product team.
I mean fresh, PMM-driven work.
Product marketing should be introducing new information to the company. Insight that shapes both product and GTM strategy. So, if you’re a PMM reading this, have an internal check-in at the end of every Friday and ask yourself ‘Did I bring something new to the conversation this week?’
What PMM insight actually looks like
I’m conscious that this can sound daunting or abstract if product marketing at your company has historically focused on product launches and sales enablement. But while the impact is huge, the work itself can often be very straightforward.
Here are some examples of the priority workstreams you can get started with.
Competitive intelligence
This isn’t just about battlecards or tracking feature releases. It’s about understanding a competitor’s strategy and how you can position yourself against them - and ultimately win.
→ Tools like SimilarWeb, Crayon, VisualPing, or a manual setup (e.g. Notion + Slack) can help get you going, but once you really get moving with competitive intelligence, you start spotting clues everywhere.
Customer insights
One of the most valuable services I offer clients of The Product Marketer is a package called Audience Framework. It maps your total addressable market, defines your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Personas, and gives a tailored recommendation on how to segment your customer-base effectively. I encourage any PMM team to run this exercise in full, ideally once a year.
→ This workstream is a bit of a beast, and will likely be a deep partnership with Data & Analytics and Research. Get in touch if you’d like a walk-through of how to develop an Audience Framework for your business.
Win–loss analysis
Cut through the noise of anecdotal feedback and get a full grip of why people don’t buy your product - and why they do. Run structured interviews with churned prospects and new customers to understand decision drivers. This can inform your product roadmap, your brand aesthetic, pricing strategy and the marketing channels you use.
→ A mix of qualitative and quantitive inputs is key. Clozd is great for thoughtful win-loss research and analysis. Or you might want to run your own interviews and then combine them with your Sales CRM data (e.g. HubSpot). Equally important is turning your win-loss insights into an actionable programme of initiatives to tackle the loss gaps.
Market research
When launching a new product, or expanding an existing one, layering in market insight is essential for revealing the bigger picture. What’s shifting among consumers? Is there anything happening outside of your product category space that could change things? Who’s underserved? Where do you play?
→ Mix surveys (Typeform, SurveyMonkey), interviews, desk research, and the deep research function of your favourite LLM tool to produce regular insight reports for your business - with recommendations for how Product and Marketing can react to the findings.
Message testing
This isn’t just something you do for new products. Sometimes it’s important to check in on how your core message is landing. Does your story actually resonate with the real people your product is built for?
→ An all-time favourite for this is Wynter, for any PMM who has the budget. Or a mix of Unbounce and performance marketing A/B tests can be powerful. And, of course, an old-fashioned user interview can often uncover something new.
So yes, PMMs will always need to be involved in the next big launch. But the highest-performing teams carve out meaningful time to drive insight that moves the company forward.
If you're struggling to make that shift, that’s exactly the kind of support I offer through The Product Marketer. So let’s book in a chat.