The Role of Product Marketing in B2B: Strategies, Tools, and Metrics for Success

Listen to this episode from The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt) on Spotify. #236: Product Marketing | Product marketers are no strangers to change. Whether it’s navigating new responsibilities, proving impact to leadership, or balancing short-term wins with long-term strategy, the role is constantly evolving - and in 2025, that evolution is only accelerating.This Exit Five Live session is built to help you stay ahead. Dave sits down with Natalie Marcotullio (Head of Growth & Product Marketing at Navattic), Jason Oakley (Founder of Productive PMM), and Eric Holland (Senior PMM at Betterworks and Co-Founder of DemoDash) for a tactical discussion on how to sharpen your skills, adapt to a shifting landscape, and deliver measurable impact.They cover:What a successful product marketing function looks like in B2BTools, frameworks, and metrics that actually matterHow to align with sales and customer successTrends to watch in 2025 and beyondTimestamps(00:00) - – Intro to Natalie, Jason, and Eric (03:34) - – Why product marketing is the most important function in B2B marketing (05:24) - – Defining the role: What should product marketing actually own? (07:34) - – How PMM impacts revenue, growth, and pipeline (09:04) - – Differentiation: What it really takes and why most companies get it wrong (11:34) - – Real examples of effective positioning in crowded markets (16:04) - – What bad product marketing looks like (17:34) - – Why PMMs need to market the product more (and not just during launches) (20:34) - – Launch marketing, momentum, and creating "marketable moments" (22:34) - – Why PMM charters don’t work - and what to do instead (24:34) - – How to measure product marketing impact (with or without KPIs) (33:20) - – Tying assets and enablement to revenue (34:50) - – Tracking usage without a big tech stack (37:50) - – Who owns positioning: PMM vs brand? (39:50) - – How to shine as a PMM in a sales-led org (44:20) - – The death of one-pagers and what to use instead (46:50) - – What to look for when hiring a great product marketer Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected] the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Zuddl.We’re halfway through 2025, and one thing’s clear: events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking - you name it. Everyone’s leaning in.Events are a core part of our playbook this year at Exit Five. So far, we’ve hosted two virtual sessions each month, one large virtual event, one in-person meetup, and we’re deep in the weeds planning our Drive conference coming back to Vermont this September.Zuddl helps us run a smarter event strategy - from driving registrations, managing invites, automating comms, reminders, analytics, tracking. Their Salesforce integration also makes it simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without pulling in ops.On top of that, the differentiator with Zuddl is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us - and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the momentum going with 12+ events already this year, with plenty more to come.If events are part of your marketing strategy, you need to look at Zuddl to see how companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike, and Iterable are using the top event platform for Business events in 2025. Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more.