Product-led growth: How to get a seat at the table and prove success as a PMM

This article originates from Madison’s presentation at the Product Marketing Summit in Chicago, 2022. Catch up on this presentation, and others, using our OnDemand service. For more exclusive content, visit your membership dashboard.

Hello, my name is Madison Leonard, and I’m currently leading PLG Product Marketing at Vanta. Today we’re going to talk about product-led growth (PLG) and what it means for a PMM to not only get a seat at the table but also to prove success.

I’ve spent a lot of my career at PLG companies, and I’m really excited to share my learnings with you.

I’m going to cover:

• What PLG is (and isn’t!),
• What it means to be a PMM in a product-led organization,
• How to get a seat at the table in a product-led organization, and
• How to prove success once you get there.

Intro to PLG

First, let’s get into what PLG is. PLG stands for product-led growth, which is essentially a fancy way of saying that the user gets to experience value from the platform on their own without talking to sales.

I believe that this is the future of all B2B selling and buying, and we’re already seeing this come to fruition: Figma, a product-led company, was just acquired for $20 billion by Adobe.

However, there’s an interesting point here that often gets overlooked. If you take just one point with you today, make it this one: PLG is not owned by marketing or product – it’s a company-wide strategy.