126: The Core of Product Marketing: Curiosity, Context, and Customer Obsession - with Kim Winter, VP Marketing at (announcing soon!)

Kim Winter has spent nearly a decade building and scaling product marketing across Yotpo and multi product orgs. In this episode of Women in B2B Marketing, we unpack how true product marketing starts with market context and the voice of the customer, then fuels everything from positioning to pipeline.

Kim shares how to operationalize VOC with CS, why PMM should own recurring deliverables like quarterly competitive reviews and persona refreshes, and what changes when PMM reports into product, the CMO, or directly to the CEO. We also dig into the rising path from PMM to CMO, and how to keep marketing intentional instead of turning into a production shop.

Here’s what we cover:

• The “bottom of the pyramid” for PMM: market context, competitive landscape, and VOC
• How PMM focus shifts by product stage, from finding fit to scaling mature lines
• Design partners vs customer advisory boards, and when to use each
• Recurring PMM deliverables that create visibility and influence across the org
• Where PMM should sit and how KPIs shift under Product vs CMO vs CEO
• Why PMM fuels customer marketing and tight alignment with Sales and CS
• Debunking the “PMM = messaging at the end” misconception
• Making marketing intentional: tie every output to a clear goal and buyer need
• Practical ways to gather customer insight fast without boiling the ocean
• The PMM to CMO trend and what makes product marketers strong marketing leaders

Key Links:

Guest: Kim Winter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-winter/

Host: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra/

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