We're Not Marketers

Nina Churchill quit her corporate PMM job effective immediately. She then wrote a series of posts on LinkedIn that reached about half a million people. She's a fellow product marketer and founder of Fresh View Concepts, where she helps B2B companies stop sounding like everyone else. We get into the post, the burnout and the 11 weeks of FMLA before it, and why we put up with behavior at work that w...

Your CEO just said you're hosting an event. You've never run one. Now what? Maggie Arai is the Founder of IRL Studios, where she designs in-person events for online brands. She's run more than 70 of them. She's also the person keeping Death to Marketing, our own conference, out of a ballroom with fluorescent lighting. We asked her what a product marketer needs to know before their first event land...

Eric Holland and Gab Bujold recorded this one on a deck in Stowe, Vermont, in the middle of Drive, with a cardboard cutout of Zach standing in for the third host. It is the first We're Not Marketers episode made in person, and it is mostly about why the three of them keep showing up to the same conference in fake mustaches. The costumes started as a joke about not being allowed into a marketing ev...

Video landed on every marketer's plate this year. Nobody added headcount for it, and nobody explained how to actually get one made. Natalie Taylor runs marketing at Capsule, where enterprise teams like HubSpot, ServiceNow and Instacart build on-brand video without going through a creative team, and she has spent two years watching product marketers get stuck in the same queue. Her fix runs against...

This is the Death to Marketing episode. Zach, Eric and Gab take stock of what it has actually cost to build a conference from nothing: the $200 sponsorship offer that set the whole thing in motion, the $90,000 in sponsors they have since closed, the 48 people who have bought tickets, and the friend who texted to say he wasn't coming. What it does to you when the success of your business becomes th...

Jason Druss spent 15 years being the customer — a film colorist at Warner Bros, NFL Films, and his own Philly boutique — before Adobe pulled him into product marketing for Premier Pro and After Effects. In this episode, Jason (Principal Product Marketing Manager, Adobe) drops his takes: why workflow isn't a buzzword when you've actually lived it, how his team runs a private WhatsApp group with hun...

Some of B2B are the cool kids shouting "synergy" with spinach dip in hand. Gila Shapiro — copywriter, PMM, and resident chaos agent at Fireflies.ai — joined the crew to roast corporate buzzwords, expose "copy thinking" and "copy pasting" with AI, and give the founder POV trick that ends executive copy fights forever. If you've ever been asked to "elevate enterprise synergies," this one's for you....

Louis Grenier has run a podcast called Everyone Hates Marketers for 8 years. He's not here to be nice about it. In this episode, Lou breaks down why product marketing only exists because B2B tech forgot what customers actually want — and why your positioning project is probably being run by the wrong person. We cover customer research frameworks, the CEO buy-in problem no one talks about, and the...

Are product marketers actually marketers, or are they just glorified slide deck designers waiting for sales to bark orders? David Lim—a PMM who's survived Google, HP, and multiple startups—joins the skeleton crew to drop some uncomfortable truths. We talk about earning respect when founders don't have a clue what you do, why knowing your customer's quarterly priorities is a superpower, and what ha...

Product marketers think they own the messaging. SEO thinks they own the traffic. But who actually owns your website—and why are they both probably wrong? In this spicy debate with BX Studio, we dig into the turf war destroying B2B websites, why your CEO is the real problem, and the radical idea that maybe your website should actually reject leads (yes, really). Buckle up for hot takes on keyword w...

Crystal Crouch turned driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile into a product marketing empire - and she's not keeping the secrets. The woman who put Zach on the consulting path drops truth bombs about why 90% of company data is garbage, why product management is harder than PMM (fight us), and how being hyper-organized means her 9-year-old has never eaten a frozen chicken nugget. If you've ever wonde...

Product marketers aren't marketers—they're architects while everyone else chooses to paint walls (no shade). Hattie the PMM shares her brutal journey from respected CEO to crying on calls as a micromanaged IC, revealing why PMM respect disappeared the moment she hit corporate payroll. We dive deep into the "becoming vs. doing" philosophy, why your money-limiting beliefs might be killing your consu...

Product marketing is marketing at it's purest form (not our words) —but only if we redefine what marketing actually means. Garrett Jestice, founder of Prelude, explains why tech companies get marketing backwards, how AI shifts risk from building to selling, and why messy go-to-market isn't a channel problem—it's a foundational problem. We dive into the CPG vs. SaaS marketing divide, why founders d...

Your PMM credibility is at stake, CRO demands more leads, without knowing what's winning revenue. Sounds familiar? Drew Giovannoli, founder of Buried Wins, calls it the 'sales deck monkey'. Don't get him wrong, as he believes PMMs should help sellers win yet, without clear buyer insights on what's winning, how can we, PMMs? That's why Drew bobbed and weaved his own consultancy focused on win-loss...

Product marketers aren't marketers—they're non-conformist rebels! Amanda Groves, VP of PMM at Enable, who rocketed from IC to VP in just 2 years explains why. She breaks down why PMMs need to be trolls under bridges, why slowing down actually speeds you up, and how painting and ultra marathons make her a better leader. We dive into the PMM-to-CMO pipeline, fighting AI Mad Libs, and why the best pr...

Marketers have become glorified executors, and, Nick Power isn't here to sugarcoat it. The lowercase LinkedIn legend– who also leads marketing at Noun Project– joins us to explain why your strategy docs are bullshit, why he'd delete his digital presence tomorrow, and how running five miles beats any marketing framework. We talk anti-billionaire content, why brevity is the ultimate flex in marketin...

Product marketing—marketing's favorite misunderstood stepchild or just expensive project management in disguise?  Pranav Piyush (ex-Dropbox, ex-Bill, founder of Paramark) joins the crew to drop some inconvenient truths: most PMMs are stuck doing thankless work because nobody knows who actually runs the business. We're talking hypothesis-driven thinking, why talking to customers isn't optional, the...

Season five kicks off with the announcement nobody asked for but everyone needed: We're Not Marketers is throwing an event, and it's nothing like the stale hotel ballroom marathons you're used to.  Eric, Zach, and Gab break down why they're risking it all to create a three-day PMM experience that's equal parts tactical workshop, adventure vacation, and therapy session for product marketers who are...

AI-powered competitive intel is the new snake oil, and executives are buying it by the gallon. While everyone's obsessing over ChatGPT doing their research in 20 minutes, they're missing the point entirely—your buying champions don't need a 30-page report about why your competitors suck. They need ammunition to win internal battles with their CFO, their boss's boss, and six other stakeholders who...

What happens when a product marketer leaves the in-house grind to start her own consultancy? According to Alex Virden, it changed how she saw product marketing entirely. In this episode, Virdical founder shares why PMMs aren’t traditional marketers, how consulting rewires your thinking, and what startup leaders really need when they ask for help. From messy handoffs to misaligned messaging, Alex e...

If you’ve ever felt a gap between brand and product marketing, we’ve had an expert who’s been in both roles and is telling us that there’s not that different. Brand and product marketing expert Jon Itkin joins We're Not Marketers to dismantle outdated perceptions of marketing. The traditional divide between product marketing and brand marketing is harmful — and that truly impactful PMMs must think...

Is product marketing really marketing? Or is it something more (or less)? In this deep-dive episode, Humans of MarTech co-founder Phil Gamache joins the crew to unpack what it truly means to be a marketer today—and why product marketing often feels like a misunderstood offshoot of the craft.  From the forgotten “P” in the marketing mix to the role of AI in shaping how teams work together, this epi...

Is working fractional that secret weapon for in-house PMMs? In this no-holds-barred episode, Eric, Zach, and Gab debate whether product marketers with fractional experience have an edge when they return in-house. We dive into the gritty reality of juggling multiple clients, the mental health rollercoaster of working solo, and why most people don't understand what it truly takes to do it. Tune in f...

In this spicy episode, CEO & Founder of Foundation Marketing, Ross Simmonds reveals why content without distribution is just expensive digital paperwork. We dive into why product marketers ARE marketers (yes, even SEOs), how to build "content moats" that will still be paying dividends in 2030, and why LLMs will actually make SEO more valuable, not less. Ross drops some truth bombs about AI scr...

Are most B2B marketers actually doing customer research wrong? In this episode, Content Lift founder Ryan Paul Gibson reveals why "just talking to customers" isn't enough and why one-third of marketers can't even get access to customers at all. From his days timing how long people take to put cream in coffee to calling customers without permission, Ryan shares guerrilla tactics for getting real in...