Product marketing often operates behind the scenes, but is it actually the most important growth lever in your organization? Rick Nendza, longtime B2B tech marketing leader believes it might be. On this episode of Pipeline Brew, he breaks down what product marketing really is and why its role as the connective tissue across departments has never been more critical.

Matt and Rick unpack the biggest misconceptions about PMM, how to measure impact without getting “KPI’d to death,” and why internal adoption of messaging and enablement content is just as important as external performance metrics. Drawing on decades of experience and multiple roles where Rick was the first PMM hire, he shares practical advice for building the function from the ground up and navigating blurred lines across organizations.

You’ll also hear what Rick means when he refers to AI as a “super-eager intern,” how content strategy is shifting as search continues to evolve, and why strong messaging and positioning remain foundational in modern B2B. If you’re a marketing leader trying to align teams, prove out ROI, or take your GTM to the next level, this episode delivers thoughtful, tactical insights you can put to work immediately.

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Guest Bio

Rick Nendza has over 25 years of experience in product and content marketing in the B2B tech space. He currently has a contract role with Forrester, researching and writing Total Economic Impact (TEI) reports for the analyst firm’s clients - and is a fractional product and content marketing consultant “doer” for tech GTM teams.

Rick’s experience has specialized in SaaS product marketing in startup/scale out environments. In 20+ years at TechTarget, he was a key member of the team that launched Priority Engine, the publisher’s flagship SaaS platform. He also delivered content audits for tech customers – combining proprietary data with observed best practices to advise on demand gen content strategy. Since then, he’s initiated the product marketing function at two companies, working closely with demand gen teams in developing positioning and content for SaaS product launches.

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Guest Quotes

“Product marketing is the connective tissue between the executive level, sales, marketing, customer success and product. Being naturally collaborative is one thing, but you sort of have to be super focused in terms of how you're gonna get folks from around the organization to collaborate and to agree on things, and be really mindful and methodical on how you approach that from the start.”

“The way that product marketing is measured is ultimately going to be on pipeline and sales, right? But I think that there's two extremes that I've seen. One is: You're gauged on how the company is doing and you know, you're not the CEO, so it's not granular enough to give a fair assessment of what you're doing. On the other side, the product marketing function can be KPI’d to death.”

“If you've got messaging and positioning and you've got AI tools, the key really goes back to create the best content. Step back and say the way that content is being found is changing, so let's just refocus on creating the best content and stuff that's interesting and sounds different from things that your competitors are saying and something that somebody might find. Whether it's posted on social or on your website, or a sales rep is using it, have it be something that everybody is excited about sending.”

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Time Stamps

00:00 Episode start

02:00 Rick’s background and career journey

05:00 Product marketing as the connective tissue

08:45 Common misconceptions about PMM

12:30 Measuring impact with healthy KPIs

15:00 Sales enablement and internal adoption

19:45 Advice for the first product marketer

22:00 Blurred lines across marketing roles

27:00 AI as a “super eager intern”

33:00 Content strategy in the age of AI search

36:45 What’s on tap for Rick Nendza

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Links

• Connect with Rick Nendza
• Check out Forrester
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360