---
title: "Metrics a product marketer should focus on, and more with Santhoshi Natarajan, Product Marketer at Dataflo"
slug: we-asked-santhoshi-natarajan-product-marketer-at-dataflo-what-keeps-her-awake-at-night
date: 2023-01-13
author: Nachi Raman
categories: [General]
excerpt: "Santhoshi Natarjan shares her journey as a product marketer, best practices product marketers should adopt, and resources for product marketers."
tldr: "Product marketer Santhoshi Natarajan shares insights on essential metrics for acquisition and retention, recommended learning resources, and why tying marketing activities to revenue is critical for success."
canonical: https://truto.one/blog/we-asked-santhoshi-natarajan-product-marketer-at-dataflo-what-keeps-her-awake-at-night/
---

# Metrics a product marketer should focus on, and more with Santhoshi Natarajan, Product Marketer at Dataflo


### Your journey from being a Content Strategist to becoming a Product Marketer is interesting. Please tell us more about it.

  
I graduated as a Communications Specialist, and I knew that I had a passion for the English language and writing. It showed in every step of my career—all of my roles involved some kind of content writing.

I then joined Hippo Video as a Content Strategist—and it all came together! Since then, I have been producing different forms of content: ebooks, video scripts, blogs and case studies—and now web pages too.

I realised I loved producing meaningful content, especially for B2B businesses, and that's when it hit me: I want to be a Product Marketer!

My goal is to help companies get their message heard by the right people—and that's why I'm so happy with where I am today.

### Resources you recommend to learn more about product marketing?

-   **One** book - Product-led-growth by Wes Bush
    
-   **One** blog - Read up on anything that is available on the PMA website.
    
-   **One** podcast - *(Santoshi couldn't stop herself from sharing several here)*
    
-   [Exit Five](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/exit-five-b2b-marketing-with-dave-gerhardt/id1599954536)
    
-   [PMA Product Marketing Life](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/product-marketing-life/id1496134315)
    
-   [Metrics and Chill](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/metrics-chill/id1299500022)
    

### In your view, is product marketing a generalist or specialist role?

It starts out as a generalist role, especially when you are in a startup and then slowly gets very specific.

### What are the three most essential skills an aspiring product marketer should develop?

-   Ability to be a team player and collaborate.
    
-   Good communication skills
    
-   Being curious ALWAYS and getting to the ‘why’. And a thirst to keep learning.  
    

### What are some tools a product marketer should be familiar with?

-   Email marketing tools - pretty much any tool should be sufficient
    
-   Google Analytics
    
-   Any CMS
    
-   CRM (any CRM should work - Hubspot would be an added advantage)
    

💡 To climb up the ladder of success make sure you tie every activity of yours to the business revenue. 

## What best practices do you recommend product marketers adopt?

-   Understand the product’s ins and outs.
    
-   Be clear on who the product is for and talk to both your product team and your customers.
    
-   Always train yourself to write a copy.
    
-   To climb up the ladder of success make sure you tie every activity of yours to the business revenue.
    

## What are some metrics a product marketer should focus on?

Depending on which area of the business you are handling, it is fourfold - Acquisition, Activation, Retention and Expansion.

Each function comes with a different set of metrics. I recommend every product marketer understand the following:

-   web traffic for pages
    
-   total sign-ups
    
-   product usage
    
-   revenue
    
-   sales cycle length & velocity and
    
-   user retention as a blanket metric
    

## Which part of your work keeps you awake at night?

Getting traffic to our website and getting prospects to sign-up. And 'conversion' post that.

## Other product marketers, you follow?

-   Dave Gerhardt
    
-   April Dunford
    
-   Jeff Gadway