Director of Product Marketing at Iterable

Product Marketing Maverick | Data Whisperer | Pun Enthusiast

Are you passionate about product marketing, technology, or finding the perfect meme for every situation? Let's chat!

Gosh, I just love Lovable. I took a landing page where I've been tracking my work (https://lnkd.in/euRNkSTs) and asked Lovable to create a portfolio page to highlight my work. This can be done using your resume (bonus points for links) as well.

These are the results from Lovable that was created literally with ONE click: https://lnkd.in/eBpzfBDB

Every PMM should have a portfolio page, and Lovable is making this even easier! 

NOTE: I haven't tried Cursor yet..should I?? Curious as to what the difference is and if anyone likes it better/why??

Michele Nieberding 🚀

Open article: Michele Nieberding | Product Marketing Leader by michele-magic-portfolio.lovable.app

Michele Nieberding | Product Marketing Leader

NRF week in NYC just hits different 🗽.  A few days of nonstop conversations with some of the most iconic brands in retail, real talk with marketers about what’s actually broken, and the kind of energy you only get when the entire industry (>40k people 😱) shows up in one place.

Highlights, because there were a lot:
• Meeting incredible brands and hearing first hand how they’re rethinking data, AI, and the future of marketing 
• Officially launching a brand new product built for marketers AT the event (still riding that high). Check it out here! https://lnkd.in/e3KfemtJ
• Giving a tech talk at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) booth on what the future of connected customer experiences in retail can ACTUALLY look like. A huge thank you to Alexandra James, Ronak Shah, and Zoe Diamond for having me!   
• Running into some of my favorite in people in the industry like Katy Yuan and Bryan Smith (sorry to have missed Julien Sauvage 🥖 and Florian Delval though!)
• Our CMO Karen Wood hosting a awesome Big Ideas session with our customers from Hilton and Universal Music Group
• Getting drinks with the legendary Morgan Decker 🎯  
• And the best part, spending time with my Treasure Data team. The ideas sparked in between sessions, the nonstop laughter at dinner, etc.

The low lights: getting food poisoning from an nyc street hotdog… I know, I know. I had that one coming..

But feeling super grateful, energized, and already excited to keep the momentum going!

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Quick gratitude post 🙏. Most days, my “office” is a basement.
My coworker snores. Loudly. 🐶
And my commute is about 12 steps.
Remote work can be amazing… and also quietly isolating if you’re not intentional about people.

That’s why I’m especially grateful for an awesome team at Treasure Data.  The kind of team that shows up prepared, curious, and engaged. The kind that makes Slack feel human. The kind that turns Zoom squares into real collaboration, real laughter, and real momentum.

When you work remotely, culture doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built in the small moments:
 – Quick check-ins that aren’t just status updates
 – Trust that you’re doing the work, even when no one can see you doing it
 – Teammates who make you feel connected, even when you’re physically alone

So yes, I work from a basement.
Yes, my dog contributes absolutely nothing except background noise.
But I get to work with people who make the work better, and that makes all the difference. 

Cheers to 2026!

Starting 2026 off with some “exposure therapy” 😅 public speaking.

Thank you Amazon Web Services (AWS) for having me at their National Retail Federation booth! I really enjoyed talking about the future of marketing and personalization with the rise of AI.

Also, nothing makes me happier than when I see people taking pictures of my slides 🥹. Why am I like this?

I was on a sales call where the pitch was beautiful. Big future vision. Bold roadmap. “Here’s where we’re going.” The buyer nodded. The deck landed. Everyone felt good.
Then the question came:  “Cool. What can I actually do this quarter?”
Silence. 🤔 

That was the moment I realized something most product marketers eventually learn the painful way...
Vision doesn’t close deals. Reality does.

Vision selling is seductive. It makes companies feel innovative. It makes PMMs feel strategic. It gives sales a shiny story to tell.

But... buyers don’t buy roadmaps. They buy proof.

They want to know:
• What exists today
• What customers like them are doing right now
• How those customers are winning without waiting for the future

Reality selling is grounded. It’s a little less sexy. But it’s what builds trust.

The trap? Going too far in either direction.
If you only sell reality, you sound commoditized.
 If you only sell vision, you sound risky.

The job of product marketing is to bridge the gap.

Here’s how I’ve learned to do it in practice:
1. Anchor the story in “now,” then ladder to “next.”
Lead with what’s live, proven, and in-market. Then show how that same foundation unlocks the differentiated future. Vision should feel inevitable (and exciting), not hypothetical.

2. Turn roadmap into customer behavior.
 Instead of “we’re building X,” say “customers using Y today are already doing Z, and here’s what that unlocks next.” Make the future feel like a continuation, not a leap of faith.

3. Sell constraints, not promises.
Be explicit about what the product does and doesn’t do today. Ironically, this increases credibility and makes the vision more believable.

4. Give sales a ‘two-slide rule.’
One slide for reality: features, workflows, customer proof.
One slide for vision: where this goes because of that reality.
If vision can’t fit on one slide, it’s probably not ready.
*and make this applicable to the customer. What will they be able to achieve that is specific to their role/industry, etc. AI can help you scale this!

5. Pressure-test vision with field questions.
If sales can’t answer “how does this help me this quarter?” in one sentence, the story isn’t done yet.

The best product marketing lives in the tension between now and next.
Not fantasy. Not feature dumping (yuck). Just enough vision to inspire, grounded in enough reality to close.

Curious how o thers balance this. Where have you seen vision help, or hurt, a deal? 👀

New year, new events! Let me know if you'll be at either of these, would love to meet IRL!

Marketers, say goodbye to isolated AI copilots. Say hello to Marketing Super Agent, an AI marketer that answers to you.

Simply start with a prompt like:
-Turn this brief into a campaign plan with channels, audiences, and timelines.
-Find the right audience and GTM strategy for our new product.
-I have six weeks to launch our fall campaign. What should I do?

Marketing Super Agent's multi-agent orchestration system then gets to work. Dozens of marketing specialist AI agents, all in one governed workspace, help you complete the full marketing lifecycle faster and more intelligently.

Learn more and request access today: https://gag.gl/MR0FMF

Send me a note to meet up at NRF! And/or come see my tech talks at 2:40 today and 9:30 tomorrow!

#PMMHacks time! 🚀 this time, we are talking about sales enablement, or at least, what comes AFTER the enablement session 🤔. 

I keep seeing the same pattern play out ...
We spend weeks building enablement decks.
We run the training.
We share the docs.
We drop said docs+recording in Slack.
We [maybe] send a follow-up survey.

And then…
Three days later, the same questions start showing up in Slack.
Sales and CS ask about things that were literally just covered.
Enablement becomes a constant stream of 1:1 explanations instead of something that actually scales.

That that's not because people don’t care. Not because the content is bad.
But because delivery & reinforcement are broken.

Enablement today is still treated like an event instead of a process. One training/enablement session. One deck. One doc. One survey. Then we move on and hope it sticks 🤞.

Spoiler alert: It usually doesn’t.  And then leadership asks why are they not getting it?

So...I came across a tool called Eddie that [finally] fixes this!

You drop in your enablement docs (i.e FAQ, release notes, enablement deck, a product update, a strategy doc) and Eddie turns it into an actual learning flow. And it all happens in Slack, where your sales and CS teams already live. 

It creates 1:1 training, and quick quizzes instantly. So instead of “Did everyone read this?” you can prove it.  You can see what questions reps consistently get wrong, so you know exactly what to re-emphasize.  You can also see what they get right, so you know your enablement actually worked.
Completion. Retention. Patterns. Gaps. BOOM 

Enablement shouldn’t feel like herding cats (though I swear that is part of the PMM job description). I shared this with a couple other PMMs this week, and 🤯. 

Eddie has a few beta spots open so teams can try it for free, which is awesome because you can experience it, inside your real workflows, with your real content, and your real teams.

And it's helpful, I’m happy to connect before any presentations to walk through the demo using my account or connect you directly. Let me know in the comments!

“Build the future with AI” 🙏. Something I am incredibly passionate about

#PMMHacks friday. And this time, I am SUPER excited to share that this one is about a product my team is building at Treasure Data

I’ve worked on A LOT of launches in my career. But very few of them feel like this.

This week, I was excited to help launch Treasure Data’s Marketing Super Agent — not because it’s another AI feature, but because it finally addresses the stuff marketers have been quietly frustrated by for years.

We’ve all felt it.
😭 Journeys that look great on a slide but don’t actually convert.
😭 Segments that are outdated the second you create them.
😭 Dashboards full of insights… that never quite turn into action.

That’s not a marketer problem. That’s a systems problem. We have historically been limited by our technology, and so we think this has become the "norm." But this new product has changed the way we should be thinking about (and doing) marketing.

What I love about Marketing Super Agent is that it doesn’t try to make marketers “faster typers” or pump out more content.
It helps answer the hard questions:
👀 Where did customers actually hesitate?
👀 What changed for them in this moment?
👀 What’s the right move right now (not what worked last month/quarter)?

Instead of starting with: “Which segment should this go to?”
 It starts with: “What is this person trying to decide?”
And that shift matters.

This isn’t a chatbot. It’s not a copy generator. It’s not a shiny AI wrapper bolted onto a [legacy] stack.

It’s built inside the customer data foundation, so it can reason, remember, and act with real context across research, planning, creative, and activation.

Honestly, the most exciting part for me isn’t the tech. It’s what this gives marketers back:
🙏 Less guesswork
🙏 Fewer handoffs
🙏 Faster cycles without cutting corners 
🙏 Less back and forth non-stop with data teams 

And AI that actually respects how complex marketing decisions really are. It's like having a team member that works while you sleep. 

And this is just the beginning, but I’m proud of what we’re putting into the world, and even more excited about where this takes marketing next.

Try it free here: https://gag.gl/MR0FMF

Onward 🚀

We’re going LIVE right after the Super Bowl for a completely UNHINGED breakdown of the only part that truly matters…the commercials. 🏈📺

You already know I love a good hot take. And Super Bowl ads are like the Olympics of brand strategy, storytelling, cringe, brilliance, all the things.

So I'm going live with Langley Barth, Elle Grossenbacher, and James Schultz to talk about what's working and what's not with the most memorable commercials from the 2026 Super Bowl. 

Real-time reactions, spicy marketing takes, and chaotic analysis of who won, who flopped, and who burned a few million dollars for nothing.

RSVP to this LinkedIn Live to be part of the conversation - you can comment  and engage with us along the way. Game on. Literally. 🔥

View company: Product Marketing Adventures Podcast

It's on!!! 🏈 🏆 Catch us LIVE the day after the Super Bowl for a Messaging Critique (IYKYK) of the most memorable Super Bowl commercials. 

Some of the biggest stars in product marketing will be co-hosting this critique. 
Michele Nieberding 🚀 Langley Barth James Schultz, MBA, along with the Product Marketing Adventures Podcast host, Elle Grossenbacher.

Julien Sauvage 🥖, Langley Barth and 1 other connection attending

2026 Super Bowl Commercial - Messaging Critique

Most companies don’t have a “purpose” problem. They have a physics problem.
We’ve spent years trying to fix org issues with mission statements, values, and vision decks. It feels good. It feels human. But it doesn’t make the system work.
Systems don’t run on meaning. They run on physics.

A galaxy doesn’t need a mission.
 A forest doesn’t need values.
 The Milky Way doesn’t need an offsite.

Nature starts with boundaries, load, capacity, information flow, and coherence. Businesses start with “purpose.”

When those break, “purpose” becomes a band-aid. And AI makes this painfully obvious...
AI doesn’t feel mission.
AI doesn’t infer values.
AI can’t resolve ambiguity through story.

So the narrative layer, the thing PMMs spend so much time perfecting, collapses if the underlying architecture is misaligned.

If you're a PMM, you probably feel this in your bonesss.
You can write the perfect positioning… and most of the org still won’t know how to use it.  Not because the story is wrong. Because the physics are wrong.

If roles are unclear, if teams define terms differently, if workflows contradict the narrative, if the data doesn’t support the promise… your messaging becomes mythology instead of machinery.

AI forces structural honesty. It exposes every contradiction in governance, workflow, data quality, and decision rights. Suddenly your beautiful “north star narrative” collapses under load because the underlying physics can’t hold it up.

So what does this mean for PMMs?

1. Turn your narrative into operating rules.
If your positioning were a law of physics, what behaviors would it enforce? What would become allowed or forbidden? Messaging must translate into decisions.

2. Audit coherence, not copy.
Stop asking, “Does this sound good?” Ask, “Does our organization behave this way?”  If not, no rewrite will save it.

3. Build a shared vocabulary system.
• Define your terms. Standardize language.
 • If five teams define “real-time” or “activation” or "AI-native" differently, no narrative can align them.

4. Make your messaging machine-readable.
• AI needs explicit, structured, unambiguous logic.
• If an LLM can’t understand your positioning, your teams won’t either. I love putting a messaging doc into Gamma and seeing what slides it creates for a 3-5 slide pitch deck. This is a great gut check!

5. Fix information flow before fixing your story.
• Most messaging problems are actually data problems: outdated enabling docs, inconsistent definitions, broken feedback loops.

6. Be the steward of boundaries.
• Clarify what your product is and what it is not.
• Who it’s for and who it’s not.
• What it can deliver and what it can’t.
• This is systems physics disguised as marketing.

If the architecture is correct, the story becomes obvious. If the architecture is broken, the story becomes noise. AI just accelerates the reveal.

You don’t fix an organization, or a GTM motion, by rewriting the mission statement. You fix it by rewriting the physics it runs on.

AI Pro Tip 💡: Nano Banana can now do infographics!  You can use your own data, or ask Gemini to start from scratch.  

IMPORTANT: Make sure to toggle on Nano Banana Pro under "tools."  And if you want actual stats, choose "thinking" or "pro"

But here is an example of how you can start from scratch. 

PROMPTS:
Step 1: "You are a senior product marketing strategist and visual designer specialized in data-driven content for social channels. Create a validated, prioritized list of the top 5–10 ways marketers will use AI tools in 2026"
NOTE: If you want to try and optimize this prompt, use Prompt Genie

Step 2: "Create an infographic based on the above information, accompanied by relevant visuals appropriate for {x} . Use a 9 by 16 aspect ratio for social media. Make it clean and modern with minimal design elements."

Attached is the original output. Needs some tweaking, but still cool to see, especially since I didnt feed Gemini any specific. You can also incorporate brand colors (#), font, and other brand guidelines here.

Other use cases (this is better than the Nano Banana integration in Google Slides currently because you can tell Gemini what you want it to update in the image):
• Clean KPI Dashboard (The “Client-Ready in 8 Seconds” Classic) - good for decks
Prompt: Modern minimalist KPI infographic, headline "2025 Q4 Results", large metric cards: Revenue +42% ↑, ARR $18.7M, Churn 3.1% ↓, primary color #0066FF, white background, bold sans-serif, generous padding, perfect text alignment, Nano Banana Pro 4K image generation, 16:9

• Timeline That Doesn’t Suck (Horizontal Masterpiece)
Prompt: Clean horizontal timeline infographic: "Evolution of AI 2018-2025", 8 milestones with exact dates + simple icons, subtle connecting line, flat teal/orange palette, Nano Banana Pro crisp text rendering

• Educational Explainer (Currently Viral on LinkedIn)
Vertical Pinterest-style infographic: "How Gemini Nano Banana Pro Actually Works", 6 illustrated steps with simple diagrams, friendly illustrations, soft gradient background, perfect readable text at 4K, educational tone

Pro tip: If text ever smudges (rare now), just add “--text-sharp” at the end of any prompt. Fixed in Gemini Nano Banana Pro build 151.44+.

What’s your favorite Nano Banana Pro prompt right now? Drop it below, and I’ll test the top 5 and make a follow-up post with screenshots.

When CDO Magazine highlights your hot takes 🥹

Open article: The CDP Era Isn’t Ending — It’s Evolving by cdotrends.com

The CDP Era Isn’t Ending — It’s Evolving

Who is going to be at NRF next week?? 👀 I'll be at the Databricks booth on Monday, Jan 12 from 9am-10:45am, so grab a coffee and come say hi!

You'll also get to hang out and meet some of the other Databricks legends including Stefan Maczkowski , Roberto Robles, Rob Saker, Katy Yuan, Samantha Sawyer, Sidhtara Tep, and Bryan Smith 🔥 

So come check out some of the seriously cool things these powerhouse companies are doing to support the retail industry!

AI Pro Tip 💡: This one comes from my colleague Rohan Ranjan - if you use Google Slides, you gotta check out the NEW native video editor. Veo for video gen is included, but...text generation is BAD (like bad bad, but also funny bad). As a starting point, this is actually quite good, and really fun to try out.

And if you missed it, the "Beautify this slide" has a native Nano Banana 🍌 integration. Looks great, but you can't edit the slide directly (womp). Good for a starting point for design.

ok, but Gemini's Canvas mode is actually pretty sweet too.. 🤯 
I just prompted "make an infographic for top AI use cases for marketers in 2026" and gemini made this:

Open video: Videos | Library | Loom - 15 January 2026 on loom.com

Videos | Library | Loom - 15 January 2026

Still one of my favorite conversations from 2025 (and the guests he's had on are 🔥 ). Check out Josh Chronister's On Messaging podcast and help him snag a [well deserved] sponsor in 2026!

https://lnkd.in/eGeZ9gin

Open video: Consistency & Storytelling in Messaging w/ Michele Nieberding | MetaRouter on youtube.com

Consistency & Storytelling in Messaging w/ Michele Nieberding | MetaRouter

Come join my tech talk at the AWS booth tomorrow at 2:40pm!

View company: AWS for Retail and Consumer Goods

📍Visit AWS Booth #4438 to see how Treasure Data's Intelligent Customer Data Platform drives enterprise growth through AI-powered personalization. 

💡This unified platform optimizes marketing spend and boosts revenue by delivering trusted, real-time customer experiences while maintaining security and compliance at scale🛡️

Discover how leading brands are using these powerful tools to enhance customer engagement and achieve breakthrough business results.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) #AWS #AWSforRetail #AWSforConsumerGoods #agenticAI #NRF2026

taplio

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