3 Product Marketing Things To Do First When You Don’t Have a Product Marketer (Yet)
These aren’t optional. If you’re going to have any chance of hitting your targets, you’ll need to take care of these 3 non-negotiables.
OK that sounds a little dramatic, but it’s in fact true. You’re a small ship sailing on a big ocean, after all. But if the Vikings could make it from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and North America in one of those, then you have a fighting chance too. Even if you don’t have a product marketer on your roster yet, someone or a select few in your org have to think about these 3 things often.
#1: Nail your positioning
Every soul in your company - and their mothers - needs to have complete clarity and focus on what you do, for whom, why, and how you’re better than the competition or doing nothing.
I add your mothers because if you can’t get them to understand it in simple language, then you’re over-thinking and over-complicating your story. It means you may have lost sight of the ‘so what’ behind what you’re doing.
Positioning is critical because it’s a reminder of your North Star. It sets out what you do in simple words. There are lots of formulas to help guide you in articulating that - like this one that I like to use. It doesn’t matter as long as you cover these fundamental elements:
A generic definition of your product or service
Who it’s for (see #2 below)
Why they care about their situation enough to do something about it now
How you’re better than the alternative
Now about the ‘who it’s for’…
#2: Know your Superfan
Ask youself: Who is most likely to buy our solution with the least amount of effort on our part? It’s the person who says ‘OMG I HAVE to have this now! It’s going to make my life SO much easier!!’ I’m not talking impulse buying here. I’m talking about that subsegment of your target market that will accept no substitute, that is the walking, talking model of your Ideal Customer Profile.
These are the people that are most likely to make your LTV (Lifetime Value) target look like it’s several decimals off to the right, while making your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) look like a tip you just left for your favorite barista.
Let’s unpack. Every company has a well defined target market, but in an effort to justify bigger budget asks and make a case for hiring more sales people, this target market can be a stretch case. You may be understand your TAM, SAM and SOM, but I’m wagering you’re still prone to exaggeration. It’s only when you can clearly define a subsegment of your SOM whose deals seem to always close the fastest and who tend to be super users that you can talk about the real audience. These are the folks who should matter most to you, your sales team, and your product team. These are the folks that should earn the lion’s share of your marketing spend because they’ll convert more regularly and more quickly. They’re the ones who should influence your roadmap most heavily.
And ideally, they’ll have enough look-alikes to help you hit your sales targets. If they don’t, then you’ll need to take a long, hard look at your product and your roadmap because you may need to pivot. If you don’t pivot, it means you’ll be trying to sell into a market that isn’t an ideal fit, and that will yield longer sales cycles, higher CAC, and lower LTV. Not what you want.
#3: Get Your Story Straight
The absolute hardest thing to do when you don’t have a Product Marketer — and often even when you do — is keeping everyone singing from the same song sheet. I’m referring to how you communicate your story and your value to your prospects and customers, via your Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success people.
Small companies and startups that are heavily founder-influenced may think they’re fully aligned, but if you’re reading this then you know that’s often not the case. There’s a tendency to confuse the ability to be adaptable and flexible with the need to be adaptable and flexible. Marketing will want to try new messaging, new channels, and new campaigns, sometimes before the data’s in on what’s working and what isn’t; Sales has a natural tendency for each salesperson to put their own spin on the story, but as time passes those stories tend to drift apart.
It’s critical that you get everyone on the same page, at the same time. Picture a Viking ship at sea, with everyone pulling in the same direction. Harmony. Efficiency. Power. Yet the ship itself is small and agile, able to change directions when needed. That’s true of small companies too. It’s getting them to paddle together that’s the real challenge. If you had a Product Marketer, that would be their job, but in absence, who’s watching?
Nail your positioning. Find your Superfan. Get your story straight. That’s how to get traction in the market that is most likely to float your Viking boat. Start there. Then hire a PMM!
