B2B Product Marketing Defined
If you’re reading this article, you’re one of two types: those who know what Product Marketing is, or those who have heard of it and want to know more. If you’re in the first group then you likely have a set definition for Product Marketing which may or may not align with what your peers think. If you’re in the latter group, then know that what you’re about to read is based on my 17+ years’ experience in Product Marketing and may not fit 100% with what you read elsewhere. That’s the joy of being in any field with ‘marketing’ attached to its name!
So here it is:
Product Marketing is the nucleus of effective alignment between Product, Sales, and Marketing.
Of course the devil is in the details, so here they are:
1) Product Marketing owns the Buyer Persona. Effective product marketers understand why a customer would need your product or service, what problem it solves, and most importantly can articulate it back to them in a way that makes the Buyer say ‘yeah, you get me!’. (Note: the Buyer is often not the User — the person who puts your product or service to use day in, day out. Your product manager owns the user persona and the product experience.)
The product marketer knows where the Buyer hangs out, how they shop, who they collaborate with on buying decisions, and how to get their attention. That’s why the Demand Generation folks (see #3 below) love and need product marketers.
2) Product Marketing owns the competitive landscape. The product marketer’s proximity to the Buyer, to the product manager, and to the rest of the marketing team places them in the perfect position to understand and track your competitors. This takes on three differentiation dimensions: product, positioning, and go-to-market. Your product marketer has their ear to the ground on all these dimensions, and feeds other teams with the data and knowledge to help them stand apart: battle cards for Sales, messaging for Marketing, pricing and distribution intel for Operations, and features for Product Management.
3) Product Marketing owns product messaging. When a product marketer gets the buyer and the competition, they have a distinct advantage in crafting unique product-level messaging for the Sales and Marketing teams. With all that intel kicking around in their heads, product marketers can deliver your differentiated story in building blocks for use in collateral, advertising, sales decks, web copy, and more. In fact many product marketers own product collateral and content as a result.
The product marketer is a rare breed indeed. More extroverted than your engineers and product folks, more technically minded than your sales and marketing teams, super comfortable on webinars and at trade shows talking to clients and prospects, and great storytellers all around.
It all boils down to one impact: Revenue Acceleration. Through the product marketer’s work, your organization can design better products, set them apart from the competition, and find and convince the right buyer to make the purchase. And that helps more deals move more quickly through your pipeline. Sure, there’s a lot more that product marketers do day-to-day, but ultimately it’s revenue acceleration that matters most to your company, isn’t it?
