Product Marketing for Marketers
Your Marketing team is one of three core stakeholders for Product Marketing - the other two being Sales and Product. Quite often Product Marketing rolls up to the VP Marketing or CMO, in the same part of the org chart as your Marketing team, enabling a very natural alignment and shared focus. But even if these two teams aren’t aligned this way, it doesn’t change the fact that for them to achieve their goals, Marketing and Product Marketing must forge a strong and mutually beneficial relationship.
Here’s why and how.
Marketing needs Product Marketing.
The simplest way to explain why is think of it like this: A marketer’s prime objective is to bring in well-targeted and qualified leads. They have a mastery of all relevant marketing channels like email, social, web, in-person, PPC, and more. In order to make any of these channels work, they need to know who to target and what to say. That’s where Product Marketing comes in. It’s Product Marketing who owns the buyer persona and your product’s core messaging, and who constantly ensures that this messaging is resonant through regular engagement with Sales and your customers.
Product Marketing needs Marketing.
While Product Marketing may own ‘the story’ and the audience profile, they typically don’t have the resources to deliver content and collateral in any state of market readiness. That’s where their allies in Marketing come in to complete the picture. Copywriters, content managers, and graphic designers reside on the Marketing team, which is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the assets used in marketing campaigns, product launches, sales training, and customer engagement are on brand. So anything that a product marketer wishes to produce will be produced by the Marketing team.
It doesn’t stop there.
This reciprocity comes about whether or not these two teams are connected via reporting structure, because it simply has to happen. But there’s more going on here. There’s a feedback loop that helps to raise the bar for both teams. Product marketers need Marketing to collect the data from executed campaigns to validate messaging effectiveness; Marketers need Product Marketing to bring client case studies and testimonials to the table; Product marketers need Marketing to gather audiences for trade shows, webinars, and other podiums; Marketers need Product Marketing to help map out the content strategy, fill speaking slots, and do podcasts. The list of mutual support goes on in true symbiotic fashion.
If you lead a Marketing team and your organization doesn’t have any product marketers, chances are you’re not executing as efficiently and as effectively as you can. You may be just a little too removed from the product and from the customer base, which puts your campaigns at risk of missing the mark. That won’t help you earn the trust and support of Sales. Consider bringing in the Product Marketing remit to your company - whether on your team or elsewhere - and watch how quickly you’ll up your game.
