Product Marketing for the Product Team
So you’re the head of Product, head of engineering, or in a related role. You’re technically oriented, extremely well organized, and methodical. You pride yourself on strong market alignment, quality, and customer satisfaction.
And you know it takes a village.
If you’re in tech, that means you work super close with the dev team day in, day out. If you’re in manufacturing then you’re working with product designers and testers, engineers and production folks.
Those relationships are critical to your success. But your best friend in the world - in terms of the complete picture - is Product Marketing! Here’s why.
Your ultimate ally
I won’t bore you with cliché analogies about the kinship between you and your product marketer. I’ll just get to the point here.
Product Marketing is your ultimate ally because they love to do the things you may not, like running a product launch, briefing Sales and Marketing on what they’re pushing and why, talking to media, writing content, and a whole lot more.
Maybe one of the best roles Product Marketing plays for you is around sales and market intelligence. On the sales side, if they’re doing their job properly, your product marketers serve as a single ‘throat to choke’ on product feedback. Rather than talking to each and every salesperson and partner, you can set up Product Marketing to be the Collector of Feedback from Sales, partners, and customers. They’ll gather, sort, and catalog everything they hear into a concise and consumable story (because they know how to write really well) so you and your team can digest it all more easily.
It works in reverse too. Any time you want to get product information out to the field, tap your Product Marketing team because they’re programmed to do that efficiently and effectively. Let them run your launches and training, because they know how to speak the language of all your audiences. After all, while you’re busy spending most of your time with engineers and developers, Product Marketing spends their time with Sales and Marketing and customers, so they’re well positioned for release management.
The Other Side of Your Coin
Image courtesy of The Fast Life VOF.
There’s still more to your relationship with Product Marketing. To borrow from Jerry McGuire, they complete you. That’s because while so much of what you do is focused on the User (design, UX, features, roadmap, etc.), Product Marketing is always thinking about the Buyer and other personas that come into play. Their knowledge and intel on the market helps you paint a more detailed picture of what you’re doing. Want to know competitive positioning and pricing? Talk to Product Marketing. Want to know how the value of your product is perceived by the market? Talk to Product Marketing. Want to really understand the full differentiated perspective? You guessed it - talk to Product Marketing.
Minding the Gap
Want to know how you’ll know when your company needs Product Marketing? If you don’t have a clear answer to one or more of the following questions, then you need it.
1) Who’s doing regular, methodical competitive intelligence?
2) Who’s spending time talking with Sales, Marketing, and customers to understand the complete picture?
3) Did the Sales and Marketing teams really make the most of your last product launch?
4) Are analysts and media telling the right story about your products?
5) Do you think your company is telling the right stories on your website and in your marketing content?
There are more questions you can ask, but you get the picture. If you’re left with fewer answers than you would like, it’s time to ramp up your Product Marketing game! You know what to do next, right?
