So, the question is “What is product marketing?’’ Simply put, it is the process of bringing a product to market. This includes a product’s positioning and messaging. The eventual launching of the product, and ensuring salespeople and customers understand it. This phenomenon is perfect for driving customer attention and sales.
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Why is Product Marketing Important?
It’s easy to see why product marketing is essential for any kind of industry. You simply cannot create and launch a successful product without understanding the process of promoting a product. In order to stand any chance of success in a market, companies need to know how they can position themselves and effectively communicate the product’s value. It helps in creating demand for the target audience.
Product Marketing Starts With Customers
Many small businesses nowadays face a similar challenge: product ambiguity. This is a primary reason several brands implement a formal product marketing operation, and it always starts with the buyer persona. A great product will lose all its value if people do not pay attention to it. So, how do you measure up the audience? How and where can you reach these people? On top of that, what is the story you want to narrate to them? When a product is readied for launch, identifying the customer base is critical.
Five Steps of Product Marketing
The marketing can start when marketers figure out exactly who to reach. Here are five things aspects product marketers may do before, during, and after their efforts enters the market:
1. Product Research: A well-made product isn’t made in a vacuum, this means that marketing takes time, and abundance one at that. During a time before a product launch, product marketers work with the developers to test the item both internally and externally through controlled environments.
2. Product Story: There is always a great story behind a memorable product. For example, what problem does the product solve? Who faces the issue? How does the product solve this problem? And finally, are you in line to be different from the competition?
3. Product-Focused Content: Next up, we have product focused marketing. It is the next goal at the desk of any content creator. Product marketers may be tasked with creating A/B tests. These are designed to put several marketing copies, blog content and landing pages to the test. All pertain strictly to describing the product.
4. Community Engagement: Product marketing is adept at generating enough buzz within the industry. At this stage, it’s very common for the marketing team to assess what the market deems their product. This can include collaborating partners, influencers and existing consumers for commentary.
5. Sales Enablement: Lastly, as a product is prepared for the marketplace, the sales team waits in the wings to develop a commendable sales strategy. The potential around this new business opportunity is endless. It’s the product marketing team’s job to communicate with the sales staff regularly. This helps ensure that the messaging for the certain product is consistent through to the end.
Now that we know how product marketing works, let’s dive into the role of a product marketer.
Responsibilities of a Product Marketer
A product marketer’s main responsibility is to promote a product’s value in the face of a target audience. This can be achieved through a an astute brainstorming process, like:
- Deciding the mix of marketing content for creation and distribution
- Creating budgets for overall marketing campaigns
- Working with content creators, making content that tell tales product and brand image
- Creating educational content, based on the product
- Interviewing consumers and writing case studies
- Plan product launches along with developing accurate channels for customer communication
Present State of Product Marketing
The state of product marketing today is what customer success was around a decade ago. It’s a concept easily thrown around and used without any innate understanding. In the early 2010s, customer success sounded like a fantasy, a dream for all marketers and the road to glory for most companies. An abundance of brands adopted the role. There was true appreciation for the effort it took to bring customers onboard for a project. Nowadays, you can ask product marketers of their biggest dilemma and there will always be one complaint: People do not know how to work with product marketers. The confusion starts from them being compared to different types of marketers, and causes them to be mis-used or undervalued. In most cases, product marketing suffers from being too vaguely defined, having limits on executive ownership, few KPIs, and almost no budget to handle software.
The Future For Product Marketers
In the current economic climate, it’s now more important to build the right product, delivering it effectively. The times where companies used to rely on sales teams to come up with a miracle to sell a dull item is now at an end. Progression in the field is now normal and continuous delivery and development have become the new norm. Product is now at the center of the market. It is changing and updating faster than ever. Most brands find it very difficult to keep on par. This is why PM needs to be embedded into every sales strategy and adopted at the heart of its core. It is the key that can unlock the frail limitations of our usually unpredictable market. The responsibilities of a product marketer are constantly changing. They are now extending to adoption and not just launching a company’s crown jewel.
Should You Be a Product Marketer?
As discussed in the article, product marketing is the best at connecting product and the market. It plays a seminal role in the success of a legacy and helps startups find a focal point. Hence, this will only grow in importance and impact as people embrace a product-first world. Overall, yes. Now is a great time to be a product marketer. But keep in mind that your organization should clearly define the role and responsibilities of PM managers and empower accountability/ownership for the best results.
We hope this information was sufficient to guide you on “what is product marketing?” Feel free to reach out and comment for further queries.
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