1. Start with product features
In order to maximize the value your product provides to customers, it is essential that you have a complete understanding of all of its features. Once you have this knowledge, you can begin turning those features into benefits that your customers will experience after they purchase your product.
Although some products are easy to understand and have obvious benefits, others may not be so clear. If you are a product manager for a complex technical product, then it is necessary for you to be familiar with its features.
2. Understand that B2B buyers are still humans
In order to make your product marketing powerful and impactful, you need to have a deep understanding of your customers. Get curious, and never stop asking questions.
Steve Jobs believed that in order to be successful, you must first understand your customers’ needs and desires.
B2B customers should be treated the same as B2C customers. B2B product marketers should remember that their target market is made up of people with needs, just like them.
3. Value experience
A product marketer’s skills are a perfect match for tech startups. You have the potential to contribute more to business growth than you currently imagine, but you need to convince skeptical executives, be agile, and be willing to do the work instead of just developing strategies.
4. Fine-tune your personas
Be sure to keep your customer personas in mind when running product adoption programs, and make sure your personas are specific enough.
Your users are not all equal. Your potential customers all have different needs, so it’s important to segment them properly so you can show how your product meets those specific needs. Your users are not all the same to your company – some are willing to pay more than others and some have a higher lifetime value. What has worked for me? Users can be segmented based on customer interviews, acquisition cohorts, behavioral data, and commercial metrics.
5. Prioritize customer needs
Embrace ambiguity and prioritize based on customer needs, relentlessly. Product marketing R&Rs are in constant change and there is a lot of territory to cover.
Product marketers who are successful are able to identify which initiatives will have an impact based on their knowledge of the product and what customers need. They use their expertise to tell stories that make people want the product.
6. Work in sync with product managers
In order to be successful, product marketers and product managers need to establish a good working relationship so that they can be aware of the larger trends in their industry.
In an article published by the Harvard Business Review, V. Kumar, a marketing professor at Georgia State University, states that each brand has an ideal rate of launches for their products. There’s no one-size-fits-all rule for when to release a product, but product marketers and managers can improve their chances of success by working together.
7. Know your strengths and keep building them
Great product marketers know their strengths and how to grow them to be the best in the world.
Specifically, according to Leo Castro, previously at PayPal and currently product marketing executive at Decisive Moment Marketing:
The ideal candidate would be skilled in strategic thinking, executing tasks across different departments, and being able to communicate effectively.
Strategy is not a straight line, but rather a continuous circle. Product marketers need to be versatile and have a lot of knowledge about their business and the market in order to be successful.
They can create the perfect positioning, branding and messaging for their product and then keep doing that to create more products.
8. Be proactive
You shouldn’t wait for someone else to tell you that your company needs a PMM – keep an eye out for opportunities to improve messaging/positioning, customer segmentation, or product-market fit/product adoption, no matter what your job is or what stage your company is at. People will see how much this function is needed once they see your impact.
Morgan Molnar, director of product marketing at Momentive.ai, has defined how great product marketers put themselves in the driver’s seat:
An excellent marketer will know what will best impact the strategy and how to get the desired results.
Predictive analytics can be a useful tool for product marketers. This way, they can collect additional data for their forthcoming campaigns. In order to be successful, it is just as important to communicate in a timely manner with other in-house experts as it is with customers.
The more information you, your partners, and customers share, the more data you will have to support your PM decisions and campaigns.
9. Become customer-obsessed
Product marketers who are among the best understand that customers, not the company’s product, are the hero of the story.
Product marketers need to have a constant understanding of what customers want and like. You need to understand your audience well in order to know what will resonate with them.
10. Own the most impactful areas
As a product marketing leader, you should never stop researching and asking questions to help your company sell products and grow.
The more knowledge product marketers have about key product marketing areas, the greater the likelihood that they will achieve the desired results for their business and customers. There are three key things you need to do to keep advancing in product marketing: research, learning, and communication.
11. Don’t neglect ‘soft skills’
When it comes to product marketing, soft skills are just as important, if not more important, than hard skills.
We are the bookends of the product development process. We are the team that helps turn market/customer demands into product features, and when it’s time for launch, we turn those features into advertising and positioning.
As product marketers, we often have to work with people from other teams who may not understand what our role is or what our objectives are. If you have high emotional intelligence, are good at empathizing with others, and have good listening skills, you will be successful.
12. Learn the three languages of product marketing
He says that the best product marketing managers are able to speak about the product, the needs of the clients, and sales.
Product marketers need to understand the product better than anyone else. They also have to write in the language that their clients use so that they can understand their own needs. They need to be able to keep improving how their products are positioned to make people want and use them more. Stephen elaborates this way: Essentially, great product marketers are skilled at understanding what customers want and then showcasing the products that address those needs. They use what they have learned to increase sales and make sure that there is always a high demand for their products.
13. Showcase your skills
Keep an eye out for ways you can exhibit and cultivate the key skills that product marketers need to succeed – research, analysis, storytelling, teaching, and planning.
Situations in which you can take charge and lead a project from start to finish are rare, so take advantage of them when they arise. Product marketing intersects with many different aspects of a company, so use any opportunity you can to take charge and see a project through from beginning to end.
14. Be an all-around player
Woodbridge says that a great product marketer is someone who is well-rounded and able to do a lot of different things. This person is a skilled copywriter and expert on their products who is able to think strategically, work well with others, and connect with customers.
And, he adds, they balance getting things done with high-level strategic thinking:
“The get-things-done mindset is vital for product marketers. It’s rare that you find someone who is good at both strategic planning and implementation. But this combo gives you a top-tier product marketer.”
In order to become part of the top 1%, you need to be skilled in both strategy and execution. In order to be a great product marketer, you need to have a get-things-done mindset and be willing to learn about all of the different disciplines involved.
15. Focus on the Why
Great product marketers focus on the why of their products, not just the what. This is his philosophy:
“Understand the why. It’s natural to focus on the “what”. Here’s what we’ve built. Here’s what it does. It is important to understand the reasoning behind something before considering the details. If you figure that out, you’ll be just fine.”
Grand product marketers are those who excel at storytelling, are always learning about their customers, and are able to be flexible to changes in the market.
That’s going beyond why your product matters. You should have a good understanding of the strategic aspects of your product, as well as why the strategic product marketing elements (such as storytelling, positioning, and market research) work well with your target audience.
16. Get deep into product management
In order to be a brilliant product marketer, it is necessary to get to know every aspect of product management, and not just focus on product marketing. As Andrea Saez, senior product marketing manager at airfocus, puts it:
If you don’t have a strong understanding of product management, you will only be partially successful in this role.
Fully optimizing a product manager could result in a 34.2% increase in company profits. Product marketers who participate in product management from the beginning will have a better understanding of the product. It helps them to find their target audience and to communicate the product to that particular group.
17. Know how to listen and synthesize
Julien Sauvage, vice president of product marketing at Gong, investigates what customers and business executives have to say and then creates a summary of the information afterwards.
In other words, great product marketers are team players who are willing to take responsibility for their actions and have a positive impact on the company.
You have to know which questions to ask. Combines large amounts of both quantitative and qualitative data to form perseptive views and strategies. It is important to set clear goals and have an action plan to achieve them. You can make a real impact for the business and customers by doing that.
18. Be inquisitive
According to Holly Watson, Director of Product Marketing at Sprinklr:
“Be curious and iterate. Make sure to be curious about your target audience, your sales cycle, your development cycle, and of course your customers. This will help you better understand your business and what needs to be done to succeed.
” Make an effort to always be learning about these key areas of the business by simply asking questions. Asking questions is a great way to learn more about the business and to get key information that can help you make better decisions. Use your findings to produce assets for your audience, and don’t worry if they’re not perfect.
19. Collaboration is key
”To be successful as a Product Marketer, it is important to be able to work collaboratively with others, and to build strong relationships. To gain an understanding of the challenges and needs faced by those within an organization, time should be spent speaking with individuals in leadership positions, as well as product and marketing managers, sales and customer success teams, and customers. Think about your audience and customers when you are making decisions and try to see things from their perspective.
-David Hoeller, Director of Product Marketing at Riskonnect
20. Identify your value deliverables
Product Marketing Specialist at Vindi,Felipe Cardoso Barbosa, says,
I recommend they take the time to learn what functions their company is promoting the product to (ie. Sales, Support, Professional Services, etc.), and what each of those functions need to be successful with the product.” I recommend that product marketers at new companies take the time to learn which functions their company is promoting the product to (e.g. sales, support, professional services, etc.), and what each of those functions need to be successful with the product.
”Product Marketing encompasses a lot of activities, but every company has specific needs that can be easily addressed to start delivering value. From what I’ve seen, there are two main things that companies need help with: coming up with a plan for launching a product or feature, and getting everyone on the same page with their messaging.
” It is beneficial to build trust with other teams by understanding where you can deliver value quickly, as some teams might not be aware of what a Product Marketing Manager does.
It’s important for product managers to prioritize understanding their customers and the market, as this is an ongoing effort.
Product marketing is complex and requires a lot of knowledge about different subjects. It is also one of the most important marketing functions today. Businesses cannot allow employees to “learn as they go” because they rely too heavily on them. To become an expert in product marketing, learn from people who are already successful in the field.
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