Introduction
We’ve talked a lot about the marketing team and its mission. It’s time to get into the details of actually delivering on that mission. Specifically, it’s time to talk about actually doing marketing! One of the first questions you’ll ask yourself when you start planning your marketing strategy is “what exactly is our product?” This question might seem obvious—of course, you know what your product is—but in order to do effective marketing, you need to know more than just what your product looks like. You have to understand how it works, who uses it, and what makes those people decide they need it. That’s why we’re starting here: with a deep dive into understanding products from the inside out. This knowledge will inform all aspects of your marketing strategy going forward.
Product Marketing
Product marketing is responsible for communicating the value of your product to customers and prospects. A product marketer is also responsible for creating a messaging framework that aligns with the business goals, positioning, and strategy. In this role, you’ll develop content plans that help build trust by telling a story about your company and its products or services.
Product marketers are usually involved in every stage of the product lifecycle from ideation to launch and beyond:
- Product positioning – This includes understanding how your offering fits into the current market landscape and what unique value propositions it brings to bear against its competitors.
- Pricing – A key part of any marketing plan is defining how much your product will cost and when customers can purchase it (pre-order vs on-launch). Pricing often has an impact on promotional activities as well as ROI estimates for new products/features developed over time (and even cancellations!).
Product Management
Product Management is a function that is responsible for the overall success of the product. A product manager owns the strategy, roadmaps, releases and marketing of their products. They are also often responsible for sales and customer support.
Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is the process of creating and distributing content that supports sales. In other words, it’s about helping salespeople be more effective in their job. Sales enablement is not simply a matter of sending emails to customers, but rather a way to help salespeople close more deals.
Customer Success
The customer success team is responsible for supporting the customers and making sure they are satisfied. Their goal is to make sure that their clients have a positive experience with the product, and that they understand how to use it most effectively.
User Support and Product Feedback
User support and product feedback can also help with marketing content. User support is an area where customers provide feedback, which can be used to develop more effective copy for landing pages and other marketing assets.
For example, if a user asks you for help finding a certain product or service on your website, you might use that insight to create a blog post or webinar about it (more on this later). You could also use their question as inspiration for creating new content like a video tutorial or webinar series.
Another way the two teams can collaborate is through sales enablement—a term that refers to creating resources that help salespeople sell more effectively (and make more money). This includes things like sales tools, how-to guides, presentations and other kinds of training materials.
The marketing team needs to collaborate with the product team in order to create good marketing content.
The marketing team needs to collaborate with the product team in order to create good marketing content.
- The marketing team needs to understand the product and what it does, so they can write about it in a way that explains why people would want to use it.
- The marketing team needs to understand who their target customer is, how they behave and what motivates them. This helps them write copy that speaks directly to this audience and makes them interested in reading more.
- They should also have an understanding of their market: who else is out there doing similar things? What do they offer? How could their approach be different from what’s already out there? What customers will these other companies be targeting (or vice versa)? All of this information is important when developing new products or services so that anyone involved knows where there might be a competition too — but also when deciding on pricing levels for each product too!
Conclusion
The Product Marketing Manager is the person responsible for coordinating with both product and marketing teams to make sure that all the relevant information is being communicated efficiently. It can be hard work, but it’s worth it!
