Product marketing is hard. Really hard. I think it’s possibly the most undervalued skill set in a tech company and I don’t really understand why. You can spot a product that has a world class PMM working on it a mile off. There are very few people with the breadth of skill to do this role well and product teams with an amazing PMM are great places to be. Anyone up for helping me understand more? Product marketing has been one of the steepest learning curves for me so far on this start up journey.
I’ve found that the functions of Product Marketing fall into two clear buckets: functions uniquely owned by product marketing (e.g. messaging, launches, sales enablement) and functions product marketing can make better (e.g. win/loss, competitive, user stories, revenue intelligently). Companies that use product marketing the best fulfill both buckets. It’s hard when ego comes into play, but a PMM is best positioned to capture the voice of the customer, and influence a GTM strategy that can take a business to new heights.
Tom Richards, product marketing is the best job in the world 🙌 Below are helpful resources to learn more. Please let me know if you want to chat – happy to help! 👉 Start by defining PMM (including what it isn't): https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-product-marketing/ 📨 Join the free PMA slack community https://join.slack.com/t/product-marketing-all/shared_invite/zt-2o0sd3sky-0w12xP0dfTzuZVfD0oWNWg ❓️ Make a free account on Sharebird, a PMM Q&A site: https://sharebird.com/?h=product-marketing 📚 Prefer books? Check out: - Obv!ously Awesome by April Dunford - Sales Pitch by April Dunford - Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush 👥 Prefer LinkedIn? Follow them: Yi Lin Pei – the best PMM career & leadership coach, her posts are master classes in how to PMM Tamara Grominsky – PMM wizard check out the PMM Camp link she shared in the comments Jason Oakley – the #1 resource for solo PMMs April Dunford – the positioning Queen 🎙Podcast fan? Check out: 🚘 Nitin Kartik – several PMM micro-lessons on LinkedIn (2 mins or 10 mins) Mary Sheehan – Women in Product Marketing We're Not Marketers 💀 Maggie Bean – New to PMM Louise Liu – This is PMM Collin Mayjack – PMM Life
I think it's undervalued because it's misunderstood. Some orgs just see the role as an extension of the marketing department that builds pretty slide decks. And (to no surprise) those same orgs have massive silos and GTM challenges 😂
Product marketing is definitely a tough nut to crack! 🎯 It’s like being the Swiss Army knife of a tech company – you need to have a bit of everything: strategy, creativity, data analysis, and customer empathy. Fun Insight: A world-class PMM can turn a good product into a market sensation. It’s like adding that secret ingredient that makes the dish unforgettable for eg. Ketchup in Butter Chicken - yes that's a real thing. Wisdom Nugget: Great product marketing is about storytelling. It’s about understanding your audience deeply and crafting a narrative that resonates with them. Tips: Know Your Audience: Dive deep into customer personas and understand their pain points and desires. Data is Your Friend: Use analytics to guide your decisions and measure your impact. Collaborate: Work closely with product, sales, and customer success teams to ensure alignment and consistency. Stay Curious: Keep learning and adapting. The tech landscape is always evolving, and so should your strategies. Keep pushing through – the journey might be tough, but the rewards are worth it! 🚀 Tom Richards remember, every steep learning curve is an opportunity to grow. Embrace the challenge, and you’ll come out stronger and wiser on the other side.
It's not just skill that's required for product marketing to be successful, it's leadership, alignment, agreement, and accountability when people deviate from the goal. A skillful product marketer is wasted in orgs that can't or won't get out of their own way. It impacts everything from positioning and messaging to sales enabalement and launch execution.
Tom Richards, your post about product marketing is spot on! A key reason it's undervalued is because its value is intangible and, as a result, less obviously visible. But for those who care to look deeper....they understand more and harness more power for their product.
The combination of skills, to be able to integrate the regular marketing tactics, digital marketing, UX/UI, software engineering to be able to scale the product’s needs and articulate the voice of consumers in a very technical way, is tremendous. Also, sales enablement support, legal / compliance aspects to guarantee that the product is aligned with current regulations, PR and communications, project management and more… this is hard and tough, but at the end… very entertaining 😅😂 and do not forget about the GTM strategy and metrics!
I’m not sure if it’s true that we can spot world class product marketing teams through the product. The product itself is an end result of many factors - including product / PMM / internal organisation ways of working. And the end result is a good product that resonates with the customer.
Head of Marketing at Datapath
4moI think a lot of people don't understand Product Marketing as a discipline, so they judge it purely on it's output. Passing judgement on the simple, concise, effective messaging you've written, NOT the hours and hours of ideation, analysis, drafting, reviews, and discussions that you've been through to get there. Maybe we need to do a better job of communicating the processes rather than just the end result?