The journey of discovering, designing, and building an amazing product can only take you so far. Let’s face it, there are thousands of products that are created every day that probably never see the light of day. Why is that? Because they lack an effective product marketing unit.
A product marketing unit is just as important as an engineering, sales, or finance unit. Without product marketing, your product fails to achieve market fit and to successfully launch.
What is product marketing?
– Product Marketing is the process of connecting your product to the market by launching, communicating, and enabling the adoption of your product and by identifying market characteristics, opportunities, and threats that impact your growth and roadmap.
– Essentially, product marketing is the connective tissue between your team of builders (designers, researchers, developers, etc.) and your Go-to-Market (GTM) team (sales, content, PR, etc.)
Here are 4 core functions that product marketing fulfills for your business and product:
-
Product launch strategy:
this is often a complex cross-functional process that involves gathering specs, building launch narratives, defining launch tiers and channels, preparing messaging and positioning, and preparing sales enablement assets. A successful product launch means your internal teams, your customers, and your target market are aware and ready to adopt your product.
-
Market sizing and research:
product marketing is the eye on the market as far the product roadmap is concerned. Product Marketers assess market sizes and opportunities; they keep an eye on competitors and gather critical intel; they carve out the correct position in the market and define the unique selling proposition.
-
Customer and user persona analysis:
although this can overlap with customer marketing and user research within engineering, product marketing plays a critical role in defining the ideal customer profile and validating that through quantitative and qualitative measures. A product marketer is the most equipped person to bridge the gap between customer pain points and needs and the value proposition of the product.
-
Growth and optimization:
product marketing is a critical engine for driving growth and enhancing conversions. This area may overlap with growth marketing, lifecycle marketing, and content. However, product marketers play an essential role in leading and implementing various campaigns, enhancements, and experiments that aim to drive more growth and optimize for the business goals.
Marketing Consultant Session With Us
We at Reforge digital have helped launched and execute growth marketing campaigns for multiple new and established products in the market. contact us for a one-hour free consultation session to talk about your next product marketing plan.
