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The Fundamentals of product marketing

The Fundamentals of product marketing
Product Marketing



I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the product marketing process, 3 Crucial Elements For Jumping Sales Numbers.


  • First of all, no matter how good your product is, we will never get the attention of potential customers for it if it does not have a compelling story to tell.
  • Second, even if we do have a compelling story to tell, we will never get the attention of potential customers if our marketing is somehow incompetent or wrong.
  • Third, even if we do have a compelling story to tell, most people don’t actually care about it unless they are already convinced that it solves some problem that they face every day.
  • Fourth, even if you can find someone who really cares about your product and wants to help you overcome their objections to using it, most people will be turned off by your sales copy (and sometimes by your design).
  • Fifth and finally: even if everyone agrees on what your product should solve and the best way to solve it, the fact that there is a disagreement between people on what solution they think is best could stop us from understanding how much value people place on your solution and may even lead us down dead-end paths.


What is Product Marketing?

Product marketing is the focus on all things that will help you get your product out into the world. This is not to be confused with product development, marketing, or sales. Product marketing also refers to PR, advertising, and market research.


The term "Product Marketing" was coined by Peter Fenton in 1977 as an extension of the concept of "product development". Fenton had been involved in product development for many years and came up with the idea that there was a need for additional methods of marketing products. He wrote:


"...I started doing some thinking about this problem -- and I want to emphasize that it’s not a new problem -- and I came up with a solution which I call “product marketing”. It seems that most of us when we’re thinking about how our products will be marketed once they are available to the public, tend to think primarily in terms of being sold by one or more sales forces -- sometimes called “the big guys”."


He then goes on to explain why he came up with this term: "The phrase “product marketing” comes from my original definition of it (which I can also use as a title for my book):


"The goal of product marketing is - in effect -- to define a way for people who want something from you (a customer) to get it from you (by selling your product) without having to buy it from some other source first."


Fenton's reasoning behind using this word instead of his original term starts by suggesting that there aren't very many resources dedicated solely towards product development or sales. However, there are many other areas where we can spend our time trying to market our products (such as PR and advertising). What he proposes is simply creating another area where we can spend some time getting people excited about our products before they are launched. He then added two ways in which we could do this: promo and research.


He explains that promo is used when companies are trying to get people interested enough in their products so they will buy them; whereas research has been used when companies want their customers already familiar with their brand management before they launch their products. Fenton goes on after saying that companies should find ways to create both types: "So I propose a whole new set of criteria for defining what is 'marketing' -- one that starts by recognizing more than just one thing -- but then identifies several possibilities."

This section demonstrates quite clearly why


What is the Role of Product Marketing?

As a general rule, product marketing is a strategy used to increase sales of a product. The role of product marketing is not to sell the product itself, but to attract and convert users into paying customers.


A successful product marketing strategy will involve two main elements:

  1. Listening to users, understanding their needs and goals.
  2. Using the knowledge gained through understanding their needs and goals to develop products that meet their needs, 4ps of market.

Using the information collected in the two parts above will lead you towards a more effective product marketing strategy. There are some specific suggestions, but they are only recommendations and do not include all possible applications of the strategy. For example, if you intend to offer your own user-generated content as an alternative to real user-generated content, you need to work with your advertising agency on developing creations that work well with your brand name (which is also relevant here).


The Fundamentals of product marketing

A product is just a set of ideas. Ideas are what make products — products like Slideshare, Basecamp, and WordPress.


A good product marketing strategy can help you get your ideas out into the world so that people can use them. But your product marketing strategy is just as important for getting those ideas in front of enough people to launch your product.


And it’s not just about getting your product ideas out there, it’s about how you market those ideas — from idea to customer and back again.


Here are some of the fundamentals of a great product marketing strategy:

  • Find the right audience for your product: When you find a target audience for your idea, choose wisely. You want to find people who are passionate about what they do already and have high needs for their services or products (e.g. users who need service-oriented collaboration), or new users (who will likely be useful to you in the future).
  • Create an engaging experience that makes people want more: Having found that right target audience and engaged them in at least some way, you should figure out how to create an experience that encourages more of them to join you down the line. This includes creating content targeted at them (like videos), connecting with them through social media channels, developing community around your brand or product (including building a Slack channel), or adding value by providing expertise on topics they care about (e.g., by adding content on their blog).
  • Get paid for promoting your products: Don’t try to sell people using your products when they already know how great they are! People respond well when there is a value-added by others — whether that’s other products or services these users already use or better ways of solving problems these users have. You want to create opportunities for customers to pay you for making their lives easier and better!
  • Keep communication active with customers: Customers will engage with you if there is ongoing communication between you and them — email addresses change often; customer service hours change frequently, and notifications go off at unpredictable intervals (and therefore frustratingly interruptive). The best way to keep communication active with customers is through channels natively built into the software itself: email newsletters, forums/community pages/blogs, social media/newsfeeds, etc. All these channels should be useful too but must also be kept relevant because customers don't like being bombarded with irrelevant messages all day long.


The Role & Responsibilities of Product Marketing

The product marketing role is often misunderstood. It is not about pushing sales or trying to chase customers away from your product.


Product marketing is about creating and maintaining a relationship with your customers so that they buy from you again, competitive product.



It’s about building trust and loyalty with the people who are most important to you: the people who will buy your product again, whether it’s a new user discovering the value of your service or an existing customer asking to upgrade their account.


This should be an ongoing process, not something you do once in a while (like email marketing). That’s why it’s also called “product marketing” rather than “product promotion.”


The reason why this relationship takes time to build is that it has to be built through trial-and-error and relationships with key stakeholders (customers, partners, etc.) and through listening to what they say: what they need, what they want, and how to give them what they want. And that means listening carefully — even when customers think or say something that doesn’t make sense — because you will learn more from them than from any other stakeholder.


By focusing on building relationships with your customers and understanding what they really want, you will be able to find many ways of delivering the value that excite them most — even if those ways don't fit neatly into traditional product development models (like, for example, an app in one version of iOS versus another). You can also use some of these new methods for new business models it never occurred to us we needed until we started doing this kind of thing ourselves.


Business and Technical Skills Required in Product Marketing

In the past, product marketing was seen as an activity that could be done by a single person. While this is still true, the market has changed and we need to think differently about what skills are required in multi-channel marketing.

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Overnight success cannot rely on one person’s skills alone. To do it right, we need a team of people with a shared vision, who can work together and communicate with customers effectively.


Key factors to being a good product marketer:

Product marketing is a small but important part of any marketing strategy. Product marketing is not just about the product itself. It is about everything that goes into making sure the product does what it does, and does it well.


The product marketing department at a startup has four main responsibilities:

  1. Focusing on getting the product off the ground, so we can test it.
  2. Maintaining a steady flow of new features and enhancements to keep things fresh and interesting.
  3. The first thing we need to do as a startup is getting our products off the ground. Having a product that people want cannot be taken for granted, so we need to start working right away to gather feedback from users, customers, and potential customers. In order to do this effectively, we have to make sure our products are usable when they are first released (especially if we launch early). The first few days after launch play an important role in allowing us to gather data about how people use the software in its earliest stages. If a user doesn’t like something in our first beta release then he or she won’t likely use it again in later releases either. And if they don’t like something during those initial days they will likely leave us entirely (so we have no idea what value they have given us). We also have to make sure that whatever feature sets are available are usable by all users of our products, no matter their technical level of skill (this way we can ensure that our core audience can use every single feature set available).
  4. Once we've formed enough data about what works and what doesn't with our software, it's time for us to start designing features with pricing as an important consideration (we need to bring the price down enough so that people want to buy it).


 If you don't believe me, see how much money Apple makes with its iPhones - not only does Apple sell millions of devices every quarter but its hardware design process is incredibly tight and efficient. He often asks me how Apple keeps costs so low even though they spend billions on research and development every year - my advice is not just to keep costs low because you think it's easy - instead, be good at designing your products which means keeping your costs down Low by controlling all aspects of design including pricing! Good product marketing also means reducing waste as much as possible because if you spend hours or even days designing something that doesn't work, you've wasted time and money that could have been earned.


Product marketing is a big topic. For starters, there are too many to cover, but here are the most basic concepts you need to know for product marketing:


  • Product Marketing: It’s All About Distribution.
  • Product Marketing: It’s All About Effort.
  • Product Marketing: Don’t Be Fearful To Publish.
  • Product Marketing: Don’t Be Afraid To Take Time Off.
  • Product Marketing: Don’t Be Afraid To Strike When The Market Is Hot.

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